Call it serendipity. Call it fate. We call it lunch. Today, while driving through Kentucky, we saw signs for the home of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken and its accompanying museum. Food and a museum in one place? Excellent!
Thus, we pulled over to learn such critical life lessons as: when life gives you social security, turn it into a global franchise. Harland Sanders began selling friend chicken in a roadside cafe in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression. His business proved so successful as to earn an honorary title of Kentucky Colonel from the governor.
No, Colonel Sanders never saw military service.
Not to say that he wasn’t a remarkable businessman. Recognizing that his panfrying style of fried chicken was disadvantaged against deep frying which was much faster, Sanders modified a pressure cooker to create a pressure fryer in which he could cook chicken to the quality of pan fried chicken without deep frying it.
When the proposed 75 highway route disrupted his customer traffic, Sanders took to the road to sell his chicken recipe and branding as franchises across the USA. The name Kentucky Fried Chicken distinguished it from the deep fried “southern fried chicken” and still elicited connotations of southern comfort.
Though, after all that food, our stomaches were a little too full to be considered comfortable.
