Table Talk

By Lily Toad

October 16, 2007 3:23 PM | Link to this

Ya gotta have a cast iron skillet to fry chicken.

By Rodney

October 16, 2007 4:19 PM | Link to this

*Is a piece of Southern culture in danger of being lost?”

Not in my kitchen. I have my Grandmother’s cast iron skillet that she cooked everything from fried chicken to cornbread in.

There is, I think, a taste differential between skillet chicken and deep fried chicken. I think it has to do with the chicken actually sitting on the bottom of the skillet, creating that beautiful charred crust, rather than floating in a deep pool of grease. There’s some French name for that, “frond” or something, but it escapes me at the moment.

Not that there’s anything wrong with either method - I’ve never turned either down. :)

But I think the contact with the frying surface helps to create a genuinely different taste.

By FCM

October 16, 2007 5:46 PM | Link to this

Try Cracker Barrel on Sunday….Buttermilk battered fried chicken….YUM! Of course since I come from southern cooks I have the Lodge Skillets (nice and black) and can make my own too.

My grandfather used to let only the grandchildren watch him make chicken. It is the best you would have ever put in your mouth. He went on back in 1975 so that was the last of his special recipe….however I have found I make one that doesn’t get complaints.

The real secret is in the white gravy. I make it better than my Mom did. In fact when I go to her house it is usually my job to make gravy whatever kind we need.

By HarlanS

October 17, 2007 8:32 AM | Link to this

Not sure if they pan fry it or not, but the Colonnade has fried chicken that’s pretty hard to beat.

By fall Line

October 17, 2007 8:46 AM | Link to this

All Southern culture is in danger of being lost. If it’s not the political correctness police, it’s the food police. Southerners watch themselves being portrayed on television as backward and slow, and yet they continue to watch those programs. This newspaper no longer “Covers Dixie like the Dew” because someone from outside the south has determined that “Dixie” is an unacceptable word in our language. Little by little, our heritage is being taken away from us because we let them do it. If you don’t stand up, you deserve what you get.

By DLA

October 17, 2007 9:00 AM | Link to this

I agree with fall Line, we’re being “bred” out or transplant overran. I was at a 9 & 10 yr old football game this weekend, OMGootness all the mom’s & dad’s shouting, “c’mon you GUYS” while my buddy & I, both southerners, followed it with, C’MON Y’ALL!!!!! as they turned and looked at us like we just kicked a cat. Gone are the days of “get over yonder, bless your heart, he dont know no better, he comes from good people, i aint got no idey,” we’re losing our language, our foods, our identity. Everyone else forces their culture on US but when Southerners try to keep our culture we’re just racist rednecks. I gotta go get me some fried corn & pintos, see ya.

By One

October 17, 2007 9:10 AM | Link to this

lol @ DLA, y’all have a point! It’s funny because I’m thirty-something, a native Atlantan, and I say a lot of those old skool sayings. People will look at me kinda c**-eyed when I do, and it doesn’t help that I don’t have a “southern twang”. But I always tell ‘em, I have the old skool flava with a new skool twist!!! Plus, I’ve always been an old soul!!

By Stan

October 17, 2007 10:00 AM | Link to this

Y’all make some good points about us Southerners losing our culture. Though I don’t have much of a drawl, it shows up as soon as I get around someone that does.

On topic, I don’t fry much at home but that’s mostly due to I don’t know what to do with the used oil. Anyone got any tips on how to dispose of it?

By Leigh

October 17, 2007 10:40 AM | Link to this

There is wonderful pan fried chicken served at Son’s on Dekalb Ave, right by the MARTA station (Edgewood/Candler park) Lyn(sp) Story learned how from his daddy Deacon Burton. Son’s still uses the same black iron skillets his daddy did. It is the best fried chicken ever.

By FCM

October 17, 2007 12:16 PM | Link to this

One hehe. I always tell them not to believe what they see on TV MOST of us Southerns have an education….(to explain the no accent but ‘cloquiel’ sayings).

My drawl is more apparent when I am t-i-r-e-d.

By FCM

October 17, 2007 12:21 PM | Link to this

Stan strain the oil through a coffee filter, put it in an airtight crock in fridge…can be reused in pans as needed.

By Stan

October 17, 2007 12:36 PM | Link to this

Thanks FCM

By Paul

October 17, 2007 1:16 PM | Link to this

I was remembering Deacon Burton’s the other day. I am glad to here his son is carrying on. Deacon Burton would take your chicken right out of the pan, put it on your plate, look at you, and call out the price of your plate like he calculated the value of every delectable morsel. Where are other lost wonders of southern food like Margarete’s in Milledgeville and Praises in Carrollton where the collards are salty and sweet and you can get fried chiterlings and sweet tea if you care.

By Sheri

October 17, 2007 2:52 PM | Link to this

Wish I were there for your birthday.. Love you, Chuck

By Jerry Deriso

October 17, 2007 3:36 PM | Link to this

I don’t depend on restaurants to preserve my Southern culture, I do it my self. I fry chicken the way my father did, using his iron skillet and about 1/2 inch of shortening. Besides, a person who depends on restasurant cooking for Southern fried chicken probably doesn’t know the difference in the chicken anyhow.

By Janet from Tucson

October 17, 2007 5:51 PM | Link to this

You can take the girl out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the girl. I fry in a 12’ cast iron skillet and Crisco. My daughter brings her friends in and they are wowed whether they are from Minnesota, Mississippi, or Arizona. They just don’t get it that way. Except the Mississippi boys, of course. I use all the phrases I grew up with and I use “y’all” and translate proudly.

By Charles

October 18, 2007 10:37 AM | Link to this

Good fried chicken is hard work at home -Son’s Place is good for fried chicken but he has some competetion in Big Daddy’s. There’s one on Cascade - they have a wing dinner (3-4 huge) wings and 2 veggies of your choice - WOW!! Given my most recent cholesterol reading I know what Im talking about. Best ever - fresh, hot Popeyes :)

By Steven

October 19, 2007 3:36 PM | Link to this

Son’s is great, as was the Deacon before him. Watershed on Tuesday nights is another place that serves up the real deal. RIP, Edna.

To the person who had the gall to recommend Cracker Barrel in a thread on the death of Southern cooking: FOR SHAME.

By Becky Barrett

October 23, 2007 4:49 PM | Link to this

I was given a deep fryer in the past year, but only use it for fish. The fried chicken is still in the cast iron skillet; you have to have the pan drippings to make the milk gravy! I personally think the chicken itself tastes better, as another poster put it, when it has sat on the bottom of the pan to get a little darker & crispier. Southern culture is dying out because a lot of the next generation don’t really cook. My son was interested & learned but my daughter just doesn’t like to cook.

Cooking a full meal with the trimmings for supper each night is somewhat of a tradition to me. I consider it part of the Southern culture.