Free My Southern Journey by Rick Bragg Page A

other unnatural things, but there is just something in the chemical properties of cabbage that does not respond to being encased in a counter next to some dessicated teriyaki chicken wings. But I digress.
    Some do not even have slaw prepared in-house. The option is the mass-produced, trucked-in slaw that you can buy in a vacuum-sealed plastic tub. This is not food, in any culture. Cabbage, unless pickled, does not respond to the passing of weeks. Neither, ugh, does mayonnaise. The rule—if I was king I would make it an edict—for coleslaw should be that it should never be anywhere near a truck. I will not eat Gulf shrimp in St. Paul. Coleslaw should not take to the highway.
    But, they sell it. They sell it because people eat it.
    God help us, they do.
    So, I go see the Colonel, or drive through at Popeye’s, or another fast-food option.
    The Colonel is not with us anymore, and it’s probably a good thing he left this world before he even suspected that, someday, his beloved chicken restaurants—I mean, the man used to drive around to his restaurants to taste-test the gravy —would someday share a building with fast-food burritos.
    I simply cannot abide this. I do not brag about awards that much, not now that I am old and no one who knows me even cares, but I am the winner of the coveted James Beard Award, which makes me a blue ribbon-wearing, bona fide expert on the preparation of food.
    That is, of course, a big, fat, hairy lie. But let’s at least assume that, as the son of one of the finest cooks who has ever lived, and a man who has dined all over the world, I know the difference between a rice cake and a plate of sausage gravy. And this son of the true South cannot get his mind around the fact that the teenagers behind the glass of the drive-through are forming tacos in the same assembly line that should be devoted, heart, mind, and soul, to my three-piece dinner.
    But it’s still pretty good chicken, as is the chicken offered by most of the others. (Though, Popeye’s kind of bothers me, too. I mean, it’s called Popeye’s. Why is there no Popeye? I loved Popeye. But there is not one cardboard cutout or action figure or … not even a Wimpy. I do not miss Olive Oyl. She always kind of bothered me.)
    Anyway, these chains, along with a handful of others, are the logical alternative to the troubling slaw that accompanies the otherwise fine deli chicken. And so I am a fairly regular customer of their drive-through windows.
    As I was that day I had that awful fried chicken jones. I went through a drive-through, got me a whole bucket and the appropriate condiments, including slaw. Slaw is perfect with chicken. It cools and balances the meal. It is said to be healthy, before you whip in a quart of mayonnaise.
    I went home, turned on the Atlanta Braves to see if they have, in the past five years or so, found a way to manufacture a run, and sat down for the perfect evening, just me, my chicken, and four hours of stranded runners. I mean, my grandma could lay down a bunt.
    The first bite of chicken was heavenly.
    The coleslaw never made it to my lips. It had gone bad. It had probably gone bad two days before. I slam-dunked it in the garbage.It did not matter that everything else was fine. I had counted on that coleslaw. I needed that coleslaw.
    I balled up my fists. I might have cursed. Yes, I did. I did curse.
    I am not one of those people who will return to the drive-through and rant. I don’t call. What good does it do?
    So, I just slumped on the couch, morose.
    The Braves, their slump broken, were gleefully circling the bases.

    Does it have to be this way?
    It would be one thing if it were just fast food, where quality control often consists of, well, nothing. But I have stared suspiciously at coleslaw in even high-end places.
    One of my favorite restaurants, in Baton Rouge, gave me coleslaw that, I believe, was held over from … well, dinners past. And I had just written about how good it was.
    I think, among the