Maryland Fried chicken: A storied dish with Titanic history | Hacker News Reader

Maryland Fried chicken: A storied dish with Titanic history

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My father's family have been in Maryland since the 1600s. When my father made fried chicken, he made it with lard, a seasoned breading, and a milk gravy, somewhat like country fried steak. But he never billed it as "Maryland fried chicken" or conveyed any sense of "this is how ~we Marylanders~ do it" whereas with other things, like crab cakes, there was definitely a sense of This Is How We Do It Here And Those People In Virginia Can Go To Hell.

What would be the key attribute that makes or breaks a crab cake? That is, what distinguishes a Maryland vs Virginia crab cake?

He insisted on saltine crackers for the breadcrumbs and Old Bay seasoning in particular. (Old Bay is known enough now that I've seen it in random parts of the country and even overseas, but I suppose back in the day it was a lot more of a local thing. Personally, I can't tell the difference between the saltines and just making the breadcrumbs with bread that's a bit stale.)

edit: Also it goes without saying that an MD crab cake is blue crab. I think VA crab cakes would be blue crab too, but out west I've had Dungeness crab cakes and they aren't bad but it's not the same.

Old Bay for anything besides steamed hard crabs, for the boil J.O.'s is the seasoning you want.

In general the use of a shitload of breadcrumb or other filler will break a crabcake. Should just be a very light mayo based binder just to hold it together, and the lump of the crab meat should still be intact. I worked as a teen at one of the famous crab houses on the bay, they used really light mayo with the crab but then after weighing packed saltine crumbs around the outside tightly until it formed a ball, and then was fried. My grandfather, who was a chicken necker, did not use breading at all and shallow fried his crab cakes.

I live in Maryland and have an interest in food history, and I'm not actually sure I've ever seen this dish in any cookbooks from Maryland. I have a feeling it got named because somebody felt Maryland was "exotic", but they'd never actually been here.

We certainly have shallow-fried chicken, but that's hardly unique to Maryland. It's a very common Southern dish, and not unknown to New England either. It's easier to accomplish than deep frying.

Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State, the state’s entry in the Depression-era American Guide Series, mentions it:

> Old-fashioned fried chicken, Maryland Style, has attained nation-wide fame, though discriminating Free Staters often have difficulty in recogniz- ing the concoction of that name foisted on a gullible public outside the State. The standard recipe calls for a young chicken, cut into pieces, floured, and fried in deep fat. According to the oldest custom it is served on a layer of fried cornmeal mush or a crisp johnnycake with cream gravy poured over the cornbread but not over the chicken.

Thanks for digging that up! Those "America Eats" projects are an absolute treasure trove.

I always think of Tom & Ray's in Damascus, MD as being the most legit Maryland fried chicken I've had. Granted, it's also the only place I'd ever heard the term until today. :-)

(I gather T&R recently changed ownership so I don't really know what its current status is or whether its fried chicken is precisely as legendary as this 90s kid remembers.)

I used to live in DC, and discovered a great diner in Grasonville called Holly's. I love my fried chicken and to this day, my favorite was from Holly's. Sadly, it closed a few years back. Fond memories of not only great fried chicken, but finished with some of the best milkshakes going around...

My childhood friend down the road was crazy about their catfish. I only have vague memories of Holly's but cool to see the motherland get a mention.

It names two random restaurants in Baltimore, apparently using the "let's type this menu item into Google" strategy. One of them (Gertrude's) is run by a knowledgeable chef and is right next to my job. Going to demand a detailed accounting of this dish next time I eat there.

All the Brits on the Titanic would have been pronouncing it wrong. In England people pronounce it like it is written - Mary Land.

Mare-ryl-und

> I have a feeling it got named because somebody felt Maryland was "exotic", but they'd never actually been here.

In the pre-WWI UK, absolutely no monarchist, status-conscious first-class-traveling Englishman would have thought of Maryland as exotic.

Yeah, I was hoping the article would say what made MD pan fried chicken unique from other pan fried chicken.

I was expecting Old Bay Fried Chicken

Old Bay is much more recent. It's based on a lot of spice blends dating to the mid 19th century but Old Bay in particular is only from the 1930s.

It was originally for crabs, and that particular dish really is a distinctive local tradition. Applying it to everything and calling it "Maryland" really only dates to the 70s.

Lawry's Seasoned Salt for chicken.

The local spice tends to be JO.

Yep, sort of how a Baked Alaska is called that because Alaska is cold.

Next do scrapple.

I think of scrapple as more Pennsylvania than Maryland, though it definitely bleeds over the border a bit. We get a lot of "Amish markets", even though they're usually Mennonite rather than Amish. They bring scrapple with them.

Scrapple really is a local food, though it's not that different from other kinds of head cheese. The thing that makes it "scrapple" is the addition of cornmeal (maize), which helps it crisp up nicely when fried.

Americans get weird about off-cuts and organ meats. But if we called it "terrine de porc à la semoule de maïs" and served it with microgreens they'd sell it for $28 as an appetizer.

Probably best if we don't...

Southern fried chicken has a fascinating history.

It combines West African techniques that used flavoured batter and palm oil to force seasoning deep into (albeit soggy) meat with Scottish techniques that used animal fat to create a crispy shell designed for preservation (albeit with little seasoning) [1]. Add in one of the few places on the planet, at the time, where cast iron was cheap enough to find its way to even slaves, and you get the cultural tradition that is Southern fried chicken: flavourful, crispy and accessible.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_chicken#History

speaking of which, "african american vernacular english" likely has scottish and irish influence too

origins are still up for debate, but the plantation owners were more established families speaking a more accepted English dialect, while the field hands would more likely be newer voluntary immigrants such as Scottish and Irish and more interaction and cross drift with the West African slaves

You do be making a good point.

The best fried chicken in Maryland is at Pollo Campero in my opinion. :P

Anyone have a good recipe for it?

My Mom's (born and raised in Pimlico)

Dredge chicken pieces (usually thighs)in flour. Sprinkle Lawry's Seasoned Salt on both sides.

Heat 1/4" oil (usually canola) in electric skillet set on 350.

Place in skillet, cook 5 minutes each side, then cover and cook 5 minutes each side, then maybe 5 more minutes each side until done. Remove chicken, drain off oil leaving maybe 1/4 cup in pan, add equal amount of flour, stir, add milk and continue stirring until the right consistency (maybe 1-1.5 cups of milk)

Never really heard her refer to it as 'Maryland' fried chicken though, and outside of Lawry's (McCormick spices was headquartered in Baltimore) doesn't seem different from what a cook would make anywhere else. It is good, though, much better than any regular restaurant fried chicken.

And as another poster mentioned it wasn't nearly as religious an item as crab cakes or she-crab soup. The number of times my Mom interrogated a hapless waitperson to try to figure out if they were 'really' Maryland crabcakes...

You just described Southern fried chicken except you didn’t marinate it in hot sauce and buttermilk for extra tender and tasty chicken.

Is it no longer Maryland fried chicken if you dip it in buttermilk before dredging it in flour?

Huh...that's pretty much just how my mom taught me to make fried chicken.

Yeah, right through scraping the pan into a bechamel, this reads like about the most straightforward and obvious pan fried chicken method possible (aside from doing exactly this but skipping the sauce completely). I’m surprised it rates attachment to a particular place at all. I’d think the distinction’s in the seasoning, but the article suggests a lack of consistency there, so that’s not it.

[edit] actually, the steaming bit is a deviation from the simplest preparation. Not sure how big a difference it makes, possibly a lot. Wikipedia also claims that the traditional Maryland-native dish may include a banana garnish, though this article doesn’t mention that.

The steaming part seems nice if you’re doing it outside, inside, it sounds like grease flying everywhere as that water condenses and drips onto the hot oil

I am deliberately cooking in something hotter than water. Why would I want to reintroduce the steam?

The recipe calls for shallow frying, so the steam will improve heat transfer.

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