Forgive me Harland for I Have Sinned

As the large congregation finished the final hymn, California Soul by Marlena Shaw we began moving forward ready to take the Eucharist. As I reached the head of the queue I struggled to look Father Doyle in the eye. I knew that in about 20 minutes time he'd be hearing my confession.

As I opened my mouth he placed a succulent piece of Popcorn Chicken on my tongue which I washed down with a sip of Gravy from the Prayer Bucket. For a few glorious seconds my soul was clean as the recipe coursed through my veins. Then I was back in the middle of a Sunday service at the 5th Chickentarian Church of Stone. It was a traditional church with the spire representing the Chicken's neck and head and the two wings representing, well, the wings. It often amazed my how much of our religious lexicon had pervaded everyday language but it was uplifting to be reminded of the Colonel during everyday conversations. For example, a bucket now was a common word for a rigid bag. A colonel is a very high military rank, and the list could go on.

My sense of dread came back to me as we genuflected for the lords prayer:

Our Harland Who Art In Heaven
Shallow Fried Be Thy Name
Thy Chicken Come
It Will Be Eaten
On Earth As It Is In Heaven
Give Us This Day Our Daily Zing
And Forgive Us Our Subways
As We Forgive Those Who Visit burger king
And Lead Us Not Into mc donald's
But Deliver Us Some Chicken
For Thine Is The Recipe With 11 Secret Herbs & Spices For Ever & Ever

Chick-en

Following the service there were about 10 of us loitering near the confessional. I thought again about the sermon which had had an Easter theme. Father Doyle explained why symbolically we ate chocolate eggs at easter as they represented the Chicken we all love so dearly. It should be broken into a symbolic nine pieces to represent the nine different cuts that Harland had decreed should come from the bird.

I moved forward as a lady left the confessional in floods of tears but I was still a few places from the front. By now my mind was swimming and I began to think about all the stories I had learnt in Sunday School 20 years ago. I learnt about how Harland had perfected the recipe in 7 days and the feeding of the 5000 from only one Bucket of Chicken. In another story Harland had thrown all the imitation Fried Chicken vendors from the malls in disgust.

By now I had moved up a couple of places and had begun remembering the more sinister stories we had been told as we got older.

Harland had lost his only son in an automobile wreck so that we could enjoy the recipe and that later on he was betrayed by his disciple Tim. I always thought that the most exciting times were the Chicken wars that had taken place in Eastern Europe. In Sunday School they'd told us that when they got the recipe over there it translated as "Kentucky Fried Poultry" two groups sprang up, those who thought it should be made using Chicken and those who thought Turkey. Many countries in the region had related names Turkey and Turkmenistan fervently believed the recipe should be made using Turkey. Greece and Cro(w)atia believed Chicken whilst Hungary and Eg(g)ypt often changed allegience.

The saddest tales had been of prohibition, imagine four whole years without KFC? People during this time would mix up illegal batches of spices in their bathtubs, some of which proved to be lethal. Ruthless gangsters such as Al Caponthebone ran eateasies ,but thankfully, finally the world came to its senses and the industry rapidly sprang back to life using the one good thing to come from this period. To hide the rancid taste of many recipe attempts Chicken cocktails were invented and Zing was born, it has been a favourite ever since.

By now it was my turn to enter the confessional. I silently repeated the Hail Harland:

Hail Harland
Full Of Taste
The Lord Eats With Thee
Blessed Are Thou Amongst Poultry
And Blessed Is The Food
Of Thy Dining Room
Father Of The Recipe
Pray For Us Eaters Now
And At The Hour Of Our Coronary

Chick-en

"Forgive me father for I have sinned. I have forsaken the Zinger Tower on a number of occasions now and had the Blazin' Boxmaster instead"

"And why have you done this my child?"

"Well Father, it's the Blazin'. I had to try it once like you told us so that we can understand all of Harlands good work, but the Blazin' Father, it's just so good."

"Tell me about this Blaze" he said emphasising the word blaze with obvious contempt for it.

"Well father, the Zing is still there but the Jalapeno Mayo that makes the Blazin' is just so spicy and good."

"Jalapeno Mayo?" he said desperately before he seemed to have an epiphany "Oh my Harland, I was wrong, forgive me. Only now has the prophecy been fulfilled. Don't you see? Harland said 'I will give you the spice of life', it is in the scriptures. I always thought he meant Zing."

"Father are you OK?"

"Don't you see. . . . . The Spice Of Life! Jalapeno is the spice and the mayo made with eggs is the life, eggs, dont you see? The prophecy has been fulfilled." Suddenly he fled the confessional and his words trailed off. All I heard as he ran from the building was "Do not worry child you have not sinned, I must go to Kentucky to see the Popultry. . . . . "

And with that he was gone.

Crime of the Century

Janet Street Porter the once respected broadcaster, journalist and commentator has caused worldwide controversy after recent remarks linked to KFC were seen by many as blasphemous against the Colonel and KFC. Protests have been widespread and a number of British embassies around the world have been stormed by angry mobs demanding harsh penalties.

Her comments came in an undisclosed Sunday Newspaper column (which never went to press) in which she was asked to run through her loves and hates. This respected journal refuses to transcribe her disgusting comments but has chosen instead to offer pictures of the original article which were smuggled from the Sunday Newspaper's offices before they were supposed to be shredded.

Her coarse description of ambrosia has shocked believers around the world and a number of groups are bringing a lawsuit under the UK blasphemy laws not used in this country since 1922 when John William Gott was foolish enough to compare the Colonel to a Clown.

There has been increasing Chickenisation of society since then and there have been calls for far harsher punishment this time around. Debate in the UK's national newspaper's has seriously asked if the death penalty should be brought back for such a heinous crime and there have been street riots around the world. It is understood that Miss Street Porter is on suicide watch and has shown some remorse. Angry crowds with placards greeted her at the Old Bailey and, unprecedentedly not one barrister would agree to represent her in court.



A figure from the legal profession and KFC scholar who asked not to be named said:

"We here on Earth cannot punish her as Harland will be able to in hell. People in medieval times believed in all sorts of horrific punishments, meted out to blasphemers in hell. They believed giant chickens would peck out your tongue so you could never speak, and your eyes so that you may never see the Colonel's benevolent face again. By far the worst was to be fed chicken made with only 10 secret herbs and spices, taking you so close but never letting you reach nirvana"

Meanwhile the furore continues and we shall update you when necessary.

The Wrangham Conundrum

Whilst McDonald's and Burger King lurch from crisis to crisis, KFC marches relentlessly on unscathed whilst increasing its market share into the bargain. Having recently overtaken Burger King in the sales leagues, Martin Shuker, KFC's Chief Executive in the UK now has McDonald's in his sights, saying recently:

"I am confident and excited about our ability to grow to match McDonald's"

With only one negative trading year in the past 15 KFC has gone from strength to strength. We were unaffected by the BSE crisis of the 90s which caused our main rivals to haemorrhage customers that we happily welcomed into the fold. We were of course also unaffected by studies lambasting those who eat too much red meat as it's linked to cancer. After these two red meat centred scares there was much apostasy. We happily took the disenfranchised under our Hot Wing, inviting them along to one of our daily services and many converted. Such is the fervour of our believers that when our time came in the form of Avian Flu, this blight made little impact and the faithful still clamoured for their prayer buckets.

More recently, a new spectre has emerged to haunt us all, crossing all boundaries, obesity is the cholera of the fast food industry, no one is safe. Or are they? Step in Harvard's Dr Richard Wrangham and his research into the role of cooking in the evolution of man. His research inadvertently shed some light onto the looming obesity crisis that seems set to leave KFC above the waterline and all those who would stand in our way battered by a tide of criticism.

Originally his research was examining the role of cooking as a cause of evolutionary advancement from Homo Erectus to our present form Homo Sapien. Put simply, he theorises that cooking softens and breaks down food. Once cooked it is more easily digestible and that by expending less energy to get more out of our food, Homo Erectus' still meagre diet; could now (with the aid of the cooking process) provide more energy needed to power a more complex brain.

According to Wrangham the modern obesity crisis is caused not by overeating but by our increasing propensity for processed foods. In one of his experiments two groups of rats were fed different diets, one with hard food pellets and another on ground up and reconstituted softer pellets. Results were telling, those rats fed the same weight of food but in the softer pellet format were 30% heavier after 26 weeks.

Now, transpose those same theories onto our modern fast food industry. McDonald's and Burger King take beef and mince it, akin to mechanical mastication before reconstituting it into a very soft beef patty. KFC on the other hand uses whole unprocessed cuts of chicken which if Wrangham's research is correct will not be as fattening as our rivals beef burgers.

The Colonel (starring Mel Gibson)

Looks like Gibson's comeback strategy is to appeal to the internet generation via their favourite food. We wanted to like this we really did. Sadly, try as we might it's just not that funny and in many ways, sullies the Colonel's tasty name. Harland is no doubt rolling in his bucket-shaped grave.

Pale imitations: SFC

KFC's well-deserved and hard-earned popularity has spawned a number of imitators over the years, ranging from the sinister chickeny doppelgänger stores that crowd our streets (as seen in the rogues gallery article of this very blog) to suspiciously similar products lurking in the shadowy recesses of our stores and supermarkets. Latest to step up to the plate of shame is Sainsburys, "Southern fried chicken family feast box".

The concept is ostensibly exciting: what sane man or woman could resist the concept of KFC styled chicken in the comfort and convenience of your own home? Fearing perhaps that it was all too good to be true, I took the time to examine the packaging more thoroughly, and noticed a few disturbing discrepancies. In bold writing at the top of the packaging, large text shouts, "with barbecued DIP". Does this imply that the sauce contained therein had been precariously balanced on top of flaming coals during preparation? My confidence shaken, I examined the rest of the packaging, only to discover an itinerary that appeared to have been written by Brian Butterfield including, "cooked portions" and, "poppets" along with an unusual disclaimer for a product sold in only certain stores and only in the UK, "loved worldwide." Choking back the rising tide of bile at the desecration of a beloved idol, I opened the packaging to see what further horrors awaited.

As you can see, the frozen lumps of plastic-wrapped chicken therein do not exactly inspire the delirious joy of receiving a true KFC product, and it is important to note that during the complicated 3 stage hour long preparation of what I hesitate to call a chicken dish, it would be more than possible for most people to simply walk or drive to the nearest KFC branch, order their choice of food and return home with the hot, freshly prepared chicken dish. Nonetheless, to give this dish a fair chance, it was prepared exactly according to the instruction on the packaging and arranged as best we could as shown on the front of the box. This... this was the result.
The patchy, mottled coating of brown bread-dust doesn't compare very well at all to the rich golden glow depicted on the packaging, or the superior blend of herbs and spices that adorn the Colonels finest chicken products. The smell is stale, like an old man who ate chicken earlier that day, but can't remember doing so. The chicken is much smaller than depicted on the packaging and squats evilly on a corner of the plate, bringing to mind unattained dreams and failed objectives, and as for the taste...

Imagine sneaking into a cemetery at nightime, and finding the oldest tomb there. Exhuming some ancient bones, you proceed to a low-grade processed chicken factory, where you kick them around the floor until they are coated with a mixture of of discarded chicken scraps and dirt. Finally you drape it with discaded skin, liberally baste a coating of near flavourless bready goo over the top of your mockery of all that is good and right in this world, and freeze it for an unsuspecting chicken-fan to consume, rubbing your filthy hands together with barely-constrained malice. As you may have gathered, the flavour was disappointing, especially combined with the guilt of betraying everything the colonel stood for in chicken products.

Overall, the SFC experience was a disappointment, made bearable by the fact that KFC continues to produce food of excellent quality and taste, that can easily be acquired instead of relying on terrible imitation products. In light of this, I am awarding Sainsburys the Kentucky Fried Bloggin' "worst product of the month" award, and will take the chance to remind readers that there is a reason that official KFC food items will always be better than their poor-quality, "rivals."