From the east to the west, most every country and culture loves fried chicken.
In our town, the bulk of fried chicken isn’t sold at restaurants but rather grocery stores and gas stations. I’m not a fan of the “best” of any one thing because much of life is experiential, but for this I made an exception.
I assembled a panel of great chefs and food enthusiasts to decide which grocery store or gas station has the best fried chicken. I was joined by chefs extraordinaire Steve Zurkey (The Anchorage), Craig Kuhns, Jon Buck and Julian Loue (Rise Bakery), along with Greenville Instagram superstar Dani Mathews (@healthyishdani) and Community Tap partner Ed Buffington.
Fried chicken from InglesEach brought fried chicken from either Ingles, Spinx, Publix, Harris Teeter or Food Lion, and I brought chicken from GT’s on White Horse Road. We met at 11 a.m. because we wanted fresh chicken and each was scored according to crispiness and flavor of coating, moistness and flavor of flesh and final cooking temperature.
Big corporations like the grocers have invested a lot to achieve consistency but there’s still a human element. If the timer is going off on the fryer but it’s ignored, the result could be what we received from Spinx. Sadly, our batch was quite overcooked and didn’t pass muster, although we all have had very good chicken from Spinx many times before.
If you’re a fan of a crispy coating that shatters, Harris Teeter was the winner, but the bird from GT’s won out for best flavored coating and second on crispiness. Several of us believed GT’s chicken had been brined by the packing house, and the flour coating had the most intriguing flavor. The downside to GT’s and Spinx was the price. Neither can compete for value when the grocery stores are selling eight pieces of fried chicken for about $10 – about the same you would pay for a whole raw chicken.
When all the scores were tallied, the winner was Ingles, which surprised all of us. Eight pieces of nicely fried chicken was $8.99 and we all agreed the flavor was more “homestyle” and close to what our moms or grandmothers would have served us. The other stores took a safer approach that resulted in a less appealing flavor.
GT’s chicken was a close second, with Ed Buffington remarking “how would you make it better?” However, four pieces from GT’s cost the same as eight pieces from Ingles. A big grocery can afford a loss leader, small stores not so much.
When my mom fried chicken, she went to a lot of effort and often made a significant mess, but loved doing it. If she were here today, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind an occasional indulgence from a grocer, especially at those prices.
