Posted on 11/07/2019 6:36:38 AM PST by rightwingintelligentsia
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The videos of mind-numbing first bites and long lines, the celebratory memes and fawning reviews: The return of the Popeyes chicken sandwich on Sunday has met with the same social-media frenzy that first greeted it last summer.
But embedded in many of the catchy memes and witty messages is not just an affection for spicy seasoning and crisp breading. There’s also a sentiment that Popeyes has struck a special chord for African-Americans and anybody who grew up eating black soul food — specifically, that its celebrated sandwich tastes like something that could have come from a black home kitchen.
One Twitter user, @RocBoy_Mel, wrote Sunday that he did not know whose “grandma” made the sandwiches, “but I finally got my hands on one today and I was very impressed.”
Reactions like that are no accident: Popeyes has aggressively marketed itself to African-Americans, and many of its restaurants are in black communities.
In a Facebook post in August, Nadiyah Ali, a nurse from Katy, Texas, compared the sandwich to a rival’s: Chick-fil-A’s version, she wrote, tasted as if it were made “by a white woman named Sarah who grew up around black people.” The Popeyes sandwich, she added, tasted “like it was cooked by an older black lady named Lucille.”
Black people were saying they liked the chicken not just for its taste, but also for the feelings of home cooking it evoked. It was the type of chicken they could take to a family potluck and not get a side-eye.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Thanks.
That Popeyes was a very decent place yesterday.
So were the customers of all races and the staff working their buns off to take our orders and fill them.
The sandwiches were excellent and so were the sides.
I had no idea about this sandwich when it first came out. My son was going there (unaware as well ) and I asked him to get me 2 thighs and rice) I looked in the bag and they filled my order wrong. They gave me the sandwich and rice. I was like ‘crap’. I was disappointed and grudgingly ate it, complaining to myself about the 2” thick of hard fried’ ness over the chicken. Thought I’d break a tooth. The next day I learned that was a coveted sandwich and laughed about it. I prefer the thighs. They can keep the sandwich.
My fave is the ‘dirty rice’.
It is very good.
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