# Secret recipe of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2000, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278 "2000-04-12T09:14:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ament69](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@Ament69](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ament69)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2000, 9:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/1 "2000-04-12T09:14:00Z")
I was wondering what the eleven secret herbs and spices on Kentucky Fried Chicken’s (KFC)chicken are? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2000, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/2 "2000-04-12T14:20:00Z")
## Is this in response to one of Cecil’s columns? “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” - the White Queen ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2000, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/3 "2000-04-12T15:43:00Z")
With a little bit of imagination, this could relate to several of Cecil’s columnns! [How did salt and pepper become the standard table spices?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_051.html) [Can salt substitute kill you? (17-Dec-1999)](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/991217.html) OK, this one’s a stretch of the imagination; also it’s a mailbag item, not a column. [Who is the General Tso of “General Tso’s chicken” fame? (27-Dec-1999)](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mgentso.html) To answer the OP, [this article](http://detnews.com/1999/food/0422/lead/lead.htm) claims that the Recipe Detective was able to emulate the Colonel’s recipe. > [@](#): > > That’s when the Recipe Detective met the Colonel, as in Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken. > > ``` > It was right after Pitzer had included the recipe for the Colonel’s battered chicken in one of her newsletters. She had come up with something very similar to his “11 secret herbs and spices,” but it wasn’t quite right. > > “I was doing a radio show with WFAA in Dallas and the station hooked me up with the Colonel on the air. He said, ‘You don’t need 11 secret herbs and spices, I saw your recipe in the paper, and you can find one package of food in the supermarket that will do the whole thing. Come back next week and tell me what it is.’ “ > > “I tried everything in the supermarket that came in a package, and it turned out to be Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix. I added tomato-flavored Lipton Cup of Soup for color and Sanders said, ‘My, you certainly are a detective, aren’t you?’” and that’s how Pitzer got her name, the Recipe Detective. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![JillGat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9fc29f/32.png) [@JillGat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JillGat)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2000, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/4 "2000-04-12T16:22:00Z")
This has been addressed before in General Questions, I believe. I’m moving it there. Jill ---
**Author:** ![Nurlman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Nurlman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nurlman)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2000, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/5 "2000-04-12T18:34:00Z")
In one of William Poundstone’s books, \*Big|ger|gest Secrets[\i], (plug: excellent books, occasionally cited by Cecil, and just plain worth reading) he claims to have gotten a sample of the batter and sent it to a lab for analysis. His findings were that the “11 herbs and spices” were, in fact, salt, pepper, and monosodium glutamate. As I understand it (take it for what it’s worth), there may once have been 11 herbs and spices in the recipe, but that a few decades ago, the recipe was modified significantly. I don’t recall any modern contention that there were “11” herbs and spices in it any more, just a vague “secret blend of herbs and spices.” ---
**Author:** ![tanstaafl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba8739/32.png) [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2000, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/6 "2000-04-12T18:41:00Z")
Yeah, Poundstone’s books are pretty good, but he also claims in one of them that Cecil Adams is really Ed Zotti, so how much faith can we put in the rest of his answers. 🙂 * * * “Sometimes I think the web is just a big plot to keep people like me away from normal society.” — Dilbert ---
**Author:** ![ralphredan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f4b2a3/32.png) [@ralphredan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralphredan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/7 "2000-04-13T19:00:00Z")
KFC was sued once by the govt. over the 11 herbs thing and got out of having to reveal the recipe by claiming it was a “service mark”, and no more suseptible to examination than claims of “Best Darn Pancakes in Town”. There’s a legal term for that, puffery, which is protected by centuries of common law precedents. * * * It’s sunny today in the RSA. ---
**Author:** ![Oblong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c0e974/32.png) [@Oblong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oblong)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2000, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/secret-recipe-of-kentucky-fried-chicken-kfc/10278/8 "2000-04-13T19:53:00Z")
I used to work at KFC in high school and never bothered to “analyze” the packets. We used to mix flour, a packet of milk and egg mix (w/ the colonel’s logo) and our packet of seasoning. The funny thing while there is that I never signed a confidentiality agreement. There was nothing preventing me from sending it off to a lab for testing. There was an ingredient label on there but I never thought to look. It did contain MSG, that I know, and lots of pepper. We would sneeze everytime we mixed the flower. We tried to get away from the flour mix but weren’t always successful.