August 5, 2008
Mmmm, Lard?
Some of my best friends tell me they love them some Popeye's chicken. And who can blame them? It certainly looks delicious, doesn't it? It smells good, too. I was reminded how good just the other day, when I had dinner at Andrew and Maureen's, where Popeye's chicken and biscuits were among the fare.
When offered to partake, though, I had to decline. I keep quasi-kosher: I don't eat pork, shellfish, catfish, eels, carrion birds, etc. (Would that I could but once savor the sweet, succulent taste of vulture flesh.) Lard, as you may know, is rendered pig fat, and I was all but certain that Popeye's cooks just about everything in lard. The Internets seemed to agree.
To be certain, I visited the Popeyes.com, but no ingredients are listed there. So I called the customer service line. The nice lady who answered the phone politely informed me that she didn't know the answer, either. She did take my name, number, the Popeye's location about which I was inquiring, and then told me someone from "upper management" would return my call.
Four days later my cellyphone rung, and somebody, apparently a local manager, asked if I had called with a question about lard. He told me that, no, Popeye's does not use lard. When I asked if this was location-specific, he indicated that it should apply to at least the restaurants in Prince Georges and Montgomery counties. The gentleman couldn't tell me exactly what was in the shortening but said that they had recently reformulated it to comply with Montgomery County's trans-fat regulations. Even before the reformulation, they had not used lard (though it wouldn't matter — lard is trans-fat-free).
Unless I have been mislead, then, it appears that I, too, can love me some Popeye's.
Posted by cradle at August 5, 2008 6:53 PM