Ketchup, BBQ sauce, ranch - in that order.
Harlan Sanders had a lot of unkind things to say about KFC gravy. At least the stuff that was made by the new operators after he sold out, but was still on the payroll doing promotional appearances. This article is from 1970 at a time when he was still doing promotional appearances.
Despite all these pleasing developments, the Colonel cannot rest easy. A perfectionist in an imperfect world, he dreams of fried chicken so golden and delicious that it will bring tears to the eyes of a grown man, and of cracklin’ gravy so sublime that, he says, “it’ll make you throw away the durn chicken and just eat the gravy.” During most of his waking hours, the Colonel is haunted by the fear that someone, somewhere, is doing something to hurt his chicken—that some upstart in the company is tampering with the recipe, or that a careless franchisee is undercooking or overcooking. The Colonel is vexed almost beyond endurance by the subject of gravy. The gravy now served by the K.F.C. franchisees is good, but it isn’t the Colonel’s. “Let’s face it, the Colonel’s gravy was fantastic, but you had to be a Rhodes Scholar to cook it,” a company executive has explained. “It involved too much time, it left too much room for human error, and it was too expensive.” This attitude is incomprehensible to the Colonel, who believes that making money is a reward for the virtuous, not a matter of cost accounting. Besides, he would rather have memorable gravy than extra profits. “If you were a franchisee turning out perfect gravy but making very little money for the company,” another K.F.C. executive has remarked, “and I was a franchisee making lots of money for the company but serving gravy that was merely excellent, the Colonel would think that you were great and I was a bum. With the Colonel, it isn’t money that counts, it’s artistic talent.”
The Colonel cannot change the gravy policy, because he sold the company in 1964. (He still serves on its board of directors, and he receives a handsome salary for his food advice and his public-relations activities.) However, though he has relinquished control of the company, the Colonel retains considerable moral authority with K.F.C. executives and franchisees, all of whom revere him as a food genius, love him for inventing a product that has made them rich, and fear his terrible wrath. The Colonel doesn’t hesitate to exploit these feelings in the gravy issue, apparently reasoning that if he can’t force the franchisees to reinstate the old gravy, he can at least make them uncomfortable about the new. During his travels on company business, he will occasionally pay an unexpected visit to a K.F.C. outlet in order to inspect the kitchen and sample the gravy. If the gravy meets his low expectations, he delivers one of his withering gravy critiques, sometimes emphasizing his points by banging his cane on whatever furniture is handy. Months or even years after these ordeals, franchisees wince at the memory of such a gravy judgment from the Colonel as “How do you serve this God-damned slop? With a straw?”
