The de facto chicken fast food restaurant chain in the world, Kentucky Fried Chicken or KFC for short was grown from a backroom in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Today, it is globally known and enjoyed by millions of people every day.
In a video posted by Hook on Youtube, it tells you the whole history of Kentucky Fried Chicken:
Colonel Harland David Sanders was born in 1890. He went through a troubled childhood that forced him to leave home to work as a farmhand as early as 12 years old. When he turned 15, he left the farm to work a series of jobs with mixed success. The series of jobs included painter, plowman, lawyer, ferryboat operator, railroad fireman, and even insurance salesman!
By 1929, Sanders opened his own gas station in Kentucky where he cooked for his family and sometimes, the customers in the back room. Having to learn cooking ever since he was 5 years old, Sanders enjoyed making food with his mother’s recipe.
Words spread around at how good his cookings were until he was able to open a 142-seat restaurant and motel nearby under the name “The Harland Sanders Court and Cafe”. He was even honored with the title of “Kentucky Colonel” by the state’s governor in 1936.
Around this time, Sanders also found a new method of speeding up the cooking process for his fried chickens which is pressure cooking. Things were going well where he even received an endorsement in Duncan Hine’s Adventures in Good Eating. In the early 1940s, Sanders had managed to perfect his “Original” recipe of 11 herbs and spices. It remained a secret but he proudly admitted that the ingredients of his fried chickens are the ones that ‘stand on everybody’s shelf’.
Tourism dropped off when the Second World War happened, forcing him to shut his shop and he knew he needed a new plan. He sold up and traveled to the United States to franchise his recipe to other restaurant owners. That was how KFC was born.’
Sources: Youtube Hook