I have dreams about my mother’s fried chicken. Some of my fondest childhood food memories are the smells and sounds of her cooking fried chicken and I couldn’t wait until a piece was cooked so that I could ‘test’ it for her. Would always be a drumstick. Just the thought is making my mouth salivate now. I have eaten fried chicken everywhere I go and I have sought out places to satisfy my cravings. I have eaten plenty of KFC, Popeyes and numerous other restaurants to experience that crunchy juicy goodness that I love. Now to reality. The fast food industry including KFC greatly contribute to the Factory Farm industry and there are numerous reports of them being the biggest offenders. Just google ‘KFC factory farms’ and you will see headlines containing words and phrases such as ‘mutant chickens’, ‘animal cruelty’, ‘oppressive conditions’. In fact most traditional large fast food chains are also guilty – it’s impossible to generate that much beef or chicken without using Factory Farms and their success is part of the reason that these farms exist. Obviously, My New Meat Philosophy means no more fast food fried chicken. I thought that in order to eat fried chicken again I would have to make it myself. I was wrong.
One day I was in Indianapolis and had some time to go out to lunch. I had been doing some research on restaurants that serve organic fried chicken since I didn’t want to give up one of my favorite dishes. One that came up in Indianapolis was Crispy bird (see the article I found here). The owner Martha Hoover has quite the resume (see article here) and has at least fourteen restaurants that I know of in the Indy area. A common theme of all these restaurants is good quality ingredients from local farms.
All the chicken at Crispy Bird was a breed called American Freedom Ranger from Gunthorp Farm in Indiana. They are humanely and naturally raised on pasture – as free range as it gets. Walking into Crispy Bird you wondered if you were in the right place. The interior looked like it was an upscale restaurant – framed photos of heritage breed chickens on the wall, white napkins and stainless steel cutlery, wine menu – not what you would have expected from a fried chicken place. The menu was also upscale – sides included braised sea island red peas, collard greens and egg yolk and mac and cheese cacio de pepe. I ordered the leg and thigh main with the sides I just mentioned – and a glass of sauvignon blanc while I waited.
When the food came out the first thing I thought was that the presentation was amazing – the chicken was cooked perfectly – the peas were very tasty and the mac and cheese was a version that I hasn’t has before and well done. The only problem was that when I finished I wanted more of the chicken- the portion was quite small – I could have eaten another 4-5 pieces but at $14 a pop didn’t make sense and everyone would have thought I was a glutton. I left believing I had a unique fried chicken dining experience and I have had a lot of fried chicken dining experiences and most of the time I left feeling ill from eating too much. I saw it as a fried chicken pilgrimage and reinforced my faith that if I look hard enough I can find the foods that I love which are cooked with ingredients that I believe in.
There is however a bit of a sad end to this story which you may have noted from the title. I visited Crispy bird about 8 months before I posted this story and I found out today that it closed in Jan 2019 (see article here). While I won’t be able to eat their fried American Freedom Ranger chicken again I am grateful to have been introduced to them and Gunthorp Farms and will keep an eye out for them both during my food search (apparently their biggest customer is Frontera grill). And the spirit lives on through the Patachou group of restaurants who are doing amazing things with food.
The Evolution of a Selective Flexitarian 
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