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Do you remember your very first ‘bucket’ meal from Kentucky
Fried chicken? A bucket! No other fast food chain put stuff in a
bucket. That red and white receptacle of joy was pure marketing
genius. And that’s not all. I could eat
my mashed potatoes and gravy with a spork,
the coolest utensil ever.
It didn’t even
matter that the gravy tasted like glue, because I was eating it with a SPORK!
I was so easy to please as a child. Now I say obnoxious
things like, “There’s too much arugula in
my quinoa”, or “I think the risotto might
be undercooked, don’t you?”
Back in the 60s, if my mother had a tough day at work the
chances were pretty good that we’d have KFC. I’m not proud of this, but there
were days when I actually prayed that mom would stagger in the door like a
pregnant dairy cow, just so I could savor one of the Colonel’s deliciously deep-fried
chicken legs.
As you can tell from these deeply disturbing fantasies, I’m having
a Kentucky Fried Chicken
moment.
I can’t move on with my life until I get a chicken fix. Unfortunately I’ll have to risk my life twice
in order to accomplish my goal; once getting to KFC, and once eating the
KFC. And don’t act as if you didn’t know
that the unofficial KFC tag line is “if
the neighborhood doesn’t get you, the chicken will.”
The local KFC wasn’t always
located in the scariest part of town (and the chicken wasn’t always
disappointing). So what brought this American
icon to its knees? And by that I mean, other
than the 4,800 annual deaths directly attributed to eating fried chicken.
Well, corporate greed
played a part, as it always does. A series
of inexperienced owners totally messed-up a good thing. They tried to adapt KFC offerings to meet a
perceived change in the American palate.
They introduced grilled chicken and healthy alternatives; then flip-flopped
to ribs and ‘extra’ crunchy, but nothing worked.
All they did was to confuse a nation of fried chicken lovers,
and give Boston Market an opening the width of a barn door.
And there’s always been a portability challenge. It’s relatively easy to eat a burger and
fries in the car. It’s really hard to
eat mashed potatoes and bone-in chicken, even with the benefit of a spork. America had become a nation of road trippers,
and ‘finger lickin’ good’ KFC was not
dad’s first choice to serve in his new Buick with the slate blue velour
upholstery. There’s absolutely no point
to fast food that can’t be eaten in a car.
Things were looking pretty grim for KFC, and that was before the avian flu pandemic.
Flash forward 20 years and things start looking up for
KFC. They finally stop trying to deny their past and embrace it instead. They
re-focus on fried chicken and people begin to ‘flock’ back to the chain. Michelle
Obama does her best to foil the fast food industry comeback, but can’t convince
Americans to stop loving lipids.
The infusion of cash allows management to advertise in this
year’s super bowl. And even though the
ad was universally mocked, millions of people like me decide to give KFC one more chance.
So here we are in the KFC parking lot, wondering if it’s
100% safe to leave the car.
My kids have never had KFC, so they were pretty worked-up about
helping me with the ‘research’ for this column.
For example, when I told my daughter that we were headed to KFC, she shrieked
“I don’t want to die!” I assured her that they’d long since switched
to non-hydrogenated oil. Turns out she
wasn’t worried about the chicken.
The meal surprised us all by being much better than we expected,
mostly due to low expectations and residual adrenalin. The Colonel’s super-secret
11 herbs and spices still kick butt, even on the grilled version. But like many things that feel good at the
time, and that you later regret, I still couldn’t respect myself in the morning.
The main problem I have with KFC is an ethical one. KFC chicken isn’t exactly free range, and it’s
sourced from some shady overseas chicken farms that are rumored to use
excessive antibiotics and growth hormones.
There could be something to this.
The two thighs in our bucket were so huge that we nicknamed them both ‘Lil’
Ray Lewis’.
I realize that the global demand for chicken and the resulting
worldwide poultry shortage has put pressure on KFC. But some corners just shouldn’t be cut, even
by market dominant multinationals.
Knowing that my red and white ‘receptacle of joy’ is actually
a symbol of third world intimidation, deforestation, and terribly sad chickens
makes it hard to enjoy my Ray Lewis thighs, no matter how crispy.
Corporate greed has taken all the fun out of fried chicken
night - thanks a lot, guys. My kids feel
so bad that I doubt they’ll be giving KFC a ‘second chance’ in twenty years
like I did, unless the market leader does
something to make the world a better place.
Kids these days are such unforgiving idealists. They will be difficult
and demanding future customers.
If KFC doesn’t act soon, they’d better start composing their
corporate swan song. That is, if
the swans (in support of the chickens) don’t object.
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