> Even 50 years ago, chicken was considered an 'occasional' meat.
I remember going to my great-grandparents' house with KFC, because, to them (born circa 1900) fried chicken was food you ate on special occasions.
Which makes perfect sense: Frying anything is messy work (I know from personal experience aerosolized grease stings) and if chicken is expensive on top of that, fried chicken would be doubly uncommon for the average person, especially if they grew up poor, as my great-grandparents did.
Fried chicken is the perfect food to eat at a restaurant. Prep starts 24 hrs in advance with brining the chicken. Breading process is messy. Lots of oil required. Difficult to get the temperature and timing just right. None of these are issues for restaurants where they are making it constantly and have enough experience to dial in the cooking. Plus, since those restaurants are usually selling large volume, it's still cheap.
The best fried chicken in the Twin Cities, the prep starts on monday and it's only served on friday. Two-stage brining process, first in a very intense salt/sugar brine, and then in buttermilk. My daughter used to work the kitchen there and has the recipe, but it's like 40 ingredients and the breading is best made in buckets.
Sandcastle. It's the food stand at Lake Nokomis Park, which is run by Doug Flicker, who created the late great Piccolo (an internationally famous restaurant), and the Esker Grove restaurant at the Walker. Amazing just how good a food shack in a city park can get when you let a famous chef run it!
They are only open during the summer (April-ish to October-ish), and fried chicken is only served on fridays. And they only make 30 servings, so GET THERE if you want some, before it sells out. There will be a line.
If you want Doug Flicker fried chicken and don't want to wait, you can also get some at Bull's Horn, his new neighborhood tavern at 46th St and 34th Ave. It's a different recipe, but still very good.
Everyone else agrees that Revival has the best fried chicken. They're wrong. Revival's chicken is a bit underseasoned imho (but excellent). Victory 44 was right up there with those two, but closed recently. Sigh.
I remember going to my great-grandparents' house with KFC, because, to them (born circa 1900) fried chicken was food you ate on special occasions.
Which makes perfect sense: Frying anything is messy work (I know from personal experience aerosolized grease stings) and if chicken is expensive on top of that, fried chicken would be doubly uncommon for the average person, especially if they grew up poor, as my great-grandparents did.