When: July 6
National Fried Chicken Day honors the iconic Southern dish that has become one of America's most beloved comfort foods.
Southern fried chicken is a West African cooking tradition that survived the Middle Passage and merged with Scottish frying technique in American kitchens.
The specific technique of frying chicken — seasoned, coated, cooked in hot fat — comes from West African culinary tradition. Enslaved Africans brought to the American South were among the few enslaved people permitted to raise and sell chickens, giving them access to an ingredient they could prepare according to their own knowledge. The seasonings, the spice application, the care with the fat temperature — these came from a tradition that preceded American slavery by centuries. That technique met a Scottish practice of deep-frying in fat (rather than the English preference for boiling or baking), brought south by Scottish immigrants, and the combination became what we now call Southern fried chicken. Two culinary traditions collided in American kitchens under the worst possible circumstances and produced one of the most beloved foods on earth. The coating matters as much as anything else. The flour-and-seasoning crust serves a specific purpose: it forms a barrier in the hot fat that...