nutellaisevil: food

Food is such a particular thing.

I was thinking about this yesterday afternoon, as I destroyed a delicious meal at Beasley’s Chicken + Honey.

I had a fried chicken biscuit. It sounds simple, and it was, but the execution was impressive. The biscuit itself was fat and crusty, smeared with a honey dijon mustard spread that was just sweet enough. The fried chicken had a thick, crackling crust- so loud and percussive that I swear you could hear my bites from across the room. The pickled green tomato was perfectly firm and a wonderful, delicately pungent accompaniment to the rich, salty fried chicken. Add to all that a side of macaroni and pimento cheese- exactly what it sounds like, and even better than you can imagine- and you have the makings of a nearly perfect meal.

They do an excellent job. If you like fried chicken, you’ve probably already been there and enjoyed yourself. (If you haven’t, you need to remedy that situation right now, honey.)

And yet, when I described it later to a friend, all I could muster was a, “Yeah, it was really good. But…”

My “but” has nothing to so with the skill of the fine staff at Beasley’s or their executive chef and owner, Ashley Christensen. It has everything to do with the fact that this particular food, fried chicken, is one that I am very, very particular about.

I grew up eating fried chicken almost every Sunday. I lived with my great-grandparents for much of my childhood, and Sunday dinner was a weekly occurrence. And Sunday dinner wasn’t complete without fried chicken. No matter if she had a roast in the oven or cube steak on the stove, my great-grandmother, Rosalie- “Mama” to me- almost always made fried chicken, too. It was the last thing she cooked for the meal, so it was still warm when we sat down.

Mama’s fried chicken method was simple- buttermilk, flour, pepper, shortening, cast iron pan. Her batter was thin and her skillet was hot, and this combination resulted in a thin, dark brown crust, crispy as a fried spring roll. My grandmother Barbara and I would pull the chicken skin off our pieces as soon as we sat down to dinner (and sometimes before if we could sneak a piece) and eat it first thing, while it was almost too hot to touch. The meat underneath was always juicy and tasty, but that skin- that skin is what I remember, nearly ten years after having my last piece. That skin is what I taste when I remember Sunday dinner. That skin is what I will forever judge fried chicken by, and any other chicken will always come up lacking, not because it isn’t great, but because it isn’t just like my Mama’s.

It’s not even really about the chicken, particularly. It’s about the memory of running home from Sunday School and rushing straight to the kitchen. It’s about standing next to the stove by Mama, waiting anxiously for that first piece to come out of the pan. It’s about burning my little fingers on the drumstick- my favorite piece- savoring my first bite, that burst of chicken juice and pepper and fried goodness. It’s about listening for my Mama’s laugh as she teased me about being greedy, feeling her soft arms wrap around me for a hug, flour from her apron all over my church dress.

No other fried chicken will ever compare.

photo credit: Obligatory iPhone photo by me. Food looks a thousand times more delicious in real life.