“I saw what they did to the pasty, mate, but I’d only get angry if they tried to tax the chicken.”
Gary and Luther are queueing stoically inside Favorite Fried Chicken for the same lunch they’ve eaten for the past 12 working days since they began work on a building site in Stockwell, South London. “He has the spicy wings and chips. I have the chicken burger and chips,” Gary informs me. “I know there’s a KFC down the road, but when you’re hungry for chicken, you just come to the first place you can find . . .”
Kentucky Fried Chicken, one of the most popular fast food franchises in the world, celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, but from the number of copycat chicken shacks found populating Britain’s urban high streets, it seems that Gary and Luther represent a significant number of Britons for whom proximity is the overriding factor when choosing where to satiate their appetite for “Southern fried” food.
So slavishly do many of these companies imitate KFC’s bucket blueprint — many simply substituting another American state to create a literal A-to-ZFC of fried chicken outlets — that I’m surprised the company hasn’t been more litigious in its defence of the brand created by the former streetcar conductor and insurance salesman Harland “Colonel” Sanders.
“If they got too close to our name then of course we would,” says Martin Shuker, KFC’s UK chief executive, when I call him to ask about his rivals. “I’m constantly visiting all the competition, from coffee shops to other chicken outlets.” But, he adds, “I just don’t think anyone has come close to replicating the KFC taste.”
It’s a bold claim. Then again, KFC is very protective of the 11 secret herbs and spices it uses. The mix, distributed to every store on the planet, is made in two parts by two separate US companies and, as a final safeguard, a computer processing system is used to standardise the blending of them to ensure neither has the complete recipe.
Despite numerous supposed “leaked” copies of the recipe on the internet, in 2005 the former KFC president Gregg Dedrick confidently claimed to have “the Holy Grail locked up in a safe place”, adding ominously: “Anyone divulging it might incur the ‘curse of the Colonel’.”
So are any of KFC’s rivals risking the wrath of the Colonel’s wraith by successfully copying the creation that he perfected in the kitchen of his petrol station in Corbin, Kentucky, in 1930? I decided to work my way through the alphabet of imitators to find out . . .
Day one
Within a 20-minute walk of my flat in Stockwell, I tick off six letters of the alphabet. The queue at the first, Biggz Diner (BD), is long and comprises a healthy cross-section of people, from Essex builders to women in burkas.
The food is less so — while the two chicken pieces look presentable and have plenty of meat on them, they’re as chewy as care-home mattresses. While I try to wash them down with a pineapple juice, an angry local remonstrates with the Times photographer, protesting loudly: “My lunch is my business.”
I expected my tolerance of chicken, and salt, and my ability to withstand the atmosphere of foetid cooking oil to be tested to the limits by this exercise, but I hadn’t fully considered its social implications.
Before even entering the nearby Tennessee Fried Chicken (TFC), I’m offered a side order of “top weed” by a man carrying a cricket bat in a carrier bag. Once inside, I overhear the depressing last line of an anecdote told by a morbidly obese man: “Of course, I’ve eaten about a million chips since then.” The grease on the chicken burger I’m subsequently served could deep-fry an iPad.
Fortunately, a lemon-scented sachet is provided with my meal at Chicken Cottage (CC), which temporarily at least makes me forget about its retina-burning interior and what appears to be a crack dealers’ convention going on outside. Meanwhile, at Dallas Chicken and Ribs (DCR), the food is adequate but the experience is slightly marred by the sight of a woman vomiting into a bin outside.
By contrast, Favorite Fried Chicken (FFC) in Vauxhall has the atmosphere of an Edward Hopper painting, the surreal sense of isolation exacerbated when my server yawns over my wrinkly wings. The illusion, though, is punctured when a small child asks its emotional mother for an extra portion of chips. She responds with a curt “F*** off.” I leave my third chicken wing on the counter.
By the time I get to J J Chicken Express (JJCE), I have the sensation that I myself have spent the night sweating under a heat lamp with only violent pensioners and school kids for company. I manage half a piece of a wing that seems to have been cooked to the point where its bones turn to Play-Doh.
Day two
My conviction that South London is the fried chicken capital of the world is cemented at three further premises. The first, Chicken Valley (CV) in Vauxhall, looks promising; clearly not modelled on the usual plastic fast food interior, it has black leather chairs and wooden tables, and a squeaky-clean floor. I’m served some spicy chicken pieces, the aftertaste of which lingers so strongly that the chemist seems visibly to recoil when I panic-buy Listerine afterwards.
At Perfect Fried Chicken (PFC), a deserted yet hygienically immaculate store in Waterloo, it’s almost a relief to be presented with four bland but perfectly edible chicken wings. This is the chicken equivalent of listening to David Gray on an iPod while walking through Homebase.
After two days, it’s already clear to me that successfully emulating the Sanders style is no easy matter. In fact, after the Colonel sold the franchise for $2 million in 1964, he was even dismissive of the standards of the global chain that grew out of his business, referring in 1976 to KFC gravy as “wallpaper paste”.
“It’s important to remember that Kentucky Fried Chicken was something that the Colonel literally built with his own hands,” says Rick Maynard diplomatically, when I call Yum!, KFC’s parent company in the United States. The manager of public relations tells me the Cold War with the Colonel had defrosted by the time he died at the age of 90 in 1980.
“When he finally reached an age where he sold his company, he did so because he realised it was just too big for him to handle. However, that didn’t make it any easier for him to surrender control of his recipe, his brand, his life’s work — to a corporation.”
Day three
I wake up with my heart beating at the speed of a Dutch gabba techno track. Restraining the urge for natural yoghurt, I set off for the City. Quality Fried Chicken (QFC) in Aldgate has a line of shamefaced businessmen queueing up for burgers, some indulging in a guilty pleasure, others perhaps silently cursing the state of the economy.
I manage two bites of a squidgy chicken wing before fleeing to a nearby corner shop, where I buy an apple. It is probably the most refreshing piece of fruit I have ever eaten. I head north to Seven Sisters, where I eat three excellently crunchy and tangy chicken pieces at Chicken Excel (I know it’s not XFC but it’s the closest I can find). Through the window of the shop, I spot a septuagenarian man throwing his own shoes into the road.
The most memorable thing about Mississippi Fried Chicken (MFC) in Islington is that its chips are so soggy that bootleg Viagra wouldn’t revive them. The chicken wings I later crunch on at Golden Fried Chicken (GFC) are so spicy that a friend later notes that I smell like the inside of a student microwave. On the way home, I have three seats to myself in an otherwise packed Tube carriage.
Day four
The feeling of having dropped several social classes is accentuated by waiting outside Hollywood Fried Chicken (HFC) in Fulham for it to open. The chicken is tougher than a Siberian cobalt miner but the irony of being served by a man who looks suspiciously like my school careers adviser gives me a fresh burst of stamina.
The wings at Legends Fried Chicken (LFC) in Wimbledon are easier to digest, despite being fried in oil that smelled as if it had been serving the public longer than Tony Benn.
“I’m in here most days — the queues at KFC are too long,” says Mohammed, whom I join for a chicken burger in Barnet at Euro Fried Chicken (EFC), where the bap tastes of bicycle inner tube. I neck aspirin en route to Yankees Fried Chicken (YFC), in Crouch End, where the smiling staff do a decent chicken burger, although it’s fried to the colour of Irn-Bru.
“We’re starving,” says one of a gaggle of girls who look as if they’ve just finished a photo shoot for a men’s magazine, and are busy shoving boxes of chicken into their bags. “This is the cheapest place I know of,” says another who, in a moment of human kindness, offers me a French fry.
Having suppressed the urge to retch on the bus to Alexandra Palace, I’m rewarded with two top-notch wings at Kansas Fried Chicken (KFC). I’m genuinely upset when I trip on the pavement outside and drop one. To compound my misery, an old woman laughs at me. I feel very alone.
The late-night wings at Royal Fried Chicken (RFC) in Tottenham don’t raise my mood, and leave me wondering what claim it can make to its regal title. My reverie is broken by the number of bones in the chicken, which seems as if it was born with an extra ribcage.
Day five
The feeling of additive-induced depression is mildly mollified by the retro space-age logo of Ultimate Fried Chicken (UFC) in Forest Gate, reminiscent of Nasa’s emblem. The chicken burger tastes as if it could have been developed for space travel too, with a mouth-feel like hot gravel.
As I chew, I reflect on the fact that KFC came perilously close to having the markedly less saleable name of UFC, after the Colonel sold his first franchise to Pete Harman in 1952. Even though it was in Salt Lake City, Harman later claimed in his book Secret Recipe that he had a hunch that Utah Fried Chicken didn’t have a ring to it.
“I’ve never been to Kentucky, but Kentucky to me means Southern hospitality and good food,” he remarked to a local sign painter, Don Anderson. “Why not call it Kentucky Fried Chicken instead, then,” replied Anderson. “I’ll be daggoned,” was the reputed response of Sanders when he first saw the sign.
My plans to eat at Southern Fried Chicken (SFC) in Leyton are thwarted when a police car pulls up to confront a gang just as I approach the doors; probably just as well, given the aroma of mouldering dog engulfing the street.
I manage to eradicate the olfactory memory at New Perfect Fried Chicken (NPFC) in Mile End by adopting a scorched earth policy similar to that employed by the Red Army on the Eastern Front — the chilli sauce on my chicken doner kebab is like a flame thrower on my nasal passages.
Day six
Awake from a dream involving chickens the size of horses. The feeling of gloom as I approach Al-Halal Fried Chicken (AHFC) in Shadwell instantly dissipates with the first taste of some gorgeously buttery, golden fried chicken. The feeling of utter redemption continues with a visit to Reema Indian and Fried Chicken (RIFC) in Southwark.
“KFC is way too bland,” says Sanjay, sitting next to me on my early evening visit. “The spice here is just ... well ... proper.”
He’s right. The pieces here are fresh, succulent and coated with superbly tangy spice that makes my mouth tingle as if a million tiny toothpicks are piercing my tongue. This is a good thing.
A trek from here out to Acton in West London provides a more familiar experience. Western Fried Chicken and Ribs (WFCR) serves lukewarm chicken amid a yellow and red colour scheme so garish that I feel I’m on the set of a 1980s Saturday morning kids’ TV show.
Day seven
I drag my fat-saturated carcass to Plumstead for a tasty chicken burger at Zenith Fried Chicken (ZFC) — albeit in a bap that has a spongy texture redolent of a towel left on the floor in the changing rooms of a municipal swimming pool.
I’ve ticked most of the letters of the alphabet on my list, but I have yet to visit an OFC. The only one I can find on the internet is outside the M25. It’s in Beijing. I assume the owners of Obama Fried Chicken (OFC) have their fingers crossed that they won’t have to rebrand themselves as Gingrich Fried Chicken later this year.
After checking out its competitors, it is time to return to the source: an authentic KFC in Brixton. The air of professionalism, the comfort of the seats and the lack of the usual Neolithic Age cooking oil stench put it in a league apart from most of its imitators; the chicken pieces are less overpoweringly flavoursome and the crispy skin is, compared to most of what I’d eaten, a pleasure akin to cracking bubble wrap with your teeth.
The heaving queues here seem to testify one thing: Dave and George surely got it wrong when they decided to tax the pasty. To truly profit from the British obsession with fast food they should have added duty to takeaway spicy chicken wings.
Although, given the strength of feelings of people like Gary and Luther, could you really blame them for chickening out?
