I have KFCs secret recipe!!

[WorldOfPooh]

There's a book called "Big Secrets" where the author tries to determine certain secret things including whether or not Walt Disney's cryogenically frozen head is stored in New Orleans Square. His follow-up book ("Bigger Secrets") included a report on a visit to Club 33. But the one that was the toughest was KFC's secret recipe. He apparently got someone working at a KFC to smuggle out some of the mix. A bunch of food labs wouldn't touch it when they found out what it was, since they didn't want to get sued. But all the found in the mix was flour, salt, pepper, and MSG. But there's skepticism that they had the exact mix.

Yeah, I read those same books and the guy says Original recipe is like a glazed donut type recipe, a little bit sweet. I agree with him.

 

[Starwarsfan2]

Who cares about the KFC recipe? I want the recipe for Crabby Patties. Now that's good eatin.

 

[bcla]

Why not just use naturally grown herbs and spices to add flavor to food? Why eat something that was produced in a chemical factory?

Does it really matter though? We live in a world full of things that were made of chemicals. Whether it's manmade or came from a plant, a lot of it is just the same to the human body.

 

[motherof5]

Is this like the Mrs. Field's cookie hoax from the 90s? Someone claimed to have the original recipe. The story was that they called the company and asked if they could get the recipe, and they were told, "Sure. It costs 5." The person assumed it was $5 and gave their credit card number. When they got their statement, the charge was for $5000. They decided to distribute the recipe all over the world to get back at Mrs. Fields for duping them. It was just a made up story. They were distributing a pretty dang good cookie recipe, but it wasn't the original.

I made that receipe many times it was good. Now I have to look for it again after reading this

 

[DLgal]

Why not just use naturally grown herbs and spices to add flavor to food? Why eat something that was produced in a chemical factory?

It's actually derived from fermented seaweed. It's not some frankenfood additive. It's also made from fermented sugar beets or molasses nowadays.

 

[MillauFr]

It's actually derived from fermented seaweed. It's not some frankenfood additive. It's also made from fermented sugar beets or molasses nowadays.

Why not just add chopped up seaweed then instead of something made in a chem lab?

 

[MillauFr]

Does it really matter though? We live in a world full of things that were made of chemicals. Whether it's manmade or came from a plant, a lot of it is just the same to the human body.

I prefer to eat foods like the ancient grains pasta that Garagiste sells. Not some frankenfood.... This offer was very long but this is my favorite passage from it...


One of the ugly secrets about the vast majority of Italian pasta (and the wheat farmed around much of the “modern” world – including the US, one of the greatest offenders) is its source wheat – a good deal of it irradiated and altered by radioactive cobalt in the 1970’s to “enhance” the ease of farming (trimming the wild and low-yielding difficult/tall natural wheat plants down to a more comfortable, small and vigorous size to accommodate tractors). The altered wheat stock has become the go-to crop in Italy, the US and most other Western countries for just about any/all wheat-related item – even high-end artisan baked products and high-end pasta.

The major problem with this (in addition to how scary it sounds!) is the DNA change in the gluten of the wheat. The “cobalt irradiated” wheat stock has a very short and non-elastic gluten structure which makes the gluten easily and rapidly absorbed into the body but the protein is hardly absorbed. The old, ancient wheat (the tall, difficult to farm kind) has a very elastic and rough gluten structure that makes it pass through the body with very little absorption, yet the natural protein of the ancient grain is absorbed.



Saturday: The Finest Pasta in the World!

Dear Friends,

This offer is very long so curl up with a nice cup of coffee or tea and find a good time to read through it.

Ready?

I’ve searched for years to uncover the best pasta maker in Italy (if not the world) and I’ve put on a few pounds in the process (but I’ve enjoyed every mouthful)!

After more than two decades on the road sampling artisan pasta up and down The Boot (as well as other climes, not just in Italy), I’ve found the holy grail of pasta. This is a source that is not easy to import and like so many of the artists that I try to bring your way, they beat to their own drummer and time-table but patience is worth the most magnificent pasta meal that awaits.

The most amazing thing about this?

Unlike that single bottle of 1989 Montrose you’ve been saving for a special occasion, this pasta can be enjoyed whenever you wish! They’ve produced enough (by hand) to allow up to 6 bags/shape per Email List member and I recommend going as long as you can on this “everyday” foodstuff (that will set a new standard in your household!).

There is so much information to get through, I’m not even sure where to begin, but I began my own search with a checklist...

If I had to check every box I was searching for in a pasta producer, this source is the only one that checked every box (and then some).

Made expressly for the Email List, this run of traditional bronze-cut pasta is produced from small batches of Italian ancient/heirloom BIO/organic wheat from (often) abandoned wheat fields in out of the way places (left in slumber by a great grandfather or two who abandoned mountain farming or the difficulties of agriculture for the big city and/or high-tonnage chemical-laden valley-floor farming in the 1970’s/1980’s).

The parcels I’m typing about – the “ancient” heirloom wheat plots - are often found in gnarled undulating hillsides (with trees in the middle of the plot) and look nothing like the gentle rolling “amber waves of grain” we are used to. They look more like old-vine vineyards that must be tended by hand – machines cannot cultivate most of the plots.

Why am I making such a big deal about this?

In the 1970’s and through to today, Western scientists thought they had found the secret to a productive and ever-growing population – manipulation of certain crops to vastly increase yield and output. From corn to wheat to soy to canola, more was better even if that meant quickly altering what had slowly evolved in nature over thousands of years.

Pasta (and bread) have been some of the largest recipients of this alteration – known brands such as Barilla, De Cecco et al (name your high-end brand) utilize a percentage of high-tonnage wheat as their source and that’s, well, not a very good thing – yes, even your most prized and costly high-end “hand-made” brands can use the altered wheat stock.

One of the ugly secrets about the vast majority of Italian pasta (and the wheat farmed around much of the “modern” world – including the US, one of the greatest offenders) is its source wheat – a good deal of it irradiated and altered by radioactive cobalt in the 1970’s to “enhance” the ease of farming (trimming the wild and low-yielding difficult/tall natural wheat plants down to a more comfortable, small and vigorous size to accommodate tractors). The altered wheat stock has become the go-to crop in Italy, the US and most other Western countries for just about any/all wheat-related item – even high-end artisan baked products and high-end pasta.

The major problem with this (in addition to how scary it sounds!) is the DNA change in the gluten of the wheat. The “cobalt irradiated” wheat stock has a very short and non-elastic gluten structure which makes the gluten easily and rapidly absorbed into the body but the protein is hardly absorbed. The old, ancient wheat (the tall, difficult to farm kind) has a very elastic and rough gluten structure that makes it pass through the body with very little absorption, yet the natural protein of the ancient grain is absorbed.

See where I’m going with this?

The correlation between Celiac disease, gluten-intolerance and other gastro-intestinal problems in the Western world correlates to a near exact graph with the adoption of “modern wheat” from the 1970’s forward and the abandonment of old/ancient hard to farm/low-yielding wheat fields and varietals (those with the gluten that passes through the body with hardly any absorption).

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to find organic flour or organic pasta, many still use wheat varietals that were altered at some point to produce higher yields and make them easier to farm. With the increase in population of the world, scientists thought they were ushering in the food of tomorrow.

In a conventional sense, the other major problem with the DNA-changed wheat is the low-lying nature of the plants (to accommodate tractors), just above the ground. This makes them highly susceptible to mold and a variety of ground dwelling bugs and pests that normally do not feed on the taller, often more wind-swept tougher ancient wheat. That causes a lot of extra dosing of pesticides and chemicals to keep the wheat nice and tidy!

The guinea pigs?

All of us.

Modern science thought they were helping society along by increasing yields and making wheat more easy to digest but, in turn, they’ve done somewhat the opposite – adding additional stress to our healthcare system with more and more intestinal disorders and wheat-intolerant children, more food “allergies”, more need for medicines, etc – a domino that grows larger and larger and has other affects – more manufacturing equals more pollution equals…

Ok, enough daunting talk – yikes! Can we get to the food already!

Yes, but I highlight the above because it’s important.

More important than most folks have time to think about but it is (literally) food for thought.

So...

What are we going to do about this?

Let’s get to the good stuff – the “holy grail” pasta from Italy!

It’s become nearly impossible to find “old-vine” wheat farmers that will trade their patchwork for a small enough amount of $ that it still makes sense to part with the wheat for cents (so the end-result pasta is not $20-25/bag)! Eating better and more healthy is one thing but who can afford $25/bag pasta? (not this scribe!)

The key for me was to find:

• A hyper-gastronome producer (i.e. the pasta itself had to be first and foremost the finest in Italy, forget the wheat part of the equation – as in, knee-bending quality that Michelin starred chefs would drool for – quality that creates a thick “cream” of cooked pasta water that is an elixir in and of itself).

Ok, once past that little detail...

• The wheat also had to be sourced from ancient/heirloom patchwork fields (which are close to impossible to find – see above paragraphs)

• Stone grinding without removal of the heirloom wheat germ (which gives a lot more protein to the pasta but it is not “whole grain” dark brown pasta – this is still “classic” pasta used for any number of classic sauces – it may have a slightly more beige hue than bleached white flour pasta but it’s still considered to have a regular pasta color).

• Wheat storage in traditional cement silos in the ground (for natural cooling), not plastic coated or manufactured silos that tend to become very hot in summer and off-gas.

• All water used had to be local/mineral water from the mountains or other certified pure local mineral water source and not from chlorinated tap.

• All farmed and produced BIO/organic.

• All made by hand.

• All cut and dried in the traditional method, which is slow and requires patience.

It took 20+ years and a lot of snooping around farm fields (and asking locals in small towns), but I finally have my/our source that meets every one of the criteria listed above.

Literally a “source of life” and I do not use that term lightly.

(ok, deep breath – this is a long offer already but lots of information on this first go-round!)

To illustrate the “root” of what we are discussing this morning, I’ve captured an image of an heirloom wheat field used for one of your pasta batches (

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

) – I think you can tell immediately that this is a place of nature and has nothing to do with the Western notion of conventional farming. Yes, I realize it would be nearly impossible for the world to rely on small, patchwork parcels of food such as this (we have too many people at this point) but I’m trying my best to bring as much of it as I can to as many of you as possible. If farmers in the US try this pasta, maybe I can inspire even a few of them to go back to basics and start over – it’s never too late! I’ve worked my entire career to do this with vineyards around the world and now it’s time to start the “spiderweb” of natural farming with food – eventually, if the spiderwebs around the world can grow and touch, then my “professional” life has been worth something.

So...

All below are highly recommended (I cannot recommend them highly enough) – all are 500g bags, all are BIO/organic from small patchwork parcels of old-growth “ancient” wheat, often from different heirloom varietals in the old and tall/difficult to farm style (the individual varietal is listed on each bag). Most are one-off – if the small plot was available, the wheat was harvested, and usually only 2-3 pasta shapes were made from it but the exact plot may never be available again (it’s up to the farmer and growing season in the future, etc).

In other words, if you see a shape below that sounds interesting, try it – it may be the only time it’s produced from this exact plot. Think of this pasta like baseball cards – there’s a Willie Mays card for 20+ seasons - each is unique but all are highly desirable!

 

[DLgal]

Why not just add chopped up seaweed then instead of something made in a chem lab?

Thats like saying why not just throw soggy soybeans and wheat onto your Chinese food rather than Soy Sauce. That makes no sense.

 

[MillauFr]

Thats like saying why not just throw soggy soybeans and wheat onto your Chinese food rather than Soy Sauce. That makes no sense.

If you use real ingredients that are bursting with flavor soy sauce is not needed.

 

[DLgal]

If you use real ingredients that are bursting with flavor soy sauce is not needed.

Oh, please. Stop already. Some people actually enjoy enhancing the flavor of food. Eating is supposed to be a pleasurable experience and an opportunity to engage the 5 flavor profiles. Do you even understand the purpose of salt in cooking and flavor enhancing? I bet you think salt is evil too, huh?

 

[TippyThomas]

The last time I was craving KFC, I sent my college kids to pick it up. They came home with extra crispy, which has no taste at all. I was so disappointed!! Original is the best!

Yes! It has to be original recipe.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Who cares about the KFC recipe? I want the recipe for Crabby Patties. Now that's good eatin.

Here ya go

 

[_19disnA]

I don't get the hate for MSG either.

Me either. If someone has food allergies/sensitivities, they should avoid things that don't agree with them. Apparently, some people have a sensitivity to MSG. That doesn't make it bad for everyone else. If you are allergic to strawberries, don't eat them, but at the same time don't get offended when others who like strawberries still eat them.

 

[wildekatza]

Wouldn't you also need to do a salt brine on the chicken before you put that on there? Almost all fast food fried chicken places do a brine first. The web page you sent the link for says it isn't the right recipe. LOL! We found one in the 80's that was flour and a package of Knorr Tomato Soup powder and it was actually pretty close. You baked it in a covered dish in the oven to "steam" it but it was pretty close from what I remember so whatever was in Knorr's package of powdered Tomato Soup is probably some of what is in KFC -this was before they had Extra Crispy, I think.

 

[Hikergirl]

Mutant chickens is the secret recipe. I thought everyone knew that by now.

 

[MrsPete]

Is this like the Mrs. Field's cookie hoax from the 90s? Someone claimed to have the original recipe. The story was that they called the company and asked if they could get the recipe, and they were told, "Sure. It costs 5." The person assumed it was $5 and gave their credit card number. When they got their statement, the charge was for $5000. They decided to distribute the recipe all over the world to get back at Mrs. Fields for duping them. It was just a made up story. They were distributing a pretty dang good cookie recipe, but it wasn't the original.

I've heard that story with several different companies' names -- never Mrs. Field's though.

That story about KFC's secret recipe surfaces every so often on the net, not sure if its true or yet another of those 'urban legends' that tend to circulate. In recipes, a capital "T" = tablespoon, while the small letter 't' = teaspoon.

Something I learned when we made a cookbook years ago: Everyone types up recipes differently. That experience prompted me to create my own method of "writing up recipes". I love the standardization. I use two columns: on the left are ingredients, on the right are instructions for those ingredients. It's so quick and easy to read. And shorter than most recipes because I don't repeat the ingredients in the instructions.

Anyway, one of my details is, I use Tbsp for tablespoon and tsp for teaspoon. But few things about recipes are "standard" for everyone.

I could not care less about the secret recipe or KFC chicken. Their restaurants here are dirty and the food is gross. I have gotten underdone chicken on more than one occasion. I can't remember the last time I ate fried chicken. If I do, it would be a couple of wings from the grocery store.

Their restaurants ARE dirty. When my kids were little, I used to drop my car off at a certain fix-it place, and we'd walk over two stores to a KFC. We always sat at the same corner table, and they'd do their homework. The floor was always sticky-nasty, and you'd feel your shoes cling a bit as you walked -- but the rest of the store seemed okay. It was just the floor. My kids used to love doing their homework at KFC.

I do like the Famous Bowls, but the homemade one looks awesome!

I've never had a KFC bowl -- it looks pretty nasty, to tell the truth. But the homemade bowl looks like a decent home-cooked meal, even if a bit carb-heavy with the potatoes and corn. Looks like something I'd whip up to use up left-overs.

 

[bcla]

I've heard that story with several different companies' names -- never Mrs. Field's though.

There's no huge secret to chocolate chip cookies. I've heard of multimillion dollar bakeries where the "secret" was just minor variations on the basic recipe that's found on almost any package of chocolate chips.

 

[_19disnA]

^^ Yes, I see that all the time online with various recipes. Someone on the blog side of this site recently posted a chocolate chip cookie recipe that was supposedly unique to Disney and I found that exact recipe on the back of a bag of Nestle's dark chocolate chips................LOL.

 

[bcla]

^^ Yes, I see that all the time online with various recipes. Someone on the blog side of this site recently posted a chocolate chip cookie recipe that was supposedly unique to Disney and I found that exact recipe on the back of a bag of Nestle's dark chocolate chips................LOL.

Well - one never sees any packaged cookies that contain such a recipe. Those have to be stable on a shelf for at least 6 months. They'll have dough conditioners to keep them soft, might use some sort of egg substitute. But a shop that bakes every day and tosses out everything? Flour, sugar, eggs, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, salt, and baking soda. It's the real butter than makes the difference.

 

[BrianL]

I've never had a KFC bowl -- it looks pretty nasty, to tell the truth. But the homemade bowl looks like a decent home-cooked meal, even if a bit carb-heavy with the potatoes and corn. Looks like something I'd whip up to use up left-overs.

Yeah, they aren't the best looking things, and the ones you get look even worse than the commercials. They do taste good though! I miss the spicy variety which I don't think they do anymore.