KFC
Harland Sanders was born in 1890 and raised on a farm
outside Henryville, Indiana (near Louisville, Kentucky). When
Sanders was five years old, his father died, forcing his mother to work at a canning plant.[5] This left Sanders, as the eldest son, to
care for his two younger siblings. After he reached seven years of age, his
mother taught him how to cook.[4] After leaving the family home at the age of
13, Sanders passed through several professions, with mixed success.[6] In 1930, he took over a Shell filling station on US Route 25 just outside North Corbin, Kentucky, a
small town on the edge of the Appalachian Mountains.[7] It was here that he first served to
travelers the recipes that he had learned as a child: fried chicken and other
dishes such as steaks and country ham. After
four years of serving from his own dining room table, Sanders purchased the
larger filling station on the other side of the road and expanded to six
tables.[8] By 1936, this had proven successful enough
for Sanders to be given the honorary title of Kentucky colonel by Governor Ruby Laffoon In 1937 he expanded his restaurant to 142
seats, and added a motel he purchased across the street, naming it Sanders Court & Café.
Sanders was unhappy with the 35
minutes it took to prepare his chicken in an iron frying pan, but he refused to deep fry the chicken, which he believed lowered the
quality of the product.[11] If he pre-cooked the chicken in advance of
orders, there was sometimes wastage at day' send.[4] In 1939, the first commercial pressure cookers were released onto the market, mostly
designed for steaming vegetables.[12] Sanders bought one, and modified it into a pressure fryer, which
he then used to fry chicken.[13] The new method reduced production time to be
comparable with deep frying, while, in the opinion of Sanders, retaining the
quality of pan-fried chicken.