Unpacking the chicken box: The story behind Baltimore's carryout staple (2013, university)

[Infinite_heights77]

*Interesting article! I don't eat chicken boxes or crack seasoned crustaceans anymore, but enjoy!


Unpacking the chicken box: The story behind Baltimore's carryout staple

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertai...309-story.html

Brittany BrittoContact Reporter
The Baltimore Sun


On a recent afternoon at Sunny's Subs, Dion and Alfred Allen dug fingers-first into Styrofoam clamshells filled with Western fries and chicken wings covered in ketchup.

The brothers and Morgan State University students come to the carryout, just a short walk from campus, as often as they can, and this $5.99 combo — the "chicken box" — is their meal of choice.

"They got the best chicken in the state right now," said Alfred Allen, 21, adding that his family will make the 30-minute drive to Northeast Baltimore for Sunny's well-seasoned wings.

Dion Allen, 18, agreed through bites of fries. "There's so many places selling in it the area. It makes you want it more."

Baltimore's chicken boxes

When it comes to fast-food culture, the chicken box is Baltimore's staple. With ties to slavery and black migration in the Jim Crow era, its history lends cultural significance to the city's go-to fast food.
When it comes to fast-food culture, the chicken box is Baltimore's staple. The meal, which typically includes fried chicken wings, a generous portion of French fries (often a wedge-shaped, "Western" variety) and bread or a dinner roll, is packaged into a signature to-go box made of cardboard or Styrofoam. The delicacy can be doused in sauces — often "salt-pepper-ketchup" or hot sauce — and is best served, according to most Baltimoreans, with a "half-and-half," a sweet mixture of lemonade and iced tea. Carryouts like Sunny's Subs and local chains like Royal Farms have sold chicken boxes for years, keeping the term hyperlocal, even as international franchises serve their own versions.

Yet the origin story of the chicken box extends far beyond Baltimore. With ties to slavery and black migration in the Jim Crow era, its history lends cultural significance to the city's go-to fast food.

The first documented fried chicken recipe came from an 18th-century British cookbook, according to Adrian E. Miller, soul food scholar and author of "Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time." Only later was the recipe adopted by Americans, first by white Southerners who prepared it for indulgent feasts, and then by African-Americans, many of whom memorized the recipes from their days as enslaved cooks. They, too, transformed the recipes into their own, passing them on to future generations, often reserving the "Gospel Bird" for special and spiritual occasions like church functions, Miller said.

"It was cherished, and then the miracle of our food system was that these celebration foods, that could only be eaten on certain occasions, could now be eaten on a regular basis," Miller said.

An early form of the chicken box likely arrived on the restaurant scene in the 1930s, when it began to appear in local newspaper ads. The first reference to the fast-food delicacy in The Baltimore Sun was a 1933 ad for the Rail Grill promoting its $1 "sanitary box containing two whole fried spring chickens and a loaf of toasted bread — enough for four people."

[Calvert Hall '62]

[quote=Infinite_heights77;47559881When it comes to fast-food culture, the chicken box is Baltimore's staple. With ties to slavery and black migration in the Jim Crow era, its history lends cultural significance to the city's go-to fast food.


When it comes to fast-food culture, the chicken box is Baltimore's staple. The meal, which typically includes fried chicken wings, a generous portion of French fries (often a wedge-shaped, "Western" variety) and bread or a dinner roll, is packaged into a signature to-go box made of cardboard or Styrofoam. The delicacy can be doused in sauces — often "salt-pepper-ketchup" or hot sauce — and is best served, according to most Baltimoreans, with a "half-and-half," a sweet mixture of lemonade and iced tea. Carryouts like Sunny's Subs and local chains like Royal Farms have sold chicken boxes for years, keeping the term hyperlocal, even as international franchises serve their own versions.


______________

Yet the origin story of the chicken box extends far beyond Baltimore. With ties to slavery and black migration in the Jim Crow era, its history lends cultural significance to the city's go-to fast food.

The first documented fried chicken recipe came from an 18th-century British cookbook, according to Adrian E. Miller, soul food scholar and author of "Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time." Only later was the recipe adopted by Americans, first by white Southerners who prepared it for indulgent feasts, and then by African-Americans, many of whom memorized the recipes from their days as enslaved cooks. They, too, transformed the recipes into their own, passing them on to future generations, often reserving the "Gospel Bird" for special and spiritual occasions like church functions, Miller said.

"It was cherished, and then the miracle of our food system was that these celebration foods, that could only be eaten on certain occasions, could now be eaten on a regular basis," Miller said.[/quote]


Health food, B'mo style.


So that's what explains B'mos obesity, blood pressure, and blood lipid rates.

[AMINMD]

What about lake trout?
Seeing the lake trout signs everywhere made me wonder, and this post urged me to investigate.

Maryland Lake Trout | Lake Trout, A Catchy Name - tribunedigital-baltimoresun

https://aseatenontv.wordpress.com/20...rout-the-wire/

https://nyti.ms/2mRXEm7