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Eating the Southern
Way
(By Stacy Jones, February 4, 2006) |
Some
people just don’t get it.
Today I received an e-mail from
PETA, the acronym for the group otherwise known as People for
the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The message said, “Your
desire to make the world better for animals was probably what
brought you to our site a few weeks ago. I'd like to personally
invite you to help us put that same desire to work for animals
in need by becoming a member of PETA, an organization that makes
change happen!”
Now I have nothing against animals.
In fact, I probably harbor one of the softest spots for animals
of anyone I know. I’ve had my share of pets over the years,
including cats, dogs, goldfish, and, yes, even a pet rooster.
I couldn’t hit an animal while driving on the highway—including
possums—without experiencing some grief.
And I have nothing against an organization
that works to make the world a better place for animals. Admittedly,
after seeing news stories of animals forced to live in squalid
conditions by uncaring owners, I, too, want to see such people
brought to justice and made to realize the errors of their ways.
But I must admit I don’t always
trust those who are a little too zealous about any one cause.
PETA is more than a little too zealous. I admire the group for
their audacity in some campaigns, such as having celebrities
pose nude to protest fur.
I question the sanity of others,
though, including one ad that compares the literal, historical
slavery of African Americans to the figurative “slavery”
of animals that are raised for food or clothing or on exhibit
in zoos. In another ad, the organization compares the mistreatment
of chickens to the gross cruelties enacted on Jews in Auschwitz
during the Holocaust. I was appalled at such incongruous comparisons
regarding African American and Jewish people. What a mockery.
After I received the e-mail from
PETA encouraging me to join, I tried to recall exactly why I
had been visiting their website. Then I remembered. A week or
so ago, I had read a news story on the site about actress Pamela
Anderson protesting the presence of a bust of Colonel Harland
Sanders at the Kentucky State Capitol.
Many people in the South know of
Pamela Anderson through television. What comes to mind might
be her very open relationship at one time with rocker Tommy Lee.
Or her stint on TV show Baywatch. Or her inability to be inarticulate
on almost any subject. Or her ads with PETA where she wore Ugg
boots made of sheep fur while protesting cruelty to animals.
PETA’s response to that slight oversight? “Pam is doing
the best she can.”
On the other hand, everybody in
the South knows of Colonel Harland Sanders. With at least one
KFC, formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken, in every small and large
Southern town, Colonel Sanders has become a Southern icon. Photos
and illustrations of the Colonel, in his trademark white suit,
adorn the walls of those KFCs. Moreover, the Colonel has become
a world entity. Kentucky Fried Chicken is now available in over
80 countries and territories around the world.
The Colonel is the kind of success
story we like to hear, especially in the South. He began with
humble origins in Corbin, Kentucky. He developed his special
recipe chicken with its secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and
served it to weary travelers at his Sanders Family Restaurant.
The “finger lickin’ good” recipe was an immediate
hit. In recognition of his efforts to contribute to Kentucky
cuisine, the governor made him a Kentucky Colonel, an honorary
title, in 1935.
In the early 1950s, a new interstate
around town threatened the Colonel’s business. He auctioned
his assets and began living off of a monthly $105 Social Security
check. In 1952, he used this meager check to begin franchising
his business. He traveled across the country by car and entered
into handshake agreements that involved the payment of one nickel
to him for each chicken sold. In 1964, he sold his interest in
the company for $2 million to a group of investors but remained
a spokesman for the company until his death in 1980. The company
changed ownership a few more times and eventually ended up under
the umbrella of PepsiCo, owners of Pepsi Cola, Taco Bell, and
Pizza Hut—where it resides today.
PETA claims that suppliers of chicken
for PepsiCo raise the animals under torturous conditions. KFC,
however, counters by saying that they constantly monitor suppliers
to make sure they are employing humane handling procedures for
the animals.
What PETA doesn’t get is,
first of all, is the longstanding tradition of eating meat in
the South. Well-to-do Californians, for instance, who have grown
up eating little more than green leafy vegetables may know nothing
of an ancestry who had to eat what they could either raise or
sometimes find, including chickens, pigs, and sometimes less
desirable animals such as rabbits, possums, or squirrel.
Tradition, of course, doesn’t
make something correct. And most of us are better off economically
now in the South than previous generations. Very few raise or
hunt our own food of necessity. However, it’s part of our
history. We cannot instantly erase years of such history, something
PETA fails to realize.
Our people—who also grew gardens
full of vegetables to complement their meals—slaughtered
meat by hand. And let me say this: if you’ve ever heard
the description of someone killing a pig for cooking, it’s
not pleasant. These same people perfected ways of cooking meat,
including, yes, the famous chicken of Kentucky Fried fame, as
well as our well-known Southern style pork barbecue. I think
most of us would prefer to eliminate cruelty to animals, but
to give up all of those things wholesale would be a great loss
to our past in the South.
No surprise to anyone reared below
the Mason-Dixon line, Kentucky refused to remove the bust of
Colonel Harland Sanders from the Capitol, saying, “We have
no plans to remove or change anything about the display. Colonel
Sanders remains a Kentucky icon. His success story has been an
inspiration to many. The industry he began has employed hundreds
of thousands of workers over the years. His business and his
legacy have been good for Kentucky."
What happened next, in my opinion?
PETA and spokesperson Pamela Anderson had to turn tail and eat
crow, not the most appetizing of poultry dishes.
(Stacy Jones, who can hold her
own when it comes to eating fried chicken, is a Master of Fine
Arts student in fiction writing at The University of Memphis.
She is a native of Guys, Tenn., and her columns, which appear
on Saturdays, are archived at Southern-Drawl.com.) |
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