Post by BBQ Butcher on Feb 7, 2015 5:51:11 GMT -5
Fried chicken
People have been frying all sorts of foods (meat, bread, vegetables) since ancient times. This fuel-efficient cooking method had several advantages, one of which was portability. Dredging meat with flour and spices before cooking tenderized the item and enhanced its flavor. Medieval European cooks built on this concept, creating fricassee. Fricassee is not fried, but simmered in butter and served with creamy sauce. In the United States, fried chicken is traditionally considered a Southern dish. Maryland-style fried chicken is traditionally served with gravy, reminiscent of fricassee. Batter-fried chicken appears to be a gift from northern European cuisine. Chicken is a global food; recipes vary according to time, culture and cuisine.
What's the difference between fried and deep fried?
The trouble with researching the history of deep fried food (items cooked by total immersion in fat) is the term. Webster's New Unabridged Dictionary traces the term "deep fry" in print only to the 1930s. Prior to that, evidence regarding deep frying must be culled from a careful examination of instructions provided in cooking texts. References to boiling lard and notes on draining sometimes indicate the item was to be deep fried.
Food historians tell us one of the first foods known to be deep fried are fritters. Apicius provides recipes for sweet and savory fritters in his ancient Roman cooking text. Unfortunately, he does not describe in detail the method used for cooking them. This is not uncommon in early texts; it was assumed the cook already possessed this knowledge. Medieval texts contain a wide selection of fritter recipes. The Dutch were are said to have perfected this recipe, expanding it to crullers and doughnuts. Culinary evidence confirms these items were "deep fried."
Mrs. D. A. Lincoln in her Boston Cooking School Cook Book [1884] provides detailed instructions for deep frying, although she does not use that term. Her notes on frying.
Karen Hess' definative historic notes on fricassee and fried chicken can be found in her transcription of Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, [Columbia University Press:New York] 1981 (p. 40-44).
Southern fried chicken
"Southern fried chicken
Chicken parts that are floured or battered and then fried in hot fat. The term southern fried' first appeared in print in 1925...Southerners were not the first people in the world to fry chickens, of course. Almost every country has its own version, from Vietnam's Ga Xao to Italy's pollo fritto and Austria's Weiner Backhendl, and numerous fricassees fill the cookbooks of Europe. And fried chicken did not become particularly popular in the northern United States until well into the nineteenth century...The Scottish, who enjoyed frying their chickens rather than boiling or baking them as the English did, may have brought the method with them when they settled the South. The efficient and simple cooking process was very well adapted to the plantation life of the southern African-American slaves, who were often allowed to raise their own chickens. The idea of making a sauce to go with fried chicken must have occurred early on, at least in Maryland, where such a match came to be known as "Maryland fried chicken." By 1878 a dish by this name was listed on the menu of the Grand Union hotel in Saratoga, New York..."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 305-6)
[NOTE: this book has much more information than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian to help you find a copy]
"Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century descriptions of colonial foodways ignored the chicken for the most part. In the earliest manuscripts to enter America there are, of course, chicken recipes for roasts, stews, and pies, and none other than Governor William Byrd II was dining on the iconic southern dish of fried chicken at his Virginia plantation by 1709..." ---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 226)
People have been frying all sorts of foods (meat, bread, vegetables) since ancient times. This fuel-efficient cooking method had several advantages, one of which was portability. Dredging meat with flour and spices before cooking tenderized the item and enhanced its flavor. Medieval European cooks built on this concept, creating fricassee. Fricassee is not fried, but simmered in butter and served with creamy sauce. In the United States, fried chicken is traditionally considered a Southern dish. Maryland-style fried chicken is traditionally served with gravy, reminiscent of fricassee. Batter-fried chicken appears to be a gift from northern European cuisine. Chicken is a global food; recipes vary according to time, culture and cuisine.
What's the difference between fried and deep fried?
The trouble with researching the history of deep fried food (items cooked by total immersion in fat) is the term. Webster's New Unabridged Dictionary traces the term "deep fry" in print only to the 1930s. Prior to that, evidence regarding deep frying must be culled from a careful examination of instructions provided in cooking texts. References to boiling lard and notes on draining sometimes indicate the item was to be deep fried.
Food historians tell us one of the first foods known to be deep fried are fritters. Apicius provides recipes for sweet and savory fritters in his ancient Roman cooking text. Unfortunately, he does not describe in detail the method used for cooking them. This is not uncommon in early texts; it was assumed the cook already possessed this knowledge. Medieval texts contain a wide selection of fritter recipes. The Dutch were are said to have perfected this recipe, expanding it to crullers and doughnuts. Culinary evidence confirms these items were "deep fried."
Mrs. D. A. Lincoln in her Boston Cooking School Cook Book [1884] provides detailed instructions for deep frying, although she does not use that term. Her notes on frying.
Karen Hess' definative historic notes on fricassee and fried chicken can be found in her transcription of Martha Washington's Booke of Cookery, [Columbia University Press:New York] 1981 (p. 40-44).
Southern fried chicken
"Southern fried chicken
Chicken parts that are floured or battered and then fried in hot fat. The term southern fried' first appeared in print in 1925...Southerners were not the first people in the world to fry chickens, of course. Almost every country has its own version, from Vietnam's Ga Xao to Italy's pollo fritto and Austria's Weiner Backhendl, and numerous fricassees fill the cookbooks of Europe. And fried chicken did not become particularly popular in the northern United States until well into the nineteenth century...The Scottish, who enjoyed frying their chickens rather than boiling or baking them as the English did, may have brought the method with them when they settled the South. The efficient and simple cooking process was very well adapted to the plantation life of the southern African-American slaves, who were often allowed to raise their own chickens. The idea of making a sauce to go with fried chicken must have occurred early on, at least in Maryland, where such a match came to be known as "Maryland fried chicken." By 1878 a dish by this name was listed on the menu of the Grand Union hotel in Saratoga, New York..."
---The Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, John F. Mariani [Lebhar-Friedman:New York] 1999 (p. 305-6)
[NOTE: this book has much more information than can be paraphrased here. Ask your librarian to help you find a copy]
"Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century descriptions of colonial foodways ignored the chicken for the most part. In the earliest manuscripts to enter America there are, of course, chicken recipes for roasts, stews, and pies, and none other than Governor William Byrd II was dining on the iconic southern dish of fried chicken at his Virginia plantation by 1709..." ---Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, Andrew F. Smith editor [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2004, Volume 1 (p. 226)