Is it a finger lickin’ fib?
QUESTION Is there any evidence that the KFC recipe was appropriated from Louisiana slaves?
The association of KFC founder Colonel Sanders’s Kentucky Colonel style of dress — goatee, white suit and string tie — with southern plantations and slavery has led to a number of urban legends.
These include the story that Sanders stole his recipe from the descendants of former slaves (slavery was abolished in 1865 — long before Sanders was born) and the claim that his will devoted 10 per cent of his company’s profits to the Ku Klux Klan. Both have been debunked.
harland David Sanders — later known as Colonel Sanders — was born in 1890 in henryville, Indiana. It wasn’t until 1924 that he moved to Kentucky to work for the Michelin Tyre company.
he had briefly served in the U.S. army, but only as a teamster (truck driver), not as an officer. It wasn’t until 1950 that he was commissioned as a Kentucky colonel, an honorary rank.
In 1930, Sanders had taken a Shell garage franchise in North Corbin, Kentucky. he opened a diner that became so well known for its fried chicken that he decided to replace the petrol pumps with a motel and restaurant.
Sanders put a great deal of effort into perfecting his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices. he found that conventional frying dried out the meat, and in 1939 started to use a pressure cooker to produce his signature chicken: crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.
By July 1940, Sanders had finalised what came to be known as his original recipe.
When, in the mid-Fifties, he began franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken (now known as simply KFC and once famous for the slogan ‘finger lickin’ good’), the spices were sent already mixed to restaurants to preserve the recipe’s secrecy.
Today, the secret formula is in a safe in KFC’s Louisville headquarters, along with 11 vials containing the herbs and Bucket list: KFC’s Colonel Sanders spices. In 1964, there was a $2 million (£1.4 million) buy-out of Sanders’s U.S. operations by a group of investors. he turned his entire holdings in the company’s Canadian franchises over to children’s charities in 1965.
By the time of his death in 1980, there were 6,000 KFC outlets in 48 countries.
Mike Pincher, Salisbury, Wilts.
QUESTION Where does the phrase ‘resting on your laurels’ come from?
To REST on your laurels means to become complacent because you’re too busy basking in the memories of your former glories. The laurel is an ancient symbol of success.
Victors or ‘laureates’ in the Ancient Greek Pythian Games, a 6th century BC forerunner of the olympic Games held in honour of the sun God Apollo, were given wreaths made from laurel leaves, the aromatically scented Laurus Nobilis.
In Greek mythology, Apollo declared the plant sacred after his true love, the nymph Daphne, was turned into a laurel. he was depicted wearing a crown of laurel; a symbol featured on Greek coins.
The Romans adopted the idea and presented laurel wreaths to victorious commanders. Julius Caesar is rarely seen without one in the Asterix books.
The laurel as a symbol of triumph was mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale, circa 1385: ‘ With laurer corouned as a conquerour/And there he lyueth in ioye and in honour.’ (With laurel crowned as conqueror/ There he lived in joy and honour.) In the Victorian era, the phrase began to be used in a disapproving way. In 1825, the magazine The Literary Chronicle, praises the writings of author Maria edgeworth: ‘We do not affect to wish she should repose on her laurels and rest satisfied; on the contrary, we believe that genius is inexhaustible.’
A laureate remains an esteemed title: recipients of the Nobel Prize are referred to as Nobel Laureates.
T. L. Myers, Morecambe, Lancs.
QUESTION Can a person with a kidney problem become ill if they eat star anise?
CHINESE star anise ( Illicium verum) is safe to eat and is known to have many health benefits. however, its cousin, Japanese star anise ( Illicium anisatum), is highly toxic.
Illiciums are a group of 30 species of small trees and shrubs in North America, the Caribbean and Asia.
Chinese star anise is instantly recognisable for its star-shaped fruit: a ring of dark reddish- brown seeds attached to a central column. The fruits are fleshy, but on drying become woody and wrinkled. Chinese star anise is noted for its antioxidant, anti-fungal and antibacterial properties.
It’s commercially important as it is the most potent natural source of Shikimic acid (7 per cent of the star anise pod by weight), which, while not anti-viral itself, is the base chemical for the anti-flu medication Tamiflu.
Japanese star anise, however, contains sikimitoxin, which causes severe inflammation of the kidneys, urinary tract and digestive organs.
It is cheap and almost indistinguishable visually from Chinese star anise. This led to a number of contamination problems in the early 2000s, which saw the British government pass an emergency control order in 2002.
Despite similarities in their name, smell and flavour, anise and star anise are very different spices. The unrelated plants contain the same flavour compound, a substance called anethole, which is also found in fennel.
Chinese star anise tea is tasty and beneficial to health, but it is advisable to buy it from a reputable source. Dr Ian Smith,
Cambridge.
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