For the Colonel, It Was Finger-Lickin’ Bad (1976) | Hacker News Reader

For the Colonel, It Was Finger-Lickin’ Bad (1976)

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If you want the real thing you have to go to the restaurant named after his wife:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Sanders_Dinner_House

Went there as a kid. Can confirm it was insanely good.

apparently it burned down in four hours in 1999, but not before the Sanders sold that restaurant.

So who got the insurance payout? The buyer?

Huh interesting. I always thought he was a military retired Colonel and as such already pretty rich before he started the franchise. I had no idea it was also a Honorary title in America.

US military used to be largely made up of state militias (dating back to colonial days), run by the governor, with the federal government sometimes funding, equipping, and mobilizing those militias in times of war. Commissions in state militias were sometimes used by governors as a reward or gift to their political supporters. In particular, "colonel" was a rank often bestowed on wealthy benefactors without any expectation of actual military duty.

The militias were largely nationalized in the early 1900s, creating what's now called the National Guard. Governors still have limited power to deploy their state Guard but they're mostly under federal control. But some states retained the tradition of honorary colonels, and Kentucky is probably the most famous.

(There are a lot of other kind of goofy honorary state militia titles in the US -- Admiral of the Texas Navy, etc. Some of them don't require much more than paying a fee.)

Kentucky became famous for it because it did immediately stop being an militia title in every way. A charitable foundation was setup for using the title as a part of a charitable works program and several early Governors involved in that decided that it would be a useful idea to give the title to celebrities and other "ambassadors" to/from the commonwealth, making it as much a title to promote tourism as anything else.

I think that's the fun ouroboros nature of Colonel Sanders' title in that he was made a Colonel for the predecessor to KFC. (The Sanders Cafe at his Standard Oil Gas Station was one of the first "Welcome to Kentucky" stops for early car travelers coming into Kentucky via the roads through the Cumberland Pass [I-75 today].) The Colonel of KFC was a Colonel because of KFC, just about.

3 of the worst corporate decisions they made ever:

1. Getting rid of the BBQ pulled chicken sandwich - Long ago they had it and it was inexpensive to make and quite good. Many people to this day complain about no longer being able to find it anywhere.

2. Phasing out their grilled chicken - It was quite good, and people who wanted a healthier option than fried chicken, like me, simply don't go anymore because it's disappearing.

3. Merging with Taco Bell - The menu is far too big now, and Taco Bell items are lower in quality and cheaper. I think it's the final move to phase KFC out.

When are people going to realize that telling customers what they want, reducing value and quality, and ignoring their complaints is not a good business model?

> When are people going to realize that telling customers what they want, reducing value and quality, and ignoring their complaints is not a good business model?

Just as soon as they realize that short-term immediate profit is not the only goal that any business could ever possibly have.

Pretty much the day after never, or right after the collapse of capitalist society. Whichever comes first.

Sanders in 1963 on What's my Line? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk4Eq8IcQMk

And a video on the history of Sanders' fight with KFC corporate, and what exactly is in the seasoning? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJYOgzFydc

My takeaway is that Sanders cared about serving quality fast food, and KFC corporate cared about reducing costs and doing brand necromancy. The upshot is you won't get KFC chicken at KFC, just a pale, cheap imitation of the original, meanwhile the original recipe is still kicking about out there in other chicken takeaways (assuming they cook the chicken properly!)

> My takeaway is that Sanders cared about serving quality fast food, and KFC corporate cared about reducing costs and doing brand necromancy. The upshot is you won't get KFC chicken at KFC, just a pale, cheap imitation of the original

Assuming that's the case, the anecdote in the article of him walking into the kitchen in a random KFC and berating the people for making the chicken the was they did seems a bit unfair; it's not like the random people working there had any choice in the corporate policies or autonomy to choose to make the chicken in a different way. I get that he was frustrated and that this wasn't the only way he tried to fight the changes, but it shouldn't be that hard to have a little empathy for the presumably minimum wage workers who are just there to earn a paycheck.

> it's not like the random people working there had any choice in the corporate policies or autonomy to choose to make the chicken in a different way.

I'm torn on this one, and can see both sides. For any kind of mega-business, not just restaurant chains: If your goal is to correct corporate behavior, protest or "make things difficult for corporate" then there really aren't any good options. You could annoy the individual stores and/or frontline staff, but as you say they are usually powerless minimum-wage drones who can't change things, and even might probably be sympathetic to your cause. On the other hand, if enough people make the businesses unpleasant or do things at those business that end up costing corporate, there is a slim chance that corporate might make changes.

A big problem with mega-business style capitalism is that key stakeholders like employees and the general public are powerless. You can only change a business's behavior if you're either 1. shareholders or 2. customers via boycott or 3. regulators. Unfortunately, the non-customer general public cannot vote a corporation out, nor can they walk into their local WalMart and "complain to the owner of WalMart" like they can for smaller local businesses.

Last fast food gig I had people were smashing stuff against the wall screaming haha you may be talking about the Narnia branches on bro

>A big problem with mega-business style capitalism is that key stakeholders like employees and the general public are powerless. You can only change a business's behavior if you're either 1. shareholders or 2. customers via boycott or 3. regulators.

Ultimately, the failure here is with the general public, for continuing to patronize these crappy businesses, and make them profitable despite whatever negative things they're doing (like decreasing quality to increase profits). Of course, if it's a monopoly situation we can probably give the public some credit since they don't have many choices, but here we're talking about restaurants, and there's almost never a shortage of restaurants to go to.

Back around 2010, the last time I allowed myself near a KFC, it was $50 for a family meal. Those prices, coupled with the Cornel's complaints, caused me to ban KFC henceforth.

I guess some people will suffer anything (the horrendous sides at KFC) to shove some fried chicken down their neck.

Hmmm...forgot unions.

Went there with a reporter from the NY Times, and put on a show in the kitchen. One hopes he didn't make a habit of "walking into the kitchen in a random KFC and berating the people", but this specific incident was not that at all.

Yeah it sounds more like a media show he put on to our pressure precisely on that corporation rather than the people in the kitchen.

Probably pretty effective too considering he was Mr. Brand Image

The first and second times I visited KFC in the US I was shocked there were no vegetables in their sandwiches. Other than the corn, and coleslaw, no lettuce or other ingredients in the sandwiches. In europe, and China and any other country I’ve seen KFC they have amazing Zinger sandwiches with lattice and sauces and grea flavor. We make it a point to never go to KFC in the US.

One thing I find utterly depressing is how literally every American fast food chain has infinitely better quality and taste in their overseas locations.

Evidently they save their absolute worst products for their home market.

well the flip side take is that other countries put a premium on the american brands we consider trashy

In Managua, Nicaragua ca. 2000 McDonalds was a sit down restaurant with waiters.

It was the same growing up in San Jose, CR. My friends would always meet up on Saturday nights at the Burger King next to the San Pedro mall. It was so fancy! American fast food wasn't cheap either, probably 2-3x more expensive than most other places you could eat in town.

Was it the same food as we get in the US, just with better service/setting?

In my experience, yes. A Big Mac is a Big Mac pretty much everywhere. The non-US stores do often have some menu items that are targeted to local tastes, that you would not see in a mainland US store.

The McDonalds in Rome near Termini had an amazing desert bar!

I wonder if the international franchises have more freedom to vary the menu? I'd guess the standard signature items like the Big Mac and fries are pretty much mandatory though.

This was a shock to me. During college back in India I had a friend who used to live in Canada. When I suggested going to McD for food, he was like no it's too trashy and the food is bad. I couldn't believe that cause the lines at McD were long.

After coming to the US I understood what he meant. Burger king in India is almost gourmet compared to what you get in USA

And Burger King in Italy IS gourmet. You have to compete with your competitors, in North America it’s a corporate franchise fast food wasteland and the bar is set exceptionally low.

McLuhan was right: "the medium is the message".

In this context, the "medium" is the country where KFC/McD is situated, and the "message" is the set of food standards or "the bar" as we're calling it in this discussion.

America truly has bad food standards in general, so the KFC/McD in America reflects that reality. In contrast, Italy has a much higher bar for what is considered food, and KFC/McD reflects that as well.

sometimes. I remember trying a pizza from an US chain in mexico and it wasn't like the US version (not as good).

Of course it was fast food pizza, so you get what you get.

I’d say they’re responding to different market demands.

Yeah, the rest of the world has laws that demand minimum product quality.

I’d love to hear the inside baseball on how a committee determines “minimum product quality” for a fried chicken sandwich.

Right, or they force you to order lettuce and tomato to peel off or no sandwich for you.

There is probably a valuable formula hidden in a safe at KFC showing how little chicken and how much breading/sawdust they can get away with using, to optimize profit.

Definitely. Dining out regularly, even at fast food places, is not necessarily a usual, or normal thing for lots of Europeans. Most "middle-class" people I know, like teachers or so, dine out probably a few times a year to celebrate an event. Groceries are cheap and fresh and people have less disposable income in Europe, generally. Fast food's biggest competitor is home cooking. It's also the reason why we prefer (or preferred) diesel vehicles here.

This likely varies by country in Europe and even what part of the country (rural vs urban). For example, a survey done in Germany found the following distribution of how often people went to a restaurant:

Once a month: 44%

A few times a month: 34%

Once a week: 13%

Several times a week: 7%

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1085317/dining-out-habit...

Depends very highly on region.

Here in Spain it's very very common to eat out for our lunch break at work. We don't even have a full canteen at the office because everyone just goes to the local restaurants anyway.

For around 12€ you get a daily rotating menu with a few choices for starter, main, dessert or coffee and a drink. And it's a nice relaxed experience rather than a quick canteen sandwich while everyone looks at their watch.

Eating out at lunch time is so common almost all restaurants do these cheap menus and are pretty full. During the night it's more for special occasions and a la carte with higher pricing. Many restaurants around the office don't even open at night as they don't get the volume.

> Groceries are cheap and fresh

I took my kids to the Netherlands a few years ago; in the week we stayed there, they wiped out almost every berry the local (very small) grocery store had in stock. My kids couldn't believe how much tastier they were compared to what we could buy back home.

Americans current market demands are bad for society and bad for the Americans that purport to demand the food slop they call fast food that we are served.

Americans would be infinitely happier with the overseas model of our fast food, no matter what suits or pencil pushers claim.

Sounds like you can make a fortune by hitting this untapped market.

That's because the US is a profit farm for US corporations (& a tax farm for those making bank on US foreign policy) so they can subsidize the rest of the world. Food, medicine, you name it — bottom-of-the-barrel service & quality for the average person & below in the US at top-dollar prices, & the people in the middle & below classes think they're doing well because it's all they know.

>That's because the US is a profit farm for US corporations....so they can subsidize the rest of the world.

Do you mean the corporations subsidise the rest of their corporations (ie cheap usa kfc supports mmm-lovely jpn kfc etc), or the subsidies extend to 'the rest of the world' in general?

I think what OP is saying is that corporations can charge USA people absurdly high prices for terrible quality stuff (reaping huge profits) because we allow it, whereas overseas, the same corporations have to accept lower margins and provide better product/service because non-Americans wont accept it. Not sure I 100% buy that, but it does sound kind of truthy.

The McDonald's I went to in Vienna Austria was horribler on every level.

In the US they aim to become a local monopoly through rock bottom prices, while abroad they are an upscale location with premium prices where people go to treat mostly their kids. McDonalds abroad I’ve seen had Hollywood theme or Elvis theme, etc. It’s a piece of US culture with the same big macs but broader menu.

I think in-n-out is pretty good. It seems when the founders died, the formula wasn't changed afaict.

That said, they haven't spread far from their original locations.

I also remember going to five guys and there was something on the wall about the ingredients never frozen. Five guys is lots more expensive though.

IIRC In-N-Out doesn't have overseas locations, but I agree that it is delicious.

Other countries often have much stronger regulations about what is considered to be "food".

For example, McDonalds often has to use actual beef in their overseas hamburgers as opposed to the "beef sludge" that they use in the ones in the US. McDonalds in Italy served a hamburger like I remember from back when I was a child.

This is not universal, however. Hamburgers in the UK seem to be uniquely terrible, for example.

> McDonalds in Italy served a hamburger like I remember from back when I was a child.

Also they sometimes have really good espresso bars right there in the restaurant.

US is way less densely populated than most countries[1]. That might add more pressure on stability over taste for industrialized fast foods in the US. By the way, I feel like American fresh meat is superb, if that makes up for it. It could be just that you can't have literal everything.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

I blame the beds to heightOverSeaLevel ratio. Manifest destiny to be of with worser food on a larger scale.

I live in the US and am constantly disappointed by the fact that I have to pay extra to add onions to my Taco Bell burrito or lettuce and tomato to a McDouble (typically when on a road trip with friends). As it turns out this might be attributable to companies optimizing for consumers' dollars instead of flavor preferences [1]:

> “They liked flavorful foods like turkey tetrazzini, but only at first; they quickly grew tired of them. On the other hand, mundane foods like white bread would never get them too excited, but they could eat lots and lots of it without feeling they’d had enough.”

> This contradiction is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more.

It probably also has something to do with the fact that people often equate "vegetables" with unseasoned, boiled slop like spinach and broccoli instead of more delicious preparations like grilling, broiling, roasting, or sauteeing with a liberal amount of seasoning. Brussels sprouts, for instance, are incredible when broiled and tossed with olive oil (or, even better, bacon fat!) and carmelized onions but are nigh-inedible if scooped out of a stock pot full of hot tap water.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinar...

Broccoli is perfectly fine boiled. It's just that it takes literally 2 minutes to get brilliant green and slightly crunchy broccoli, while some home cooks put it on for 20 minutes. It's nice lightly salted with a bit of fresh lemon juice and sprinkled with sliced almonds.

I will admit that any vegetable probably tastes better if you add bacon but I'm not sure that's a slight against the cooking method itself.

>Broccoli is perfectly fine boiled. It's just that it takes literally 2 minutes to get brilliant green and slightly crunchy broccoli, while some home cooks put it on for 20 minutes.

Yep, it wasn't until long after I had moved out of home that I figured out broccoli can actually be pretty tasty, and not nasty slop, for exactly this reason.

The sad thing is, whenever I would land back in the UK for a visit I would always go straight to a KFC and grab a British Zinger because they were so much better than anything sold at the American restaurants.

Yeah, vegetable prices vary a lot seasonally and US fast food companies have decided steady profit margins are "better" than a varied menu with good vegetable options.

It's maybe the biggest shame for KFC itself to have fallen to the same rough cost minimizing as the rest of its industry: there was a time in the US where KFC was almost synonymous with a full meal of chicken (obviously), mashed potatoes (technically a vegetable, though with all that dairy and gravy not the healthiest one), and green beans. It's the green beans I miss the most from today's KFC.

Also, for many decades some KFC franchises did lunch buffets that were incredible vegetable buffets: lima beans, collard/mustard greens, green beans, and salads. (Plenty of non-vegetables, too, and pies and such to make up for any attempt at healthy eating.) I think COVID killed the US KFC Buffet for good, and many of the franchises that used to run them have even switched brands to something more "exciting". (Often KFCs are getting replaced by that pickle brine dipped chicken brand that even more doesn't bother with any vegetables that aren't pickles or potatoes, and is doing very good business in this country right now despite how bland their food is, in part due to strange political alignments.)

Every founder I have met after selling their company.

Understandable (as in: I could see myself acting like that if I had a company to sell), but also, you sold it, what did you expect? Did you believe some legally not enforceable promises because you wanted the money and were willing to lie to yourself?

From my own experience - I didn't expect anything. But it makes you sad if what you have built and spent so much time on it is going down.

There are many ways to loose control of your company without selling it upfront.

For example if you take money from an minority investor with the promise of an IPO (so they can make profit from their minority share).

After the company goes public, control is much more iffy. You may for example not have your place in the board anymore even though you are majority owner.

You're not making any sense. Unless the majority owner has a different share class with reduced voting rights then they can absolutely control the Board.

Yeah brainfart. What i meant to say that in a public company you are expected to choose.

Either you have control of the board or you are the CEO having control of the operations. Not both.

There is no such expectation. Some corporate governance experts prefer that the Chairman and CEO roles be split in order to prevent conflicts of interest and protect the rights of minority shareholders but there are many companies where a single person does both.

Bill Gates was chairman and CEO of Microsoft for the longest. Have things changed since then?

This makes no sense whatsoever. If you're the majority holder then by definition you hold more than 50% of the stock and can force whatever resolution you see fit. Perhaps you meant largest holder, but without a majority?

Or multiple stock classes, where done have more voting rights than others.

Yes. Some of it is just plain dillusion. My grandmother went through so much trouble and time finding someone she wanted to sell her business to because of "her clients" etc. She sold it and complained about everything the lady did to the business. She even financed the sale so she could sell to her, denying cash offers that came in much higher. The person she sold it to sold off half the business and clients almost immediately.

However he sold it; they apparently, to this day have rights to his likeness. I would hope that would give him some power to call them out if they are making a lesser product in his name, all the while passing it off as his 'original recipe'

I love how in the article they just let him go back and walk around the kitchen and bitch even though he had nothing to do with the company at that point. Who's going to say no when you walk into a KFC and you're Colonel fucking Sanders

The real Colonel sounds amazing. Every time you guys exit your company to private equity, or sell it to some huge conglomerate, realize this is what will happen to it.

> My God, that gravy is horrible. They buy tap water for 15 to 20 cents a thousand gallons and then mix it with flour and starch and end up with pure wallpaper paste. And I know wallpaper paste, by God, because I’ve seen my mother make it.

Sanders might sound A LOT like Gordon Ramsay in this article, but I doubt Gordon ever shot and killed a man over a turf war and beat up one of his legal clients. I think I remember hearing the Colonel beat down at least one of his bosses. He must have coated himself in restaurant-grade teflon as he seemed to get away with it.. Should have called it Gangster Fried Chicken.

Sanders never killed anyone either. He was involved in a shootout where the other guy shot and killed the gas station manager, Sanders' involvement was shooting said guy who lived and later went to jail as a result of killing the manager.

ahh my bad, all these years I was wrong- I see now that The Colonel rode up with two of his armed employees and got one of them killed and his competitor (Stewart) jailed who died by gunshot about 2 years later. Some say the cop that shot him was payed off with white buckets full of cash. Soon after the Colonel's gas station started selling white buckets full of addictive fried chicken infused with herb and spice and the Colonel married Stewart's daughter-in-law. Later, Stewarts daughter became the Colonel's right hand, and managed a big operation for him. She is quoted as calling the Colonel "a straight shooter". One big happy family style story. Someone should make a movie

It's Kentucky in the early 1930s, driving up unarmed would be noteworthy in itself. It's tempting to make the story more interesting but is "local gas station owners get into a gunfight and one goes on to make KFC" not interesting enough without feeling the need to turn it into a blockbuster plot about a fast food gangster?

I hadn't heard Claudia was Stewart's daughter-in-law before though. I mean I'd believe it, if you've never been there Corbin isn't a particularly large town, but I also can't find any actual reference to it either.

the other details are also relatively true. The Colonels employees were armed and yelled at Stewart. Stewart was killed by a cop and rumors say he was paid to inflict retribution. Sanders married Claudia, who was Stewarts-daughter's-husband's-sister (Ona May Stewart married one of Claudia's brothers) and Sanders later co-owned a business with Stewarts daughter , Ona May. Straight shooter quote is true. KFC was born in the gas station near where it all shot off. Many do not know- To become a Kentucky Colonel, the Governor of Kentucky needs to sign off on it. They have a handshake and a song.

Relatively true in that most of these things are somewhere between a slightly off base and completely false. E.g. Ona May said "I always knew I could count on him" but "a straight shooter" was written in 2022 as an article ending pun for https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/kfc-colonel-sanders-shoot-..., not part of the Ona May's quote. The book referenced is actually a decent read.

Another interesting note on Kentucky Colonels is the title largely turned into a joke due to being over assigned for political preference, e.g. Sanders ended up getting his during such a wave in the 30s. There have been about 350,000 assignments and the governor no longer even bothers trying to hand sign them anymore. One guy I know got the title for filing a patent that hasn't even been commercially used.

Relatively true in that they all became relatives.

"One guy I know got the title for filing a patent that hasn't even been commercially used"

Make him sing the song for you. Also, who do you think would win in a cage-match? The Colonel or Ray Croc?

Sanders killed anyone. He was involved in a shootout at a gas station, and a gas station employee got shot by his shootout opponent and killed, which effectively won Sanders the turf war.

Fun fact: After selling out in the US, Colonel Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada to oversee the Canadian operations to ensure that the quality was of his liking.

When I grew up in the 80s in Canada, KFC was incredible, as were all of their items. At age 12, I scored a job working there too. During that time was when they announced their crispy chicken variant in Canada and "new taste" - but what we saw were new flour bags (we had to throw out the original flour bags), new oil in the cookers, new processes (no more soaking the chicken for 15 min before frying), and gravy that was made from a soup packet.

And while the chicken tasted the same, it was far more greasy and disgusting to handle compared to beforehand - and everyone noticed. I remember our manager telling us "Well I guess we now have to make it US style. But our prepared cost went from 11 cents per piece to 8 cents per piece after all bills are paid."

Here’s the original seasoning mix - https://marionkay.com/product/chicken-seasoning-99-x/

"Ingredients: Monosodium Glutamate, White and Black Pepper, Fine Flake Salt, Sage, Coriander, and other natural spices"

So if the first listed ingredient represents the most abundant ingredient...

Also, such a cop out that the FDA has allowed "other natural spices" to be a legit listing. Supposedly to protect corporate secrets blah blah. What if someone is allergic to one of those "natural spices". Either we're for accurate food labeling for the public's safety, or we're not. This in between state highly suggests we're not.

Same would go for coca cola recipe, and many others

> So if the first listed ingredient represents the most abundant ingredient...

It's seasoning, so it doesn't seem surprising at all that MSG would be pretty high on the list. Do you think that's bad?

When some one says "secret recipe of 11 herbs & spices" my mind doesn't immediately jump to MSG as an herb or spice. Then to see that it is the primary ingredient definitely jumps out to me. Does it not to you?

It's in the same category as salt, which I'd kinda expect to be in the 11-things "secret recipe", but which isn't a herb or spice.

Call it celery powder then if it makes you feel better

Isn't celery powder a 'natural' source of nitrates? I didn't think of it as an analog to MSG.

Celery powder isn't MSG?

Some people still hang on to the flawed science and xenophobic belief that MSG is bad.

Yeah it is a hard one to shake. My mom was not the least bit xenophobic but she did get serious headaches from MSG. But only when she knew she was eating it. And she loved tomatoes too! I miss her dearly, and she was actually quite sharp, but she would not let go of the MSG thing despite ample evidence to contradict her belief.

The headaches are real, but it's a similar pipeline/effect to caffeine/theobromine. Your brain wants at least a little MSG in your diet because it does exciting things with it. Your brain is also easily over-saturated with it and gets "hungover" if you eat/drink too much in too short an amount of time, and different people can be differently sensitive (just as with coffee/tea/chocolate/etc).

Certainly there were restaurants trying to sell you the "5-Hour Energy" equivalent of MSG and some cuisines tend to get closer to doing that naturally. But also you shouldn't directly or indirectly blame the people that make that food for you, just as it is silly to blame all coffee shops for the caffeine headaches and migraines you sometimes get if you don't watch how much coffee you are drinking.

It's so weird to see this completely legitimate critique of food labelling standards is stitched on to a nothing-comment about seasoning containing MSG

How is it any more of a nothing-comment than yours? MSG is fine, but it definitely isn't what I would have imagined being the main ingredient. A little MSG goes a long way, so if that's the main ingredient, how little is used of the actual herbs&spices? I never said anything negative about MSG. You read that into it on your own instead of just thinking about the rest of what was implied

The reason I called the MSG part a "nothing comment" is that it doesn't say anything, everything is left to implication. Nowhere did I say that you said anything negative about MSG, I was complaining about the total lack of substance. You just pointed out that MSG is the "most abundant ingredient" (meaning it makes up at least 17% in this case, I think).

Anyway it doesn't matter.

I think it should go without saying that allowing companies to vaguely say things like “our product contains a bunch of stuff, trust us, bro” goes against the spirit of transparency behind the FDA’s rules.

The FDA maintains a list of known allergens and they must always be listed if used as ingredients, even if they are seasonings/spices. Besides, if I put on a hard hat for safety but not a hi-vis vest then it doesn't make wearing the hard hat any less for safety. False dichotomies about it don't help move safety forward.

I get great amusement from seeing the accounts KFC follows:

https://x.com/kfc/following

I used to have a photo of a man who owned a KFC with The Colonel on my fridge. Shot in the 70s, from his appearance. The man was our customer when I had a retail gig and gave me the photo. I wish I still had it. Here’s to Bernard.

A 1970s KFC franchise was a profitable thing to have .. lots of people who come from working class background had a chance to connect to "big business" and get a real economic lift. After seeing how some people genuinely struggle about money, it is hard for me to be wholly critical of the business, major flaws and all...

> This ain’t no goddam Tennessee Fried Chicken, no matter what some slick, silk-suited son-of-a-bitch says.

I remember eating KFC in Japan, about 15 years ago, and it was markedly better than we get in Canada.

Here's the recipe for the Colonel's original herbs and spices seasoning:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/08/19/kfc-recipe-reveale...

Could someone copy and paste it here for us lowly EU folks?

https://archive.ph/jzgsP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYSo8zTrTAs&list=PLgOb3zseg1...

These Glen and Friends Cooking videos of North American cuisine development are top notch.

I cook versions of this on the regular. I say versions, because simply having The Official Recipe is only half the battle. The actual flavours and strengths of the individual herbs and spices can vary a lot by brand, and by country, and by source, and other factors.

My main takeaway (PNI!) is that the white pepper and the smoked paprika together are the heart of the KFC flavour. The rest just augment, refine the flavour. And of course, the salt and/or MSG go a long way.

KFC has been garbage for decades, at least in Canada. I hope Popeye's eats their lunch

Not sure if this is also true in Canada, but Popeyes now sells some of the worst quality fried chicken since 2020.

They haven't even been anything close to "Louisiana inspired" in years. This is supposed to be their brand differentiator, but I haven't seen jambalaya or gumbo on their menu in over a decade. Most locations in my area haven't brought back the seafood since 4 years ago despite being on the menu (always out of stock).

I don't see any of these legacy brands ever being on top again. Their most recent idea is selling some nasty soggy wings that are now routinely given away for free with any order. It's about as ironic as it gets that these wings didn't take them to new heights.

>I haven't seen jambalaya or gumbo on their menu in over a decade.

Probably because nobody wants it?

I worked for Popeyes 25 years ago. We never had gumbo and people would order jambalaya like every other day, if that. Literally everything was more popular than jambalaya.

It was probably true back then for the same reason nobody wants wings from pizza hut today either :D

All I was saying is that it was on the menu in the past and the decline in quality has been steady for a long time. It's as if it's built into their long term strategy for the business.

> Most locations in my area haven't brought back the seafood since 4 years ago despite being on the menu (always out of stock).

I don't know, I'm kind of okay with that. Seeing seafood offered in very land locked locations has always been suspect to me. In a fast food place, I'd doubt it was actually anything other than imitation version anyways though so what's the point?

I feel like Popeyes had a random moment during the pandemic when the released their dark meat fried chicken sandwich which was initially good, but when the hype died down, they regressed to their normal fried chicken quality: bad.

I went to popeyes a few weeks ago and it was overpriced as all hell. $62 before tax for a 16 piece with 2 sides.

I have a difficult time understanding how they can have the audacity to charge that much. We got something else instead. IDK who is dropping nearly $70 on an order of chicken for 1 meal.

> “They really gag me, that’s what I think of them”

When asked about a new product line, what a quote!

I guess he would need an "Extreme Makeover" to go on "Undercover Boss".

My dad was the financial controller for a large pizza chain in the '70s--they used to send him into the field to do spot checks, which was progressive IMO.

It was a well-documented technique of quality control across industries by 1940.

And still meticulously adhered to, I'm sure.

I guess you mean "management by walking around"? For perspective, we had TQM in the '90s, which consisted of orders to tell TQM consultants that we knew where the TQM manuals were at, if we couldn't otherwise avoid "The TQM Bobs".

The corporate headquarters building my dad worked in was also considered progressive and employee friendly in the '70s--with natural lighting and office noise abatement (with white noise piped in, for example).

I remember the day when KFC started "boiling" the chicken it went from crispy to soggy.

Here in Canada currently there's big controversy KFC went halal. No more bacon!

Can you explain what you mean by "boiling"?

It's very much deep-fried. And I've never had it anything but crispy, unless you seal it up in a container for too long while it's still hot.

>Here in Canada currently there's big controversy KFC went halal

Source? Was it just the chicken or the entire restaurant?

The entire restaurant.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kfc-halal-menu-boycott-1.7258...

Vote with your Canadian dollars, eat from restaurants who serve pork. It turns out that my countrymen love porchetta.

But when has KFC ever served pork or bacon?

They're a chicken restaurant.

Best I can guess is maybe they had a fried chicken sandwich that had strips of bacon too? But not really a huge loss -- bacon is definitely not any kind of classic topping for fried chicken, the way it is for burgers. I mean, I love bacon but I don't want it with fried chicken. Bacon adds crunch and chewiness to a burger; fried chicken is already crunchy and chewy.

Dunno, I never eat KFC food.

I'd rather eat bacon than hormone infused chicken, fully grown in less than a month, pressure fried in a crust of MSG saturated dough, which is supposedly halal and Colonel Sanders actually hates. In fact I just went to the Italian store and bought almost half a kilo of porchetta because of what I read here. It'll keep us well fed for at least two days and has all the collagen my wife otherwise gets from awfully tasting expensive supplements.

Praise the lard!

>I'd rather eat bacon than hormone infused chicken, fully grown in less than a month

They're both hormone free.

"Under Federal law, hormones are only approved for use in beef cattle, swine**, and lamb production. There are no hormones approved for use in the production of poultry, goat, veal calves, mature sheep, or exotic, non-amenable species"

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media_file/202...

>pressure fried in a crust of MSG saturated dough

The typical preparation of bacon basically involves it frying in its own fat. I'm not sure how pressure frying is any more worse. Moreover bacon contains nitrates and nitrites, which is known to cause cancer, unlike msg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curing_(food_preservation)#Nit...

>which is supposedly halal

I think you're misunderstanding whether Halal means. Halal just means the food adheres to Islamic laws. It says nothing whether it's safe or healthy. Unless you're a practicing muslim (which seems unlikely), it shouldn't be part of your consideration one way or the other.

> Halal just means the food adheres to Islamic laws

Also ritually slaughtered if that matters to you.

it also implies paying protection money to be halal, which goes to spread islam in the west

What would you say about kosher certification?

i do not know as much about it, but from my very surface level understanding, that is more a fee you pay to certify your process, whereas halal needs protection money by the quantity

that being said, both should not be happening

They must be doping them with something because I’ve encountered chicken bones that aren’t even fully formed inside of chicken thighs that are above average in size.

My MIL used to be a food scientist and spent a few years working with Tyson. She hosted a party once with chicken wings twice the size of my hand. I refused to partake of them especially since she wasn’t allowed to tell me how they got so big.

>They must be doping them with something because I’ve encountered chicken bones that aren’t even fully formed inside of chicken thighs that are above average in size.

So your reasoning for thinking there's a conspiracy to hide hormones in chickens involving the federal government, various poultry companies, and the thousands of farmers they subcontract out to, is that you saw a few chicken thighs that looked too big for their bone, and your MIL had a NDA with the company she worked for? The official explanation is "better breeding and growing conditions"[1]. Is there a reason you don't find that plausible? We can see how much of an impact breeding can make on dogs, for instance, and chickens are bred so big that they develop health problems[2]. Maybe the chicken you saw really did had underdeveloped bones relative to how big it was, but it's not because of "They must be doping them with something", it's just how they were bred.

[1] https://livestock.extension.wisc.edu/articles/the-chicken-of...

[2] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21437054/chickens-factory...

> I’ve encountered chicken bones that aren’t even fully formed inside of chicken thighs that are above average in size

You've probably encountered the offspring of cousin Boneless.

https://cowandchicken.fandom.com/wiki/Boneless_Chicken

You realize that KFC chicken is just the same chicken you buy at the supermarket?

It's an urban legend that KFC somehow raises its own chicken that is somehow different, whether genetically, chemically, or speed of growth.

I mean, if you prefer the taste of pork over chicken then great.

But the idea there's anything uniquely bad about the chicken supplied to KFC is just factually untrue.

Also, since you really like Italian food, you might be surprised to find that Parmesan cheese is chock-full of MSG. Which is a major reason why it's used so much in Italian cuisine to impart flavor. MSG isn't bad -- it's umami, just like NaCl is salt.

We don't buy chicken at the supermarket. Our parents raise chickens.

Fake supermarket parmesan? Probably. Parmigiano Reggiano DOP, not really.

"The only additive allowed is salt, which the cheese absorbs while being submerged for 20 days in brine tanks saturated to near-total salinity with Mediterranean sea salt."

> Moreover bacon contains nitrates and nitrites, which is known to cause cancer, unlike msg

We don't buy bacon treated with nitrates and nitrites. That's 95% of supermarket bacon. We mostly end up buying prosciutto, which is just dried, salted and nitrate free or use home made bacon, which is basically 100% pork fat in my country. The Italians also make it, it's called lardo and it's cured with herbs. We only cure it with salt and smoke it. I'm not much of a fan of 100% pork fat or lard, but it does make good fries.

The glutamate they're referring to is naturally a part of parmesan cheese. It doesn't need to be added.

I used to work at a Canadian KFC and it's just like you guessed, occasionally we'd have a special sandwich for sale for a limited time that had strips of bacon on it. Normally we wouldn't have any pork products on the menu, and when we did have bacon I'm pretty sure it was microwaved.

Miracle whip in coleslaw? Not sure I can trust his judgement

Fantastic rabbit-hole for me as an European! I had never heard of Miracle Whip (or Miracel whip" (sic!) as sold in Germany)

Maybe it is the secret ingredient to a perfect cole slaw? More sweet and more mustard. I would really like to try, but I need to find an import shop for this magic paste!

I've made this before in a pinch and it's your usual homemade mayonnaise recipe except you deliberately add too much vinegar and as much sugar as your palate can take. If you want to get it even closer to what we have in the USA, use the lowest quality "vegetable oil" you can find.

It's only purpose in my life is precisely that: coleslaw.

For some reason it has a terrible aftertaste that ruins whatever it's on.

It's definitely not just "mayo but with sugar and mustard."

Like everything else in this article and thread, it probably used to be. Now it’s mostly natural and artificial flavors held together by food chemistry from New Jersey.

I also hate MW on sandwiches and whatnot because it's way too sweet. However, most coleslaw recipes add a ton of sugar anyway. So I don't think the end result is that far off.

The primary reason that I suspect he used MW is that it contains a yeast inhibitor (potassium sorbate), which seems to keep the yeast from turning the coleslaw into sauerkrautslaw. The Colonel probably didn't understand this, but knew the results were much better.

I've made coleslaw both ways (mayo and MW) and I do think the MW keeps the slaw crunchier.

> MW keeps the slaw crunchier

It contains less oil in it than mayo. Corn starch is used to achieve this.

man was a goddamned genius. love the kfc coleslaw. im sure the miracle whip pairs well with the tarragon vinegar thats called for.

heres a reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/food/comments/mq5ty/original_kfc_re...

From the newspaper article: "I'll never go to India, I don't like to see people sleeping in the streets"

The times, they are a'changeing and the Colonel would presumably "never go to (insert west coast city)" because of all the people sleeping (etc.) in the streets

Interesting that it only happens on the west coast, eh? You’ve never seen a homeless person anywhere else?

Yes, but there is significantly more of it happening, optically, on the west coast than anywhere else in the United States. What is San Diego's unofficial name? "The Home of the Homeless". Before you flame, I spent years touring the United States, living and photographing homeless people and communities. West Coasters should really stop getting defensive and take action, if it actually matters to you all. All that wealth... So greedily spent... All those people... laying in the streets... strung out on cra..."KFC"! Had to tie it back to avoid the rule crazies. ;)

imho it comes from western states not simply rounding them up. in atlanta, before the peach bowl the cops would descend on downtown, arrest all the homeless, bus them up to cherokee, and then the time it took them to return was greater than the length of the event.

now that's a little less common and the yearly doctor conference has noticed the homeless and is complaining about it. i think homelessness is a consequence not of any one area but of the american way of doing things. we treat it as an incurable disease, like addiction, but that we don't care enough about to fix.

Thats why I said "optically", I actually agree with the sentiment that homelessness is often much worse and unseen in other parts of the United States- but! CA could do a-lot more given its wealth and desire to be seen as "thoughtful".

> CA could do a-lot more given its ... desire to be seen as "thoughtful".

Uhh, what? The state that produced Nixon, Reagan, Prop 13; the capital of NIMBYism and the state that had more Trump voters than any other?

Sure, California is wealthy and spends a lot on its citizens, especially the needy, but it also has strong countervailing pressure, more influential than you might think given the makeup of its legislature.

A state is a big amorphous group and can't hardly have a "desire".

Sure. We are saying the same thing. But from my experience actually talking to people, they fancy themselves a thoughtful lot.

> imho it comes from western states not simply rounding them up.

And the supreme court says they should go ahead and do so. After all, there's no discrimination: the police can round up anyone sleeping under a bridge, whether poor or rich.

> West Coasters should really stop getting defensive and take action, if it actually matters to you all.

As a lifetime resident of the northwest and a current resident of Seattle let me say, sincerely, fuck you too.

Your characterization of west coast residents as uncaring and inactive is inconsistent with reality. There is no shortage of people working on homelessness and related issues. Not every person has to spend every waking moment on your pet issue for it to be taken seriously. Everyone has different talents and homelessness isn't the only issue we face.

Classic response. Sorry. And yes, fuck me! I couldn't help either.

> living and photographing homeless people and communities.

For your own benefit, or for theirs?

> if it actually matters to you all

You were there for a while, apparently. What did you do about it?

There was no benefit to anyone, I chose to be homeless and to spend time sharing their stories. I had no capacity to help them outside of small ways, food, shelter, voice.

Despite our homeless problem, we have by far the highest property prices, most economic opportunity, and best laws (legal shrooms!).

Haters of the PNW are simply mad that they don’t get to live here and enjoy the routine 20-40$ ounces for good quality stuff.

With friends like these...

Have you ever been to India? I have, and have also visited the bad part of downtown San Francisco many times. Homelessness in major Indian cities is on a whole different scale - I remember taking a taxi ride through New Delhi at night, on some streets the sidewalks had people lying side by side (packed so tight they were touching other people on both side) for what seemed like miles.

On the other hand they don't seem nearly as mentally unwell as the SF homeless.

I'm guessing he would refrain from going near kentucky then:

https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2018/12/02/PLOU/f9cd1a27-...

(Louisville)

I would have loved to see him write a "I will fucking piledrive you" style blog post on modern KFC.

Amusing that he griped about Tennessee fried chicken when the original restaurant was in Utah

Honestly, just try making buttermilk fried chicken at home. The Gordon Ramsay recipe is a great starting point, it's so freaking easy to make and you can mess with the spices you add to the flour no end to find your perfect flavour.

You end up with hot, tasty, crunchy fried chicken with a juicy center. You'll never eat KFC again once you've tried it.

Seems like an early example of "enshitification."

enshitification is just a convenient name for a thing that's happened to every company that goes public/gets acquired by PE since the markets cared about "growth, growth, and growth," which started in the 1960s.

As a kid in the early 70's my dad would bring home a bucket and it was an amazing treat. As an adult near 60, I cannot eat Kentucky Fried Chicken. The few times I've tried the crazy level of salt* is repulsive and I feel awful afterward. I don't know if this a change in my sense of food, or change in the KFC product.

*My wife's family salts everything to hell and back. I think this is because their sense of taste is declining. So perhaps I've been gifted a sensitive palette that has not lost much with age. Its worth mentioning that my in-laws struggle with obesity, diabetes, and high-blood pressure. I'm thankfully afflicted with none of these things.

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