Fried Chicken Face-Off: 1911 vs 2021

Hello Tastorians welcome to a special Saturday  episode of Tasting History and it is special   because iI am here with a guest the  first time. I've had a guest actually   on the show not in my kitchen this is Chef Kiki  from Chef Kiki's Kitchen, owner and proprietor and   chef to the stars including diddy  it's actually love now so ah so yeah   it's changed it's official it's on his  driver's license and everything oh my god yeah   anyway what are we making today so we're gonna be  doing two versions of fried chicken we're gonna do   my own modern version as well as a recipe  from the 1911 cookbook good things to   eat as suggested by rufus rufus and kiki's  fried chicken this time on tasting history   so chef tikki and i have been looking to do  something for quite a while actually her mother   reached out to me on instagram uh which was which  is so much fun my daughter is a chef so so we've   been looking for something to do together for  for months now and then you had the idea to do it   today specifically on a saturday because today is  juneteenth which is a holiday here in the u.s that   a lot of people especially outside of the  us don't know about correct it commemorates   the june 19 1865 announcement of general order  number three by union army general gordon granger   when he arrived on the island of galveston texas  and proclaimed the people of texas are informed   that in accordance with a proclamation from  the executive of the united states all slaves   are free so once we decided on a date to do the  the episode we wanted to look at some cookbooks   and and find a recipe of course and  one of the cookbooks that we found   was the first cookbook by an african-american  chef good things to eat as suggested by rufus   cut up two chickens put a quarter of a pound  of butter mixed with a spoonful of flour into   a saucepan with pepper salt little vinegar parsley  green onions carrots and turnips into a saucepan   and heat steep the chicken in this marinade three  hours having dried the pieces and floured them   fry a good brown garnish with fried parsley so  this is rufus's chicken but what is yours like   so mine is very different mine's buttermilk a  little hot sauce a seasoning i cannot tell you   paprika garlic powder salt a little bit  of tony's and that's it what is tony's   oh tony's is a creole seasoning really really good  spicy it will make you that is tony's there it is   i thought i saw that i was like i recognized that  let's see what's in front of me for the last 20   minutes no if you've ever used it so we're we're  going to use it when we fry the chicken and i will   let you know right now like you will choke like  just by the way it happens what a dork chef tony   is i don't know if you can see this oh my god  wait let me what a geek that can't be him he's   got those um i don't believe it he's got those  glasses that you like used to wear when you were   playing basketball you had to wear glasses  back in the 90s safety goggles that's what yeah   poor chef tony yes that's sad so that is your  recipe for chef rufus's recipe what you'll need is   two small chickens a quarter pound  of butter so we melted the butter um   it's a pikachu on the bowl cute you put the flour  in there turnips carrots green onions i feel like   this is the healthiest fried chicken recipe ever  it's all green and there's some butter in it   i don't know it seems healthier than well  healthier than buttermilk but i guess the   vegetables yeah but when you when you put  in like the butter that's in there it's   not like you're actually eating any of these  vegetables it's just in a exactly it's just   to marinate flavor yeah and i mean i'm gonna  assume like vinegar when he said a little bit then just salt and pepper and then he talks about  additional flour for flowering and then fried   parsley which he actually has a recipe for which  basically is just taking parsley and throwing   it into a deep fryer right which there's nothing  wrong with that either no looking forward to that and voila we have our already marinated  chicken thank you for doing that ahead   of time of course of course um so yeah we it  says on the recipe to dry it it doesn't say to   rinse it um which probably is because you kind  of want the chicken to still have some type of   coating on there otherwise once you dump it  into the flour it's not going to stick right   so you know that's probably why it's just a quick  little pat dry and then into the flour so i'm just   going to drop it in there she sounds skeptical i'm  very skeptical because it's not wet and it's like   it's working it is working  though mr estes knew what he was   doing he just might have been on something was  a chef it is working it's very coated mine is   quite different face is still flour though so  my secret that i put in is also cornstarch are   you ready for this tony's because i'm telling you  right now when we pour it you are going to start   choking it is jesus after you die putting the  tonys in the flour um you want to add some paprika   a little bit of rosemary not a lot ground sage  some ground thyme to add salt to whisk it up   and then he probably would have used lard to  fry this and so that's what we're going to be using so you never want to crowd the pan when  you're trying and we'll get crispy so   we're probably just going to do these so while the chicken cooks  let's look into the life of   one of the first documented black celebrity chefs so one of the cool things about rufus estes  cookbook is that he includes not just recipes   but a bit of a biography a sketch of my life and  so that's actually how we know most of what we   know about rupa zestus in his own words i was  born in murray county tennessee in 1857 a slave   after the war broke out all the male slaves in the  neighborhood for miles around ran off and joined   the yankees this left us little folks to bear the  burdens at the age of five i had to carry water   from the spring about a quarter of a mile from  the house drive the cows to and from the pastures   mine the calves gather chips chips those would  be cow chips if nobody's ever heard of cow chips   you'd have to gather up the cow poop my grandpa  used to call him cow pies it is also nasty which   is also nasty like why are we equating cow poop  with food i don't i don't quite why a pie it does   kind of look like maybe like a little chocolate  pie but someone had dropped on the ground   so during the civil war his brothers had run away  and two of them ended up dying in the war and it   obviously made his mother distraught and  her health started to fail so they moved   in with his grandmother in nashville tennessee and  that's where he got his first job at a restaurant   and he worked there five or six years before  getting a really good job at the whopping sum   of ten dollars a week which actually was a very  good salary at the time but the job was in chicago   and it wasn't long after moving to chicago that he  got a job with a very prestigious pullman service   plumbing cars were these like luxury train cars  that you could rent out and some people would like   rent them for long long periods of time to take  them all the way across the country and he was put   in charge of some of these cars and this is this  is where he like started to become a celebrity   because he was a chef for other celebrities  like someone else i know he gives quite an   exhaustive list of some of the people that  he cooked for but they include presidents   benjamin harrison and grover cleveland as well  as henry morton stanley the african explorer   famous for the line dr livingston i presume  as he rose to the top of his profession he   got a job on the empress of china which was  a steamer ship that took him from vancouver   to tokyo where he got to visit the cherry blossom  festival obviously in high demand he ended up   getting a job under arthur stillwell who was a  railroad magnate and was put in charge of a 20   000 train car and after that he was noticed by  people at the united states steel corporation   this is andrew carnegie and jp morgan's  people and ended up becoming the head chef   for the united states steel corporation in  chicago now this of course was a time before   food network or youtube where you could be  a chef on youtube and uh so this was kind of   the top this was this is the end of the line  when it came to career unless you were working   like in a major hotel in london or paris or new  york but just like celebrity chefs or youtube   chefs today he decided to top off his career  by writing a cookbook and in 1911 he published   good things to eat as suggested by rufus  and it was the first cookbook by a black   chef there had been other cookbooks written  by african americans before that but it was   never a professional chef who had written them  so it was it was kind of a big deal and one of   my favorite things is that we actually still have  the book announcement of when it went on sale   mr rufus estes an author mr rufus estes our  congenial friend has completed his book entitled   good things to eat the first copy was auctioned  off at the office of the illinois steel company   where mr estes is employed the assistant  secretary was the purchaser it brought 11   the book will be sold for 50 cents  a copy and can be secured at 3408   state street so the other cool thing about his  cookbook is the sheer breadth of recipes um   everything from what you'd find in a fancy hotel  at the time to things that were a little bit more   what pickled pig's feet are in here and stuff  like that so things that you might not find in   a fancy hotel at the time yeah so he really kind  of covered the gamut which i i think is pretty   awesome what is your story because obviously when  it comes to tasting history the history portion is   what i'm so passionate about um and  you know i fumble along in the kitchen   but you are a trained chef and so i'd love to find  out kind of what got you there and why i just love   food like i i mainly so what really got me into  it was my grandmother's my mom's mom she really   taught me how to cook and my dad's mom taught me  how to bake and so i had like two different sides   of the spectrum of of cooking um but baking was  was really my passion like if even to this day   if i had to choose between baking or cooking i  would choose baking it's just something about   how much love goes into desserts you know you  have to you you can't just throw in you know   as i said as you saw me earlier you just throw in  like baking powder and all it's a science like you   really have to have patience when you're baking  um so yeah food is just joy and happy i like   to put smiles on people's faces through food you  know food brings people together and it does bring   people together including you and i and chef  rufus estes yes though i don't have a i don't   have a recipe for fried chicken only you two do  but i'm here to eat it and here we are rufus's   fried chicken and kiki's fried chicken so first  we are going to try rufus's fried chicken i cannot   wait i'm taking the leg okay that's good because i  wanted the wing so we're insane that's still quite warm okay it's good it's really moist it's   i gotta say i'm not getting any one of  those vegetables that he put in there yeah   and we that we merited she marinated it for  quite some time i did i don't really taste   what am i tasting all i taste is flour and salt  and chicken and chicken but it is good though   i don't know if i taste the butter  i'm trying to figure that out   i don't hate it i don't hate it oh it  kind of taste the butter a little bit   and then we have chef kiki's chicken it  smells so good can we get a candle of this   like i would burn a candle just a fried chicken  candle kiki's fried chicken candle oh my god   marketing that's actually sounds like a  good idea you can crispy you're so crispy   it's so hot love you rufus but we have a  clear winner here like this snow contest   is amazing yes oh my gosh victory is mine so that  is fried chicken two different ways both lovely   one especially lovely and if you want to see more  of chef kiki's cooking yes i have my website it's www.chefkikiskitchen.com or you can  find me on instagram at chef underscore   kiki's underscore kitchen and her  food photography is beautiful i try   i'm so jealous i wish i had that talent so  thank you to john poll for letting us use his   amazing kitchen um i want a kitchen like  this someday someday yes and that's it   so we'll see you next time on tasting  history i'm finishing this chicken right now

Channel: Tasting History with Max Miller

Views: 377,568

Keywords: tasting history, food history, max miller, fried chicken, good things to eat, fried chicken recipe, chef kiki, first cookbook by an african american chef, first cookbook by a black chef

Id: JLbej0adpKs

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/GeneralBurzio]

Gasp, a weekend episode?

[u/samsationalization]

Weekend episode? Absolutely blessed

[u/Not_A_Wendigo]

A BONUS! Today is a good day. Thank you!

[u/pdunson57]

They both looked good… but Kiki’s had the spices for the flavor!

[u/wildeflowers]

omg so exciting, a SATURDAY episode. 🥰🥰🥰 Sitting here editing, and I get to watch/listen to this awesomesauce? I'm in.

Happy Juneteenth everyone.

ETA Rufus knows about fried parsley, Rufus is a good man.

[u/javakah]

I continue to be surprised that Max hasn't been picked up yet by The Food Network, History Channel, or a morning show.

[u/aoeudhtns]

I'm on team confit. Rufus probably meant to confit the chicken with the butter and veg, and then dredge in flour and flash fry just to give it a crisp exterior. It's also a preparation that would work well for restaurants or entertaining, because the confit would allow you to make the chicken well ahead.