Why I ain't no Southern gal

I hate fried chicken.

There. I said it. Some Southern Meemaw is rolling over in her grade right now at my pronouncement. Stoplights in Alabama have flickered. Pappy's banjo stopped twanging.

I have never really liked fried chicken but would eat it up as a kid, being a rare treat that everyone loved, right?

It doesn't excite me, no way no how. The chicken gets either so moist it drips in grease or just dusty dry. The chicken meat has no flavor, the crust just tastes like "fried".

Hubby made homemade fried chicken tonight and I was all excited- maybe homemade would be different. Maybe I could join normalcy and like fried chicken. Three bites in, I was certain that I still don't like it.

I tried to figure out why I kind of like chicken fingers. I mean, they are like fried chicken, being they are made of chicken and fried. But then I figured it out. I can drown a finger in ranch or BBQ or whatever sauce to render it flavorful (you can't do a 1:1 ratio of sauce:chicken with fried chicken) and I don't have to pick around bones and weird colored meat and stringy things. It's the sterile meat experience I'm looking for in my chicken, and for my chicken to taste like sauce, not chicken. The one thing that should not taste like chicken is chicken.

Chicken tiki masala, mole, coq au vin, Kung pao etc... Great. Chicken just as is, coated in a crust? You can have my serving.