Fried Chicken with a Side of Tears

Minimalism and organization expert, Marie Kondo usually tells her clients to choose to keep items that "spark joy," upon further investigation she says what she actually means is to keep things that conjure deep emotion. When I share recipes and the stories that surround them, that is what I aim to do—share recipes that conjure emotions.

This recipe does just that.

Not Particularly A Fave

I have never been a chicken lover. It is absolutely my meat of last resort. Usually, if someone calls me and I’m cooking chicken, they know it’s the last thing I had in my freezer or it was requested by the family.

Over the last year or so, I’ve cooked less and less meat. Therefore, it has been very easy to relegate chicken to chicken and chips from the local fast food shops or a store bought rotisserie.

Lately, I’ve been contemplating making it — Fried Chicken — again because my daughter is obsessed with it. However, I know she has never had it homemade.

Which is cringe-worthy at best and shameful at worst.

Peer Pressure

When I was growing up, we didn’t eat fast food in my house. In fact, I did not have McDonald’s until I was eleven years old.

By that time, it certainly paled in comparison to the homemade burgers or fried chicken and chips that my mom and granny made for us as Friday and Saturday night treats.

My daughter’s introduction to fast food came as a result of “Friday lunch” at preschool.

The school offers parents the opportunity to pay for their kids to receive a fast food lunch on Friday.

You can opt out. And even though I was initially fundamentally opposed to it, which parent wants their kid to be left out?

Not me.

So we usually allow her to partake in the chicken and chips or pizza.

It was a much less controlled introduction to these foods than I would’ve liked but sometimes that’s how it is.

Made with love

There is something magical about eating food that was specifically made with you in mind.

The love that shines through in the preparation makes the food taste otherworldly.

I want my daughter to feel and taste that in one of her favorite meals.

I just fear that I am incapable of doing so with Fried Chicken because mine, has for many years, come with a side of tears.

The original recipe

Growing up, my mom would make her Fried Chicken with a lemony kick. It’s a taste that I always long for when I take the first bite of any fried chicken. That desire is often left unfulfilled.

I’ve recreated my mother’s fried chicken maybe three times in my life.

I only have a vivid recollection of one of those days.

It was Mother’s Day weekend in Capetown, South Africa. I was studying there. It was the first time there’d been that much distance between my family and myself on a holiday. I was struggling.

So I did what I usually do when I’m struggling. I cooked a feast. Fried chicken, pasta salad, mashed potatoes, green salad with homemade dressing and rice and peas.

I went to the Pick n Pay in Rondebosch to gather my things. I’m still fascinated by that grocery because it’s the only one I’ve been to where one can purchase electricity credit just like one would phone credit. My mind was blown LOL!

I had my list…

Ingredients for Mommy’s Fried Chicken

• A family pack of chicken
• 1.5 cups of All purpose flour
• Trini Green seasoning (scallion, culantro/chadon beni or cilantro-if that’s all there is, garlic, onion, pimento pepper, celery leaves, and thyme ground /blended into a paste of sorts)
• 2 limes
• 1 lemon
• 1 cup of distilled white vinegar
• Garlic powder
• Adobo/Sazon (seasoning mix)
• Cayenne pepper
• Black pepper
• Ketchup
• Salt
• Vegetable oil

I started off by washing my chicken. Again, let’s not debate, I always wash my meat and with poultry, it's more intense.

I use a stainless steel bowl, fill it with water and a cap full of distilled vinegar (a couple of tablespoons of kosher salt can be used if there’s no vinegar).

I then submerged my chicken in the water. Using one half of a lime (or as much as needed) I covered each piece with a bit lime. The acidity from the vinegar and lime can start to cook the meat. So I drained the water from the bowl and rinsed the chicken in fresh water before taking a knife and cleaning off any extraneous bits of fat under the skin.

This is a ritual I do before making any chicken dish. Some dishes call for the removal of the skin.

Perhaps all of that drama is why chicken has never been amongst my favorite meats. It just needs a bit too much effort.

Once my chicken was properly cleaned and washed, I pricked it gently with a fork so it would absorb the forthcoming seasoning.

My all-purpose Trini green seasoning, dry seasonings, a splash of ketchup and dash of soy sauce along with the juice of one lemon all went into the bowl with my chicken. I massaged the seasoning in with my hands and set the bowl aside.

Note: I disinfect my sink at all stages. I use warm vinegar, baking soda and bleach to wipe out the sink. I also wash my seasoning bowl thoroughly with hot water and soap after removing the chicken.

As my meat rested, I prepared the flour that would coat it and heated a large pot of oil on the stove for frying.

Into the flour, I added a few spoons of garlic powder, cayenne, and adobo with a pinch of sugar and salt. The sugar balances the other spices.

I lived on a large compound in a nine-bedroom house with three refrigerators and a six burner stove.

As I used a fork to combine my spices and flour, my roommates popped in and out. Other American friends dropped by to have lunch with me. We filled the kitchen with our laughter and conversation of which I was only partly in tuned.

I had no credit on my mobile and desperately wanted to hear my mom and granny’s voices for Mother’s Day.

It was a rough week and I had already had an “I hate Africa moment” interrupted by rolling power cuts. I could not send my email outlining my challenges to my sister and “boyfriend.” I left the computer lab in a rage.

I made the walk to the compound muttering to myself and cursing Africa — all of her countries and every person I passed. This was just two days before Mother’s Day. My mood had not changed much by the time I’d commenced frying the chicken.

Using the moisture of the seasoning to properly adhere the flour to the chicken skin, I covered each piece of my family pack evenly with the seasoned flour. Making sure to lightly shake off any excess.

I had carefully watched my mom do this method at least 500 times.

I dipped one piece down into the preheated oil to test it. It seemed to be frying well so I added just two more as so not to crowd the pot and slow the cooking process down.

I repeated this over and over until all of my chicken was safely lying on a bed of paper towel.

I took a bite of one of those pieces of chicken and there it was, that lemony kick…

Homesick

Perhaps, I thought the taste of my mommy’s fried chicken would somehow be a salve on the wound of my homesickness. I was wrong!

I excused myself because, with that first taste, all of my tears came rushing out. It started with one trickle and I knew myself well enough then to make my exit.

At first, I thought I’d just excuse myself to the restroom and collect myself — pick up all my emotions and shove them deep down where they are supposed to live. However, before long I found myself at the corner of our street, marching toward a pay phone with a bag of scrounged coins. I don’t know if the tears had propelled me out of the door or the need to talk to my family but nevertheless, I was on my way.

I spent fifteen minutes explaining the feast I’d prepared to granny and listening to her tell me what my mom had cooked for Mother’s Day. We always talked about food first!

I spoke to my mom and reassured her that I had not yet “put a bone through my nose” (little did she know, it was on the horizon because I loathe people telling me what to do with my body…in fact if memory serves, I pierced my nose the next week).

The tears had subsided. My face was still wet, I still missed them, but I could go back and face my guests.

All gathered around the table, chattering away, none of my friends seemed to notice I’d slipped away. It’s likely they did but decided not to confront me.

A dodged bullet of embarrassment that was much appreciated.

Full of embarrassment

It was, however, not the first time that Fried Chicken was the catalyst for an embarrassing moment for me.

In my young and dumb days, I indulged in a situation-ship with a young man with whom I thought I was in love.

He was my first and the soul tie that came with that held me close to him far beyond our expiration date.

He was the first African American guy that I ever dated. As a first-generation Caribbean-American young woman growing up in Brooklyn, NY, it was quite easy to avoid cultural clashes and stick to dating Caribbean and African guys.

I was no heavy dater anyways. I’d always been resistant to forming romantic bonds with men because deep down I knew that I had a big hole where a father and brother should be. I knew that if I unlocked the gate to that hole and got hurt, it would take me ages to heal.

One thing about me is that I have always been keenly self-aware. On my eighteenth birthday, I made a promise to myself to be more open and as God or the Universe would have it, I met this fool a few short months later.

He could tell I was open…boy, was I open.

Anyway, after a few months or maybe even a year of dating long distance, traveling to each other’s universities, and meeting up in Brooklyn on school breaks, he wanted me to meet his mother.

Now I should say that relations between African American and Caribbean/African people in Brooklyn have been contentious since forever.

I suppose I should not have been surprised by the chilly reception I received from his mother.

He introduced us, I said “good evening.” and she looked me up and down. I was about 75 lbs with ridiculously huge breasts and a head full of two-toned locks that danced across my shoulders.

“Can she even fry chicken?”

Who Can't Fry Chicken?

Is what I thought and as my mom echoed the words, I shook my head as if to say “right!”

I was so embarrassed that day. I cried on my way home.

I had never had anyone’s parent look at me with such disdain. Yet still, my longing for him to love me as I loved him, my need for his mother to like me so that maybe that would be possible left me standing there — in their living room — smiling.

Even after she’d walked away.

When I recounted the story to my mom, she said what my brain was telling me:

“Leave that lady and her raggedy son alone!”

I wish I’d listened. I would have saved myself five good years and a world of hurt. I don’t think I ever saw that lady again after that.

It didn’t stop the longing though…

Unfulfilled desire

Just like when I bite into any piece of Fried Chicken and don’t get the zesty kick of my mom’s, the longing of being home with my family or the longing to be loved by a rude woman’s raggedy son didn’t actually dissipate when I made, confirmed I could make, or ate Fried Chicken.

It is a dish that has left me feeling less than satiated in my adulthood.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just have my mom make her Fried Chicken for my daughter the next time we visit. Save myself the headache!

Here’s hoping that her relationship with Fried Chicken will be made otherworldly by her granny’s love.