Colonel Sanders

As compared to Betty Crocker in the previous post, Colonel Harland David Sanders is a real person. Colonel Sanders should be an inspiration to people young and old. At age 40 he started serving his chicken and at the age of 65 he started franchising Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants. (Gosh, I wonder what I will be able to achieve in the coming years.)

Needless to say, I love KFC and I am thankful to Colonel Sanders for coming up with his pressure frying technique and mixing up those 11 herbs and spices. Anybody who really knows me knows that I love gravy (lots and lots of gravy!). Too bad they don't have free gravy refills out here. You have to PAY for extra gravy. Heck, they don't even give you a fork for your chicken here. The most you will get is a spoon for your mashed potatoes. I suppose one could use that if one decided to go for the extra gravy.

I have included some of KFC's history from the KFC Australia website just for reference.

KFC History - Colonel Sanders

Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of the original Kentucky Fried Chicken, was born on September 9, 1890. When he was six, his father died and his mother was forced to go to work while young Sanders took care of his three year old brother and baby sister. This meant he had to do much of the family cooking. By the time he was seven, Harland Sanders was a master of a range of regional dishes.

After a series of jobs, in the mid 1930s at the age of forty, Colonel Sanders bought a service station, motel and cafe at Corbin, a town in Kentucky about 25 miles from the Tennessee border.

He began serving meals to travellers on the dining table in the living quarters of his service station because he did not have a restaurant.

It is here that Sanders began experimenting with different seasonings to flavour his chicken which travellers loved and for which he soon became famous.

He then moved across the street to a motel and restaurant, which seated 142 people. During the next nine years he developed his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique which is still used today.

Sander's fame grew. Governor Ruby Laffoon made him a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state's cuisine. And in 1939, his establishment was first listed in Duncan Hines' "Adventures in Good Eating".

A new interstate highway carried traffic past the town, which soon had a devastating affect on his business.
He sold up and travelled the United States by car, cooking chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the reaction was favourable Sanders entered into a handshake agreement on a deal which stipulated a payment to him of a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold.

By 1964, from that humble beginning, Colonel Harland Sanders had 600 franchise outlets for his chicken across the United States and Canada.

Later that year Colonel Sanders sold his interest in the United States operations for $2 million.
The 65-year-old gentleman had started a worldwide empire using his $105 social security cheque.
Sadly, Colonel Harland Sanders passed away on December 16th, 1980 aged 90.

KFC now stretches world wide with more than 9,000 stores in 86 countries serving the Colonel's Original Recipe.