1. Credit the Scots — Or the Ancient Egyptians
Although neither group is likely come to mind as the innovators of fried chicken, historians believe they both had a hand in it. Between 7,500 to 5,000 B.C.E., wild fowl were domesticated in Southeast Asia and stewed chicken appeared in accounts of that period from China, West Africa and the Middle East. From the Middle East, the chicken made its way to ancient Egypt where its image adorned Pharaohs' tombs and its meat fed the slaves building the pyramids.
From Egypt, chicken spread its wings to Greece, the rest of the Mediterranean and then on to the British Isles. The type of fried chicken favored in the U.S. may have been imported by Scottish settlers to America, whose citizens favored pan-frying chicken as opposed to boiling or roasting it the way the English did.
However, as an Atlantic article put it, "While we can no longer be sure whether it was African slaves or Southerners of European descent who first decided to bread and fry these stringy yardbirds, we do know that West Africans have a tradition of frying food in hot oil, and that fried chicken as we know it today originated in the South."
2. The American South Perfected It
The first recipe for fried chicken in the U.S. appeared in a book called "The Virginia Housewife, Or Methodical Cook" published in 1825. This was written by Mary Randolph, who ran a boarding house, and whose brother was married to Thomas Jefferson's daughter. In fact, Randolph's book is considered by many to be the first cookbook ever published in America, and the inclusion of a fried chicken recipe says something about the dish's place in the culinary landscape of the country. Her recipe would be familiar to cooks today and involves dredging a cut-up bird in flour, sprinkling it with some salt and deep-frying the pieces in lard.
Before World War II, fried chicken was a special occasion dish because the meat was not that cheap and it was laborious to cook. After butchering the chicken and singing out the feathers, you had to cut up the chicken and stand over the stove as you fried it. The dish wasn't often seen in restaurants either.
3. Segregation Helped it to Flourish
Slave codes in the South forbade enslaved people from owning hogs or cattle but allowed them chickens, as those animals were considered too insignificant to ban. That, coupled with the fact that the bird was tasty, made it a favorite for slaves — as well as the plantation masters for whom they cooked.
But unfortunately, eating fried chicken became associated with ugly racial stereotypes. In the 19th century one writer noted, that "were the negro to be cut off from chickens he would probably pine and die." A scene in the 1915 racist film "Birth of a Nation" showed the "dangers" of having black elected officials by portraying them acting rowdy and greedily eating fried chicken.
However, fried chicken also provided a way of improving one's lot. During and after the Civil War, African-American women in Gordonsville, Virginia often sold fried chicken and other foods to passengers on trains as a way of earning money. In fact Gordonsville became known as the "Fried Chicken Capital of the World."
Jim Crow laws in the South prevented African-Americans from eating in most restaurants before the 1960s. So they often carried fried chicken in a shoeboxes lined with waxed paper when traveling. Fried chicken didn't need refrigeration so it was good to carry on a long trip whether by train or car.
4. Colonel Sanders Was No Overnight Success
Harland Sanders had done time as a tire salesman, gas station owner and soldier (the "colonel" was an honorary title from the Kentucky governor in 1936), among many other jobs, before he came up with a genius method for cooking fried chicken quickly. This involved using a pressure cooker and a secret blend of seasonings. He sold the dish at a restaurant he opened in Corbin, Kentucky — but it didn't catch on.