Another twisted tale. The version of “we bring your dead relatives…” that I heard was about Coke Adds Life.
Sorry I guess I missed the earlier discussion and since I had seen it on Snopes, I thought it was true. They need to drop those phony ones, They got people believing that Mr. Ed is a zebra and that Kentucky patented their name.
Jeffery
Top Secret Recipes version of KFC Extra Tasty Crispy Chicken
In 1971, with KFC now out of his control, Colonel Harland Sanders was approached by the
company’s new owners, the Heublein Company, with a recipe for a crispier version of the famous fried chicken. The marketing department decided they wanted to call the product “Colonel Sander’s New Recipe” but the Colonel would have nothing to do with it. The stern and opinionated founder of the company who had publicly criticized the changes to his secret formulas (he called the revised mashed potatoes in a newspaper interview “wallpaper paste”), refused to allow the use
of his name on the product. Since the Colonel was an important component of the company’s
marketing plan, KFC appeased him. The new chicken was then appropriately dubbed “Extra
Crispy,” and sales were finger-licking good. Now you can reproduce the taste and crunchy breaded texture of the real thing with a marinating process similar to that used by the huge fast-food chain, followed by a double-dipped coating. Unlike the Original Recipe chicken clone which is pressure-cooked in oil, this version is simply deep fried.
1 whole frying chicken, cut up
6-8 cups vegetable oil
Marinade
4 cups water
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon MSG (see Tidbits)
Coating
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon MSG
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Trim any excess skin and fat from the chicken pieces. Preheat the oil in a deep-fryer to 350 degrees.
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Combine the water, salt and MSG for the marinade in a large bowl. Add the chicken to the bowl and let it sit for 20 minutes. Turn the chicken a couple times as it marinates.
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Combine the beaten egg and milk in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, combine the remaining coating ingredients (flour, salt, pepper and MSG).
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When the chicken has marinated, transfer each piece to paper towels so that excess liquid can drain off. Working with one piece at a time, first coat the chicken with the dry flour mixture, then the egg and milk mixture, and then back into the flour. Be sure that each piece is coated very
generously. Stack the chicken on a plate or cookie sheet until each piece has been coated. -
Drop the chicken, one piece at a time into the hot oil. Fry half of the chicken at a time (4 pieces) for 12-15 minutes, or until it is golden brown. You should be sure to stir the chicken around halfway through the cooking time so that each piece cooks evenly.
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Remove the chicken to a rack or towels to drain for about 5 minutes before eating.
www.topsecretrecipes.com
Serves 3-4 (8 pieces of chicken).**Tidbits**
MSG is Monosodium Glutamate, the solid form of a natural amino acid found in many vegetables.
It can be found in stores in the spice sections and as the brand name Accent flavor enhancer. MSG is an important component of many KFC items.
Hmm… that recipe sounds a bit like the fraudulent Toll House Cookie/Red Velvet Cake recipe to me. Have you actually tried it? Does it work?
In fact, going to the site you list above, I found a recipe for “authentic” McDonald’s milkshakes without any sort of seaweed in them even though I know McDonald’s puts it in there (I believe as a preservative).
I don’t know whether McDonald’s puts seaweed in their shakes or not, but if they do, it’s most likely as a thickener, not as a preservative. Carageenan would be the most likely product, which is derived from a sea vegetable and is sometimes used as a non-fat thickener or binding agent.
Rich
You’re right Rich. Carrageenan keeps the shakes thick and cloying even when they warm up. At least it used to–they might have changed recipes since I last checked.
Don’t know about the seaweed… and haven’t tried the chicken recipe, but I’ve tried several other recipes from this site and they have always been dead on.
And about the “not so funny” jokes in the T.R.O.L.L. section of snopes, I soundly disagree (ok, I may be taking this thread to Cuba). People are always saying “lets start an UL so we can really see how it spreads.” Everyone wants to do a “forward to everyone you know” type of legend. Everyone also hates getting these. What better way than to throw a few really absurd things on the web that are easily debunked, and still seeing how they spread.
People love to believe things no matter how stupid. It doesn’t take too much skill to figure out that the Lost Legends are jokes. I say if you got taken, take it like taking the bait from any other troll… wash the taste of worm from your mouth and get on with your life.
The guy from TSR spends hours in kitchens trying to come up with recipes that are mock-ups of the originals, with ingredients that everyone can get at home. I’ve seen him on several TV shows doing side-to-side taste tests. While the recipes are not the exact ones used by the restaurants, they’re usually pretty damn close. I’ve tried quite a few, although I’ve never made the chicken, and they all work wonderfully.
I heard that they had to change the name because the product that they sell isn’t really “chicken” as defined by the FDA. It is some genetically altered animal that is bred for the specific purpose of being used in the fast food business. That is why they do not use the word chicken in any of their advertisements or on the menu.
jdem:
Have you ever been to a KFC? 
I just drove past one and saw the word chicken on two window posters and it’s all over their web site.
jdem214, actually, if you go to KFC’s web site and look, they are promising legal action against whoever started that particular web rumor.
http://www.kfc.com/
They also provide links to AFU and snopes to debunk that and the other “name change” rumors (although snopes has to take a hit for creating the “State of Kentucky licensed the name” tale, even if it was a joke).
Tom~
And in Quebec, KFC is PFK. Really! 
Judges 14:9 - So [Samson] scraped the honey into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
The promotional reason I remember hearing was they wanted a catchier, more hip name. KFC sounded “cooler” than Kentucky Fried Chicken. So it was catering to the teeny-boppers.
As a former employee for KFC, Harlan Sanders actually sold the “Original Recipe” to a guy named Pete Harman. Harman made KFC what it is today. He later sold part of the name, but still owns about 250 stores, most of those are west of the Rockies.
[mask on] OK, this is a hijack, keep yer hands where I can see 'em.
If the Kentucky trademark thing is a hoax (which is what is sounds like), why did the Kentucky Derby change its name? You would assume that it would take something sizeable to make folks part with a name with such history.
[/mask off]
They say the Lord loves drunks, fools and little children.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
They haven’t changed their name. See the following URL:
http://www.kentuckyderby.com/
Is there a circulating urban legend that says that they have changed their name?
Yeah, part of the same UL-I got taken in by the ‘Run for the Roses’ stuff. Oops. Shame on me. I took it at face value since I had heard the ‘Run for the Roses’ term quite often lately, but not the Kentucky Derby.
Damn Snopes. LOL.
-sb
They say the Lord loves drunks, fools and little children.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
My original topic on the subject (more or less): http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/002639.html
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
That’s disturbing. I have visited the snopes website countless times and I am disappointed that they would stick a parody (in this case read “lie”) into the site.
Col. Sanders, incidentally, didn’t care for the mashed potatoes-and-gravy sold at the fast-food places. When he tasted it he said, “Who the hell can eat this goddamned slop?” But a company spokesman told writers that Sanders’ own recipe is so intricate that to mass-produce it for KFC generally, would be prohibitively expensive.
Snopes also claimed that Harry Von Zell (the host of the old George Burns show) did not introduce President Herbert Hoover as “Hoobert Heever!”