July 6 is National Fried Chicken Day

July 6 has become known as National Fried Chicken Day, and yum, yum - what a tasty day it will be when you and your family plan some special traditions to celebrate the holiday. Chicken has been almost a staple on the table of many families for thousands of years. It has been baked, roasted, boiled, barbecued, fricasseed and stewed, just to name a few.

For those of you interested in knowing how fried chicken came to be, it is said that it was introduced into the American South by Scottish immigrants who came to this country (www.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_chicken). When African slaves began cooking in homes they began to add unusual seasonings and spices that had not been a part of the Scottish tradition. These new seasonings combined with the Scottish frying technique were a hit and fried chicken, as we know it today, became a popular dish to serve for meals.

Since slaves were often allowed to keep chickens, frying chicken on special occasions spread through the African American community. As the years progressed, fried chicken continued to grow in popularity. It is commonly known as Southern fried chicken because of the style of cooking and it is considered an African-American food specialty (http://www.slavefood.info/2007/04/not-yo-mamas-fried-chicken.html).

Now the question becomes, how can you help your family celebrate National Fried Chicken Day in a way that will be memorable, fun and something you can all do together? Below are a few ideas for your consideration.

1. Organize a National Fried Chicken Fry Off

Have the family break into teams, if large enough, and create a special secret seasoning to coat chicken pieces with before frying. You can use one chicken or buy enough chicken pieces to go around for each team. Ask friends and other family members over to be the judges for the best tasting seasoning, hottest seasoning, most unusual seasoning etc. Who knows, someone in your family may be the next Colonel Sanders.

2. Invent a new National Fried Chicken Day Dance

Everyone is probably familiar with the "Chicken" dance and the dance called the Macarena. The gist of this idea is to have family members create a Fried Chicken dance. It might be good to set this activity up in teams, since more heads are usually better than one when creating something new. Have the teams start by choosing the tune they want for their dance. For example, maybe a group would choose to create a fried chicken dance based using a tune like Garth Brook's Boot Scoot'n Boogey. Another group, who may be into golden oldies, might create a fried chicken dance based on the tune Rock Around the Clock. Each team has to find the music for their dance and teach it to the other teams.

This may be an activity that needs to start several days before National Fried Chicken Day so that the selected music can be found and available for use while creating the dance and teaching it.

3. Design National Fried Chicken Day T-Shirts

There are many ways you can set up a Family National Fried Chicken T-shirt Design Contest but here are a few ideas. Buy computer T-Shirt transfer sheets and let family members design and print their T-shirt design. Once it is printed, they can iron it onto their T-shirt. You can also buy fabric paint and have family members design their T-shirt free hand. One other idea is to gather together lots of scraps of fabric, edgings, (ric rac, ribbons etc.) and have family members design and make their T-shirts using these materials. When everyone's T-shirts are done they have to write a commentary like what would be heard at a style show and read their commentary while modeling their T-Shirt.

These ideas are only the tip of the iceberg for making a fun family tradition for celebrating National Fried Chicken Day. Spend some time with your family creating other ideas or adding to these ideas if they are not exactly what they want. You are only limited by your courage to think out side of the box.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_chicken
http://www.slavefood.info/2007/04/not-yo-mamas-fried-chicken.html