Fried Chicken

by Myrtle Emma Clark Stephens, and told by a son

Mother and her black iron frying pan

As a youth, when the weather started to warm up in the spring (about Easter), we would either go fishing down on Bear River or go up Logan Canyon for a picnic nearly every Saturday.  When we went up the canyon, we would kill and dress a chicken to take with us.  When we found a picnic site, Dad would build a fire in the old metal stoves provided in the campgrounds and Mom would prepare the chicken we brought with us to cook.  If we were going further away, such as to Star Valley (Wyoming), we would take a live chicken with us which we would kill and dress at the picnic site.  Mom had an old black iron skillet or a heavy aluminum pan which she would season with bacon grease and place the cut up chicken pieces, rolled in flour, in the hot grease to cook.  We also had potatoes baked in the coals and chicken gravy prepared in the frying pan after the chicken was cooked.  Sometimes we would have baking powder biscuits cooked in front of the fire or cooked in the old iron frying pan.  If we were lucky we might even have a trout cooked in the frying pan.  Of course, once the watermelons came on we had to finish  our picnic with a wedge of watermelon that had been cooled in the cool river water.

The alternative to picnicking in the canyon was fishing down in Bear River.  For these occasions Mom would prepare the food ahead of time and we took it with us in an old cast aluminum pan which was wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm until we ate.  After eating our picnic we would either fish or go exploring and Mom would settle down to crocheting on a bedspread that she was always working on.