Colonel Sanders: Difference between revisions
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== Early life and career == |
== Early life and career == |
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Sanders was born in [[Henryville, Indiana ]]. His father died when he was five years old, and since his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family. He dropped out of school in seventh grade. During his teen years, Sanders worked many jobs, including [[firefighter]], [[steamboat]] driver, insurance salesman, railroad worker, farmer, and he served as an Army private in [[Cuba]]. A little known fact is that the Colonel had a brief flirtation with the porn industry. He starred, wrote, and directed the [[Ryan West]] production of '' [[The |
Sanders was born in [[Henryville, Indiana ]]. His father died when he was five years old, and since his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family. He dropped out of school in seventh grade. During his teen years, Sanders worked many jobs, including [[firefighter]], [[steamboat]] driver, insurance salesman, railroad worker, farmer, and he served as an Army private in [[Cuba]]. A little known fact is that the Colonel had a brief flirtation with the porn industry. He starred, wrote, and directed the [[Ryan West]] production of '' [[The Colonel's Erotic Recipe:Kentucky Fried Cock]] '' . |
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=== More than just a fill-up === |
=== More than just a fill-up === |
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Revision as of 17:27, 25 April 2007
Colonel Sanders |
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Harland David Sanders, better known as Colonel Sanders (September 9, 1890 – December 16, 1980) was the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).
Early life and career
Sanders was born in Henryville, Indiana . His father died when he was five years old, and since his mother worked, he was required to cook for his family. He dropped out of school in seventh grade. During his teen years, Sanders worked many jobs, including firefighter, steamboat driver, insurance salesman, railroad worker, farmer, and he served as an Army private in Cuba. A little known fact is that the Colonel had a brief flirtation with the porn industry. He starred, wrote, and directed the Ryan West production of The Colonel's Erotic Recipe:Kentucky Fried Cock .
More than just a fill-up
At the age of 40, Sanders cooked chicken dishes for people who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. Since he didn't have a restaurant, he served customers in his living quarters in the service station. Eventually, his local popularity grew, and Sanders moved to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people and worked as the chef. Over the next nine years, he perfected his method of cooking chicken that used the same eleven herbs and spices that are used today at KFC[citation needed]. Furthermore, he made use of a pressure cooker that enhanced the flavor[citation needed] and allowed the chicken to be cooked much faster than pan-frying. He was given the honorary title "Kentucky colonel" in 1935 by Governor Ruby Laffoon. Unlike most people who receive this title, Sanders chose to call himself "Colonel" and to dress in a stereotypical "southern gentleman" costume as a way of self-promotion.
Path onward to global recognition
Circumstances forced Sanders to sell his motel and cafe when the new Interstate 75 bypassed the town of Corbin. Confident of the quality of his fried chicken, the Colonel devoted himself to the chicken franchising business that he started in 1952, the first franchise being set up on 3900 South State Street in South Salt Lake, Utah. He traveled across the country by car from restaurant to restaurant, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the reaction was favorable, he entered into a handshake agreement on a deal that stipulated a payment to him of a nickel for each bucket of chicken the restaurant sold. His devoted work turned his small business, Kentucky Fried Chicken, into one of the largest fast food chains in existence. He himself became one of the most recognizable people in the world.
Death and legacy
Sanders died at age 90, on December 16, 1980, of leukemia. He was buried in his characteristic white suit and black bow tie in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, after lying in state in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol. A later cartoon version of Colonel Sanders (voiced by actor Randy Quaid) has appeared in more recent KFC commercials, and he has an almost-identical impersonator, Thomas Rost, to the considerable consternation of many in the Sanders family.[citation needed]
To this day, the Colonel's secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices remains one of the best-kept trade secrets in business. According to a profile of KFC done by the Food Network television show Unwrapped, portions of the secret spice mix are made at different locations in the United States, and the only copy of the recipe is kept in a vault in corporate headquarters. In 1985, investigative journalist William Poundstone wrote a book, Big Secrets [ISBN 0688048307], which analyzed and revealed (among other things) the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken (lab tests found only traces of salt and pepper, not eleven herbs and spices), and provided readers several methods for duplicating the product.
See also
External links
Books
- Currell, Billy. 2006. Kentucky Fried Tender. ASIN B000JWMI9U.
- Pearce, John, The Colonel (1982) ISBN 0-385-18122-1
- Kleber, John J.; et al. (1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0.
{{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in:|author=(help)