My mother never learned to make fried chicken — or anything else but banana cake and fudge — until after she married my father. At a time when young women were expected to master the domestic skills that would help them acquire husbands, my mother in the years before her marriage in 1954 had other interests: theater, music, literature — and sunbathing.

"I didn't know how to cook when I got married," she admitted in a recent telephone conversation. "My mother never let me cook. She didn't want me in the way. She had her way of doing things. She didn't want me to ruin her supper."

Her confession was my absolution. No longer would I blame my shortcomings as a cook on my failure to follow directions or to pay attention: I had inherited a basic indifference to the kitchen arts from my mother! Like her, I began to learn only when it was unavoidable.

In fairness to my mother, she did try to make a "proper girl" out of me. But I wouldn't have any of it as a teenager because I was at war with role models that enslaved women and a diet that required me to kill other creatures to stay alive.

So I never learned to make fried chicken the Southern way — the way my mother and grandmother made it — until decades after reintroducing poultry and seafood into my diet.

Family secrets

What passes as "Southern-fried" chicken in many restaurants is nothing like what my grandmother served. She felt no need to coat the chicken pieces with more than a thin layer of flour, and she never made a greasy mess of it.

The birds Grandma ate weren't raised in crowded warehouses or genetically engineered to grow faster and bigger than nature intended. Her parents raised chickens on the family farm in Maple, N.C., back in the days when all chickens spent their days in large outdoor pens or roaming freely near their roosts.

Even though large-scale, high-density poultry farming was becoming more common by the time my mom was raising her own family, she prepared fried chicken based on what she learned by watching Grandma — from a distance — and consulting the Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book Grandma gave her when she married. "Two months after my marriage, there were lots of long-distance phone calls back home," Mom said.

My grandma learned to make fried chicken on the wood-burning stove her mother used to cook for her 11 children. In her own home in Elizabeth City, N.C., Grandma fried the chicken in a big cast-iron skillet in a 1-inch-deep pool of vegetable oil. My mother used a deep-fat fryer.

When the time came for me to learn the family recipe, Mom could recite it from memory. Cut up a whole chicken, she said. Wash the pieces and dry them well. Then roll them in flour and place them in a deep-fat fryer when the oil is really hot. Cook them for about 30 minutes and set the cooked pieces on a paper towel to drain the excess oil.

In hindsight, I should have pressed for details, the way I do when editing or writing stories. What was her definition of "really hot"? How does flour stick to dry chicken skin?

When I followed Mom's simple, straightforward directions, the flour melted from each piece the second it was placed in the fryer. Reached by phone, Mom was at a loss to tell me what went wrong.

Years would pass before I found the courage to try again. And when that experiment ended in failure, I decided that only those of pure heart and unimpeachable virtue were worthy of knowing the tao of perfect Southern-fried chicken.

Stick-to-itiveness

That deceit lasted until mid-January, when a series of blizzards buried our access road in 4-foot drifts, replenished at least once a week for the past six weeks by other snowstorms.

None of the restaurants in Monticello, Utah, served fried chicken that was good enough to warrant a one-mile trek on snowshoes to the county road where my truck has spent the winter, followed by a 14-mile drive to town. It was better to cook for myself, even if it meant hauling food and water over the snowscape by backpack and sled.

Turning to my limited library of cookbooks, I discovered a fried-chicken recipe that included pictures and detailed descriptions. It called for dipping the pieces in an egg-and-milk batter before coating them in flour.

The first time I tried it, the coating clung to the chicken, resulting in tender, moist meat with a crunchy crust.

"I don't use a lot of breading," Mom said when informed of my breakthrough, "but if you want it crispy ..."

Someday I'll try the recipe without the batter — someday when Mom is in the kitchen with me.


This recipe is from Cook's Companion by Carole Clements (2001, Hermes House). My comments follow.

SUCCULENT FRIED CHICKEN
(Serves 4)

One chicken, cut into 8 pieces
8 ounces milk
1 egg
5 ounces flour
1 teaspoon paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Oil for frying

Mix 8 ounces milk with 1 beaten egg in a shallow dish. On a sheet of greaseproof paper, combine 5 ounces plain flour, 1 teaspoon paprika, and some salt and pepper. One at a time, dip eight chicken pieces in the egg mixture and turn them to coat all over. Then dip in the seasoned flour and shake off any excess. Deep-fry for 25 to 30 minutes, turning the pieces so they brown and cook evenly. Drain on paper towels and serve very hot.

Cook's notes:

* In my mind, the paprika is optional. I've never tried it.

* Cook's Companion recommends heating the oil to 365 degrees if you're fortunate enough to have a deep fryer with a temperature gauge. If not, it suggests testing the temperature by dropping a small bread cube in the oil; if it browns in 50 seconds, it's hot enough for the chicken.