kentucky fried crap

My first real job was at the Subway in my hometown, where my bosses hated me because I defied their very scientific and mechanical approaches to sub preparation ("Sandwich Artist", the official title of Subway slaves, is a clever misnomer.) Skill-wise, I don't know if I learned much other than How to Be Corporate's Bitch. But at least I can give an insider's account of the behind-the-scenes action at Subway--the fact that the roast beef acquires a rainbow-like sheen when exposed to oxygen, and that a little-followed policy is to charge 25 cents when a customer exceeds his 6 olive slices max--all of which, I found out today, are nothing compared to the skeletons in the closet of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

My co-worker Julius worked at KFC when he was 16, and he let me in on how the crispy little chicken parts get from point A to point B:

The raw chicken breasts, thighs and wings come in a plastic bag that, once thawed, becomes filled with blood. Company procedure dictates that employees must drain the blood  and remove certain gushy excesses before tossing the chicken parts in the fryer, but Julius said that if things got too busy, those inconsequential steps were skipped, and the whole bag was dumped in, blood and guts and all.

(Now, this is one KFC out of 70 zillion, and adherence to policies and procedures may not be uniform, so please don't sue me, scary Colonel man.)

There was no raw meat at Subway, thank god, but there was meat, and it had to be raw at some point. And who knows where the hell it came from. A chicken, presumably, somewhere....

Maybe we should start stamping our foods with "Made in" labels.