Having succumbed to chain marketing once already this week (Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich), I thought I would get it out of my system altogether by finally investigating the Cracker Barrel fried chicken I’ve seen on about 200 billboards across the South. When I entered through the tacky storefront, it reminded me a lot of stopping at a roadside Stuckey’s.
I have to give the marketing guys credit though. They photographed the boneless skinless chicken breasts, battered and fried in a very lackluster seasoned flour in such a way that it actually looked like a real, bone-in fried chicken dinner with crisp skin and all the fixin’s. The fixin’s weren’t all that bad. If I ever find myself in another Cracker Barrel (nearly inconceivable, but someone with cancer might insist I bring them there for a final meal), I would probably suck it up and order their chicken and dumplings. The biscuit/roll wasn’t that bad either. And the chicken gravy on the mashed potatoes almost made it up to the public school cafeteria level, even if it did fall short of hospital food. If you want to pretend you’re country, by all means go. Otherwise, do yourself a favor and just run off to the Piccadilly if you get the urge to do institutional cuisine.
