Fried Chicken by John T. Edge

Burton was a minimalist. I don’t suppose he would have approved of my use of thyme. His spice cabinet was bare except for a tin of black pepper, a box of salt. But I am a mere mortal, not able to coax from chicken the stupendous flavor for which the Deacon was known. Herewith, my tribute to the Deacon, my heretical stab at transcendence.
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    â–  1 chicken weighing 3 to 4 pounds (the
smaller, the better), cut into 8-10 pieces
■ 8 teaspoons salt
■ 1 quart cold water
■ 4 teaspoons black pepper
■ 4 teaspoons thyme
■ 1 cup self-rising flour
■ Lard, or shortening into which you mix
about 3 tablespoons bacon grease
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    Dissolve 4 teaspoons of the salt in the cold water and soak chicken in water for 1 hour. Drain and then pat almost dry. Season chicken with 2 teaspoons each of the ( continued ) salt and pepper, and 2 teaspoons of the thyme. Mix flour and remaining 2 teaspoons each of the salt, pepper, and thyme in a heavy paper or plastic bag. Add a couple of pieces of chicken at a time, shake to coat thoroughly, and shake again upon removal to loosen excess flour. Remove floured chicken to a wax-paper- or parchment-lined pan. Refrigerate if you plan to wait more than 10 minutes to fry.
    Heat lard or shortening over medium-high in a cast-iron skillet, to reach a depth of 1½ inches when liquefied. When the liquid reaches 350°, slip the dark meat in, skin-side down, followed by the white meat. Keep the lard or shortening between 300° and 325° and cook each side for 5-6 minutes covered and then 5-6 minutes uncovered, for a total of 20-24 minutes, or until an internal thermometer registers 170° for dark meat, 160° for white meat. Drain on a wire rack, blotting with paper towels as necessary. Serves 3 or 4.
    It Takes a Village to Fry a Chicken
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    i have long been fascinated by the shoebox lunch, a traveler’s repast assembled in a box that once contained high heels with grosgrain bows or brogans studded with brass eyelets. As constructed by a mother, an aunt, or a family cook, it might hold a fried chicken leg, a half-sandwich of pimento cheese on crustless white, a couple of deviled eggs tucked in a sleeve of wax paper. And, secreted away from the prying eyes and appetites of neighbors, it might even include a slice of red velvet cake slicked with cream cheese icing.
    Until recently, as a self-aware and somewhat defensive native of the South, I thought of shoebox lunches as harbingers of the bad ol’ days. They conjured a time when laws and customs complicated a trip of any distance in the Jim Crow South, dictating that black citizens could not eat alongside white. But, in the story that follows, the story of the railroad cooks of Gordonsville, Virginia, I found a story of black and white interaction and eating on the go in which I might eke out a measure of pride.

TEN

    The Chicken Bone Express
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    the creosote-swabbed timbers of the CSX rail trestle loom large at a bend in the road leading into Gordonsville, Virginia, a small town twenty-five miles north of Charlottesville. Even today, the sight and sound of a locomotive heaving up and over the trestle, skirting town at rooftop height, commands attention. The brute force of the engine calls to mind the days when Gordonsville was the junction of the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Orange, Alexandria & Manassas.
    Catercorner from the trestle is an abandoned freight depot. Beyond that is the two-story clapboard Exchange Hotel, commandeered as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War and now home to a museum dedicated to the late unpleasantness. Across the way—and of greatest import for the purposes of my fried chicken quest—is the onetime site of Gordonsville’s passenger station. That’s where, from the mid-1800s until at least the 1930s, African American women peddled food to travelers whose trains stopped here to take on water and coal.
    Gordonsville was not the