I went by a Chick-fil-A the other day and saw the line once again wrapped around the building, an apparent fact of life for that restaurant these days. While that particular establishment seems to see the largest of the crowds, fast food joints that serve fried chicken, either as sandwiches, tenders or traditional legs and thighs, seem to be going through a moment and have been for the last several years.
The phenomenon set me thinking about why. What is suddenly different about those restaurants or those products that is driving a fried chicken renaissance?
It’s not like fried chicken as a concept is a new thing. Even Chick-fil-A itself has been around since 1946 and first in Ohio in 1977.
Not to mention, the dish has existed for a long time.
According to food historians, it may go back as far as the Roman Empire. There are also stories associated with the people of Scotland who apparently did a version of fried chicken without the seasoning. And there were West Africans who did a version that more closely resembled fricassée, or stewing chunked meat in a stock.
Then there is the contemporary understanding of fried chicken, which, after the Scottish and English immigrants settled in the southern United States, blended their methods with that of African slave cooking, likely introducing the seasoning and spices more closely linked with today’s recipes.
According to the BBC, the first widely accepted printed recipe for fried chicken appeared in 1824 in the first regional American cookbook, The Virginia House-Wife, by Mary Randolph, a white woman from a slaveholding family and a distant relative of Thomas Jefferson.
While recipes surely existed before that, the publication standardized the process and that left customizing it by way of spices up to each cook.
Fried chicken then got a PR spin some 15 or so years ago when clever marketing people dropped the word “fried” from menus and replaced it with “crispy” in a sneaky sleight-of-hand that dressed the dish up as perhaps not as overtly unhealthy as previously thought.
But why now? What happened in the last several years that put fried chicken back on the map?
It turns out, this isn’t the first time that question has been asked and while I searched for an answer, I found not all chicken restaurants are created equal.
In fact, Chick-fil-A is the clear winner, regularly ranking in the top five in the U.S.
A study concluded in 2022 that the restaurant had, on average, 4.74 cars in its drive-thru compared to 2.76 in other chains but actually had the fastest time at just one minute and 47 seconds. That is likely due to changes the restaurant made in operation after consistently being listed as the slowest drive-thru several years in a row. So perhaps people appreciate a restaurant that adjusts and improves its customer’s experience.
For those customers, perhaps it’s also the quality of food. According to the restaurant, the company works hard to responsibly source its ingredients. The chicken alone is “real, whole, boneless breast of chicken with no added fillers, steroids or hormones” and sourced from farms in the U.S., according to the website.
It also could be the social-political element. Customers know, much to their chagrin, that the restaurant is closed on Sundays, which has long been associated with its Christian values, as its website states its founder saw, “the importance of closing on Sundays so that he and his employees could set aside one day to rest, enjoy time with their families and loved ones or worship if they choose.” The company also defines its “corporate purpose” as glorifying God “by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”
That all may explain Chick-fil-A’s popularity, but it doesn’t explain fried chicken love overall.
Perhaps it’s just a matter of cost. According to the USDA, Americans consume twice as much chicken as beef, which is often attributed to the price of each, so it could be that it’s the cheaper option in these expensive times. But over the last couple of years, at times, chicken prices have risen higher than beef. Even then, chicken remained a top seller. It could be the health associations as chicken is often at the top of list for the healthiest meat. But that doesn’t explain the breaded version, which seasons, dredges and dunks the meat in hot, artery-clogging oil.
Maybe it just tastes too good not to have or that it’s the better option on a Tuesday night. Maybe there is no clear answer to that question. Maybe it’s just the trend of the decade and will change tomorrow. If you have any ideas, let me know. I’ll be in line at Chick-fil-A.
-Michael Williamson is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.