12 ms·
For the Colonel, It Was Finger-Lickin’ Bad (1976)
- sublinear 2y ago> This ain’t no goddam Tennessee Fried Chicken, no matter what some slick, silk-suited son-of-a-bitch says.
- KingOfCoders 2y agoEvery founder I have met after selling their company.
- ahartmetz 2y agoUnderstandable (as in: I could see myself acting like that if I had a company to sell), but also, you sold it, what did you expect? Did you believe some legally not enforceable promises because you wanted the money and were willing to lie to yourself?
- KingOfCoders 2y agoFrom my own experience - I didn't expect anything. But it makes you sad if what you have built and spent so much time on it is going down.
- fifilura 2y agoThere are many ways to loose control of your company without selling it upfront. For example if you take money from an minority investor with the promise of an IPO (so they can make profit from their minority share). After the company goes public, control is much more iffy. You may for example not have your place in the board anymore even though you are majority owner.
- nradov 2y agoYou're not making any sense. Unless the majority owner has a different share class with reduced voting rights then they can absolutely control the Board.
- fifilura 2y agoYeah brainfart. What i meant to say that in a public company you are expected to choose. Either you have control of the board or you are the CEO having control of the operations. Not both.
- nradov 2y agoThere is no such expectation. Some corporate governance experts prefer that the Chairman and CEO roles be split in order to prevent conflicts of interest and protect the rights of minority shareholders but there are many companies where a single person does both.
- bitwize 2y agoBill Gates was chairman and CEO of Microsoft for the longest. Have things changed since then?
- Etheryte 2y agoThis makes no sense whatsoever. If you're the majority holder then by definition you hold more than 50% of the stock and can force whatever resolution you see fit. Perhaps you meant largest holder, but without a majority?
- SargeDebian 2y agoOr multiple stock classes, where done have more voting rights than others.
- datavirtue 2y agoYes. Some of it is just plain dillusion. My grandmother went through so much trouble and time finding someone she wanted to sell her business to because of "her clients" etc. She sold it and complained about everything the lady did to the business. She even financed the sale so she could sell to her, denying cash offers that came in much higher. The person she sold it to sold off half the business and clients almost immediately.
- jasonjayr 2y agoHowever he sold it; they apparently, to this day have rights to his likeness. I would hope that would give him some power to call them out if they are making a lesser product in his name, all the while passing it off as his 'original recipe'
- fallingknife 2y agoI love how in the article they just let him go back and walk around the kitchen and bitch even though he had nothing to do with the company at that point. Who's going to say no when you walk into a KFC and you're Colonel fucking Sanders
- davidhyde 2y ago> “They really gag me, that’s what I think of them” When asked about a new product line, what a quote!
- peanut_worm 2y agoMiracle whip in coleslaw? Not sure I can trust his judgement
- fifilura 2y agoFantastic rabbit-hole for me as an European! I had never heard of Miracle Whip (or Miracel whip" (sic!) as sold in Germany) Maybe it is the secret ingredient to a perfect cole slaw? More sweet and more mustard. I would really like to try, but I need to find an import shop for this magic paste!
- sublinear 2y agoI've made this before in a pinch and it's your usual homemade mayonnaise recipe except you deliberately add too much vinegar and as much sugar as your palate can take. If you want to get it even closer to what we have in the USA, use the lowest quality "vegetable oil" you can find. It's only purpose in my life is precisely that: coleslaw.
- astura 2y agoFor some reason it has a terrible aftertaste that ruins whatever it's on. It's definitely not just "mayo but with sugar and mustard."
- brewdad 2y agoLike everything else in this article and thread, it probably used to be. Now it’s mostly natural and artificial flavors held together by food chemistry from New Jersey.
- mywittyname 2y agoI also hate MW on sandwiches and whatnot because it's way too sweet. However, most coleslaw recipes add a ton of sugar anyway. So I don't think the end result is that far off. The primary reason that I suspect he used MW is that it contains a yeast inhibitor (potassium sorbate), which seems to keep the yeast from turning the coleslaw into sauerkrautslaw. The Colonel probably didn't understand this, but knew the results were much better. I've made coleslaw both ways (mayo and MW) and I do think the MW keeps the slaw crunchier.
- amiga386 2y agoSanders in 1963 on What's my Line? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk4Eq8IcQMk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wk4Eq8IcQMk And a video on the history of Sanders' fight with KFC corporate, and what exactly is in the seasoning? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJYOgzFydc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WJYOgzFydc My takeaway is that Sanders cared about serving quality fast food, and KFC corporate cared about reducing costs and doing brand necromancy. The upshot is you won't get KFC chicken at KFC, just a pale, cheap imitation of the original, meanwhile the original recipe is still kicking about out there in other chicken takeaways (assuming they cook the chicken properly!)
- saghm 2y ago> My takeaway is that Sanders cared about serving quality fast food, and KFC corporate cared about reducing costs and doing brand necromancy. The upshot is you won't get KFC chicken at KFC, just a pale, cheap imitation of the original Assuming that's the case, the anecdote in the article of him walking into the kitchen in a random KFC and berating the people for making the chicken the was they did seems a bit unfair; it's not like the random people working there had any choice in the corporate policies or autonomy to choose to make the chicken in a different way. I get that he was frustrated and that this wasn't the only way he tried to fight the changes, but it shouldn't be that hard to have a little empathy for the presumably minimum wage workers who are just there to earn a paycheck.
- ryandrake 2y ago> it's not like the random people working there had any choice in the corporate policies or autonomy to choose to make the chicken in a different way. I'm torn on this one, and can see both sides. For any kind of mega-business, not just restaurant chains: If your goal is to correct corporate behavior, protest or "make things difficult for corporate" then there really aren't any good options. You could annoy the individual stores and/or frontline staff, but as you say they are usually powerless minimum-wage drones who can't change things, and even might probably be sympathetic to your cause. On the other hand, if enough people make the businesses unpleasant or do things at those business that end up costing corporate, there is a slim chance that corporate might make changes. A big problem with mega-business style capitalism is that key stakeholders like employees and the general public are powerless. You can only change a business's behavior if you're either 1. shareholders or 2. customers via boycott or 3. regulators. Unfortunately, the non-customer general public cannot vote a corporation out, nor can they walk into their local WalMart and "complain to the owner of WalMart" like they can for smaller local businesses.
- UncleSlacky 2y agoIf you want the real thing you have to go to the restaurant named after his wife: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Sanders_Dinner_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudia_Sanders_Dinner_House
- e40 2y agoWent there as a kid. Can confirm it was insanely good.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wkat4242 2y agoHuh interesting. I always thought he was a military retired Colonel and as such already pretty rich before he started the franchise. I had no idea it was also a Honorary title in America.
- djur 2y agoUS military used to be largely made up of state militias (dating back to colonial days), run by the governor, with the federal government sometimes funding, equipping, and mobilizing those militias in times of war. Commissions in state militias were sometimes used by governors as a reward or gift to their political supporters. In particular, "colonel" was a rank often bestowed on wealthy benefactors without any expectation of actual military duty. The militias were largely nationalized in the early 1900s, creating what's now called the National Guard. Governors still have limited power to deploy their state Guard but they're mostly under federal control. But some states retained the tradition of honorary colonels, and Kentucky is probably the most famous. (There are a lot of other kind of goofy honorary state militia titles in the US -- Admiral of the Texas Navy, etc. Some of them don't require much more than paying a fee.)
- interpunct 2y agoI guess he would need an "Extreme Makeover" to go on "Undercover Boss". My dad was the financial controller for a large pizza chain in the '70s--they used to send him into the field to do spot checks, which was progressive IMO.
- dsr_ 2y agoIt was a well-documented technique of quality control across industries by 1940.
- interpunct 2y agoAnd still meticulously adhered to, I'm sure. I guess you mean "management by walking around"? For perspective, we had TQM in the '90s, which consisted of orders to tell TQM consultants that we knew where the TQM manuals were at, if we couldn't otherwise avoid "The TQM Bobs". The corporate headquarters building my dad worked in was also considered progressive and employee friendly in the '70s--with natural lighting and office noise abatement (with white noise piped in, for example).
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- the_third_wave 2y agoFrom the newspaper article: "I'll never go to India, I don't like to see people sleeping in the streets" The times, they are a'changeing and the Colonel would presumably "never go to (insert west coast city)" because of all the people sleeping (etc.) in the streets
- gumby 2y agoInteresting that it only happens on the west coast, eh? You’ve never seen a homeless person anywhere else?
- spacecadet 2y agoYes, but there is significantly more of it happening, optically, on the west coast than anywhere else in the United States. What is San Diego's unofficial name? "The Home of the Homeless". Before you flame, I spent years touring the United States, living and photographing homeless people and communities. West Coasters should really stop getting defensive and take action, if it actually matters to you all. All that wealth... So greedily spent... All those people... laying in the streets... strung out on cra..."KFC"! Had to tie it back to avoid the rule crazies. ;)
- hasmolo 2y agoimho it comes from western states not simply rounding them up. in atlanta, before the peach bowl the cops would descend on downtown, arrest all the homeless, bus them up to cherokee, and then the time it took them to return was greater than the length of the event. now that's a little less common and the yearly doctor conference has noticed the homeless and is complaining about it. i think homelessness is a consequence not of any one area but of the american way of doing things. we treat it as an incurable disease, like addiction, but that we don't care enough about to fix.
- spacecadet 2y agoThats why I said "optically", I actually agree with the sentiment that homelessness is often much worse and unseen in other parts of the United States- but! CA could do a-lot more given its wealth and desire to be seen as "thoughtful".
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- conception 2y agoHere’s the original seasoning mix - https://marionkay.com/product/chicken-seasoning-99-x/ https://marionkay.com/product/chicken-seasoning-99-x/
- dylan604 2y ago"Ingredients: Monosodium Glutamate, White and Black Pepper, Fine Flake Salt, Sage, Coriander, and other natural spices" So if the first listed ingredient represents the most abundant ingredient... Also, such a cop out that the FDA has allowed "other natural spices" to be a legit listing. Supposedly to protect corporate secrets blah blah. What if someone is allergic to one of those "natural spices". Either we're for accurate food labeling for the public's safety, or we're not. This in between state highly suggests we're not.
- jajko 2y agoSame would go for coca cola recipe, and many others
- rootusrootus 2y ago> So if the first listed ingredient represents the most abundant ingredient... It's seasoning, so it doesn't seem surprising at all that MSG would be pretty high on the list. Do you think that's bad?
- dylan604 2y agoWhen some one says "secret recipe of 11 herbs & spices" my mind doesn't immediately jump to MSG as an herb or spice. Then to see that it is the primary ingredient definitely jumps out to me. Does it not to you?
- kemayo 2y agoIt's in the same category as salt, which I'd kinda expect to be in the 11-things "secret recipe", but which isn't a herb or spice.
- dghughes 2y agoI remember the day when KFC started "boiling" the chicken it went from crispy to soggy. Here in Canada currently there's big controversy KFC went halal. No more bacon!
- crazygringo 2y agoCan you explain what you mean by "boiling"? It's very much deep-fried. And I've never had it anything but crispy, unless you seal it up in a container for too long while it's still hot.
- gruez 2y ago>Here in Canada currently there's big controversy KFC went halal Source? Was it just the chicken or the entire restaurant?
- julesnp 2y agoThe entire restaurant. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kfc-halal-menu-boycott-1.7258289 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kfc-halal-menu-boycott-1.7258...
- petre 2y agoVote with your Canadian dollars, eat from restaurants who serve pork. It turns out that my countrymen love porchetta.
- crazygringo 2y agoBut when has KFC ever served pork or bacon? They're a chicken restaurant. Best I can guess is maybe they had a fried chicken sandwich that had strips of bacon too? But not really a huge loss -- bacon is definitely not any kind of classic topping for fried chicken, the way it is for burgers. I mean, I love bacon but I don't want it with fried chicken. Bacon adds crunch and chewiness to a burger; fried chicken is already crunchy and chewy.
- petre 2y ago
- PorterBHall 2y agoSeems like an early example of "enshitification."
- nunez 2y agoenshitification is just a convenient name for a thing that's happened to every company that goes public/gets acquired by PE since the markets cared about "growth, growth, and growth," which started in the 1960s.
- s5300 2y ago[dead]
- nunez 2y agoI would have loved to see him write a "I will fucking piledrive you" style blog post on modern KFC.
- dzink 2y agoThe first and second times I visited KFC in the US I was shocked there were no vegetables in their sandwiches. Other than the corn, and coleslaw, no lettuce or other ingredients in the sandwiches. In europe, and China and any other country I’ve seen KFC they have amazing Zinger sandwiches with lattice and sauces and grea flavor. We make it a point to never go to KFC in the US.
- infotainment 2y agoOne thing I find utterly depressing is how literally every American fast food chain has infinitely better quality and taste in their overseas locations. Evidently they save their absolute worst products for their home market.
- gramie 2y agoI remember eating KFC in Japan, about 15 years ago, and it was markedly better than we get in Canada.
- jasoneckert 2y agoFun fact: After selling out in the US, Colonel Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario, Canada to oversee the Canadian operations to ensure that the quality was of his liking. When I grew up in the 80s in Canada, KFC was incredible, as were all of their items. At age 12, I scored a job working there too. During that time was when they announced their crispy chicken variant in Canada and "new taste" - but what we saw were new flour bags (we had to throw out the original flour bags), new oil in the cookers, new processes (no more soaking the chicken for 15 min before frying), and gravy that was made from a soup packet. And while the chicken tasted the same, it was far more greasy and disgusting to handle compared to beforehand - and everyone noticed. I remember our manager telling us "Well I guess we now have to make it US style. But our prepared cost went from 11 cents per piece to 8 cents per piece after all bills are paid."
- elchief 2y agoKFC has been garbage for decades, at least in Canada. I hope Popeye's eats their lunch
- sublinear 2y agoNot sure if this is also true in Canada, but Popeyes now sells some of the worst quality fried chicken since 2020. They haven't even been anything close to "Louisiana inspired" in years. This is supposed to be their brand differentiator, but I haven't seen jambalaya or gumbo on their menu in over a decade. Most locations in my area haven't brought back the seafood since 4 years ago despite being on the menu (always out of stock). I don't see any of these legacy brands ever being on top again. Their most recent idea is selling some nasty soggy wings that are now routinely given away for free with any order. It's about as ironic as it gets that these wings didn't take them to new heights.
- astura 2y ago>I haven't seen jambalaya or gumbo on their menu in over a decade. Probably because nobody wants it? I worked for Popeyes 25 years ago. We never had gumbo and people would order jambalaya like every other day, if that. Literally everything was more popular than jambalaya.
- sublinear 2y agoIt was probably true back then for the same reason nobody wants wings from pizza hut today either :D All I was saying is that it was on the menu in the past and the decline in quality has been steady for a long time. It's as if it's built into their long term strategy for the business.
- dylan604 2y ago> Most locations in my area haven't brought back the seafood since 4 years ago despite being on the menu (always out of stock). I don't know, I'm kind of okay with that. Seeing seafood offered in very land locked locations has always been suspect to me. In a fast food place, I'd doubt it was actually anything other than imitation version anyways though so what's the point?
- alsetmusic 2y agoI used to have a photo of a man who owned a KFC with The Colonel on my fridge. Shot in the 70s, from his appearance. The man was our customer when I had a retail gig and gave me the photo. I wish I still had it. Here’s to Bernard.
- mistrial9 2y agoA 1970s KFC franchise was a profitable thing to have .. lots of people who come from working class background had a chance to connect to "big business" and get a real economic lift. After seeing how some people genuinely struggle about money, it is hard for me to be wholly critical of the business, major flaws and all...
- Mistletoe 2y agoThe real Colonel sounds amazing. Every time you guys exit your company to private equity, or sell it to some huge conglomerate, realize this is what will happen to it. > My God, that gravy is horrible. They buy tap water for 15 to 20 cents a thousand gallons and then mix it with flour and starch and end up with pure wallpaper paste. And I know wallpaper paste, by God, because I’ve seen my mother make it.
- LiquidPolymer 2y agoAs a kid in the early 70's my dad would bring home a bucket and it was an amazing treat. As an adult near 60, I cannot eat Kentucky Fried Chicken. The few times I've tried the crazy level of salt* is repulsive and I feel awful afterward. I don't know if this a change in my sense of food, or change in the KFC product. *My wife's family salts everything to hell and back. I think this is because their sense of taste is declining. So perhaps I've been gifted a sensitive palette that has not lost much with age. Its worth mentioning that my in-laws struggle with obesity, diabetes, and high-blood pressure. I'm thankfully afflicted with none of these things.
- crawfishphase 2y agoSanders might sound A LOT like Gordon Ramsay in this article, but I doubt Gordon ever shot and killed a man over a turf war and beat up one of his legal clients. I think I remember hearing the Colonel beat down at least one of his bosses. He must have coated himself in restaurant-grade teflon as he seemed to get away with it.. Should have called it Gangster Fried Chicken.
- zamadatix 2y agoSanders never killed anyone either. He was involved in a shootout where the other guy shot and killed the gas station manager, Sanders' involvement was shooting said guy who lived and later went to jail as a result of killing the manager.
- crawfishphase 2y agoahh my bad, all these years I was wrong- I see now that The Colonel rode up with two of his armed employees and got one of them killed and his competitor (Stewart) jailed who died by gunshot about 2 years later. Some say the cop that shot him was payed off with white buckets full of cash. Soon after the Colonel's gas station started selling white buckets full of addictive fried chicken infused with herb and spice and the Colonel married Stewart's daughter-in-law. Later, Stewarts daughter became the Colonel's right hand, and managed a big operation for him. She is quoted as calling the Colonel "a straight shooter". One big happy family style story. Someone should make a movie
- zamadatix 2y agoIt's Kentucky in the early 1930s, driving up unarmed would be noteworthy in itself. It's tempting to make the story more interesting but is "local gas station owners get into a gunfight and one goes on to make KFC" not interesting enough without feeling the need to turn it into a blockbuster plot about a fast food gangster? I hadn't heard Claudia was Stewart's daughter-in-law before though. I mean I'd believe it, if you've never been there Corbin isn't a particularly large town, but I also can't find any actual reference to it either.
- paradox460 2y agoAmusing that he griped about Tennessee fried chicken when the original restaurant was in Utah
- pseingatl 2y agoHere's the recipe for the Colonel's original herbs and spices seasoning: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/08/19/kfc-recipe-revealed-tribune-shown-family-scrapbook-with-11-herbs-and-spices/ https://www.chicagotribune.com/2016/08/19/kfc-recipe-reveale...
- oe 2y agoCould someone copy and paste it here for us lowly EU folks?
- nanoxide 2y agohttps://archive.ph/jzgsP https://archive.ph/jzgsP
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- detourdog 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYSo8zTrTAs&list=PLgOb3zseg1hR4RkgFSZFm7tUTSimCEDNO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYSo8zTrTAs&list=PLgOb3zseg1... These Glen and Friends Cooking videos of North American cuisine development are top notch.
- crtified 2y agoI cook versions of this on the regular. I say versions, because simply having The Official Recipe is only half the battle. The actual flavours and strengths of the individual herbs and spices can vary a lot by brand, and by country, and by source, and other factors. My main takeaway (PNI!) is that the white pepper and the smoked paprika together are the heart of the KFC flavour. The rest just augment, refine the flavour. And of course, the salt and/or MSG go a long way.
- nineteen999 2y agoHonestly, just try making buttermilk fried chicken at home. The Gordon Ramsay recipe is a great starting point, it's so freaking easy to make and you can mess with the spices you add to the flour no end to find your perfect flavour. You end up with hot, tasty, crunchy fried chicken with a juicy center. You'll never eat KFC again once you've tried it.