How do YOU make fried chicken?

Sometimes we do things a certain way in our lives, all of our lives, and get kind of a shock when you realizing not everyone does it the same way (like the first time I saw chicken and noodles at a Thanksgiving dinner…it was like, “Whoa! THAT’S not Thanksgiving food!)

Out of my classroom of 11, 7 are black men and 1 is white and the rest are Hispanic.

One of my students had to write a how-to instructional paper, and he wrote about how to make fried chicken. He asked me to come look at it before he submitted it. I made a few suggestions, like, “How much grease? How hot should it be?”

Then I said, “Well, you missed a step. You’re supposed to coat it with a milk and egg mixture before you put it in the flour.”
He disagreed and we started a little back and forth. I was sandwiched between him and the guy who sits next to him. Let’s call him Jerry. Jerry started laughing really low, and says, “Ms V! You’re telling a black man how to make fried chicken!”
I said, “No, Jerry! I’m a woman telling a man how to cook so that makes me right!” The whole room was in on it at that point, and they all laughed and….the debate was on all around the room…and NONE of my black students were familiar with putting the chicken in milk, or milk and egg. My white student said his mom always used just egg, and no milk. Then there was a moment of silence, everyone looking at each other in surprise, then at the same time, we all said, “Well, I’m gonna try it your way some time!”

Except for Lopez. Into the silence he said he was gonna make some Tacos de Lengua. I asked him what that was. He told me “tongue tacos.” I said that was DISGUSTING and all my students, except the other two Hispanics, agreed so we were back on the same page again, and a little wiser.

I have fun in my class. :)