I come from a long line of fried chicken lovers. My mother, and her mother before her, could fry chicken better than anyone include the Colonel.
I don’t eat fried chicken as much anymore. I can’t make it like my mother. But now I bake it. Or broil it. Or grill it. I still it a lot of chicken.
This, of course, makes me fit in well in Gainesville, which is the Poultry Capital of the World. People here take their chicken – friend or otherwise – very seriously. There’s a law – a real law! – that makes it a crime to eat your fried chicken with a fork.
One of my best friends in town in Abit Massey, the president emeritus of the Georgia Poultry Federation and a chief ambassador for the poultry industry. I prefer to call Abit the “poultry czar,” which you have to admit sound better than calling him the “chicken king.”
Abit and I have an understanding. You see, I like pork, too. And when I go to a barbecue joint, I’m going to eat pork. The rest of time, I’ll do my best to be a good Gainesvillian and eat more chicken.
Abit would have been proud of me on Saturday. For the sixth or seventh time – I can’t really remember – I served as a judge for the city’s Spring Chicken Festival cook-off.
For three hours Saturday, I ate chicken -- fried chicken, smoked chicken, barbecue chicken, chicken wings, chicken teriyaki, chicken and rice and a few chicken dishes the names of which I didn’t know. I was beginning to feel a little like Forrest Gump’s friend, Bubba Blue, who knew every kind of shrimp dish. On Saturday, I learned about more chicken dishes than I thought was possible.
One thing I learned is that I like “good” chicken. Some of the dishes we tried last weekend were not good. Some were very not good.
While there were a few good dishes, none of them were as good as the winner from a few years ago. It consisted of a jalapeno pepper, split and stuffed with chicken and pimento cheese. It was then wrapped with a piece of bacon and grilled. During the tasting, I was only allowed to eat one. I could have eat a hundred.
I’m not surprised that I was asked to be a judge. First of all, eating is one of the best things that I do. After all, I’ve been doing it all my life.
Second, I love meals that include well-prepared meat. I love a good steak or pork chops. The bacon cheeseburger is a gift from God. Any food is made better if it’s wrapped in bacon. See the aforementioned stuffed jalapeno.
That’s not to say I don’t like vegetables. I do. A lot. I grew up in South Georgia, where our summers always started with shelling peas and butterbeans and shucking corn so that we’d have fresh vegetables in the freezer when winter came.
And that’s another reason I like being a judge. The contest isn’t just about wings and chicken breasts. Some teams enter chicken pot pies or chicken salad. This year, there was a tasty chicken wrap, stuffed full of vegetables.
Yet, after three hours of tasting chicken dishes, I had my fill. Let’s face it, poultry is an important economic engine in northeast Georgia. But man cannot live by chicken alone.
In fact, tonight, I think I’ll have a salad.
