TORONTO — Today, Sept. 9, marks the birthday of KFC founder Colonel Harland Sanders who, at the age of 40, began selling home-cooked Kentucky Fried Chicken to travellers at his gas station in Corbin, Ky.
Soon after the launch of the company, the Governor of Kentucky made Harland Sanders a Kentucky Colonel, thanks to the popularity of his cuisine.And, one of the secrets to the Colonel’s success was the pressure cooker used to deep fry his chicken. Sander’s original recipe, of 11 herbs and spices, perfected more than 50 years ago, is still a deep secret with production of the sauce handled by different KFC teams in different buildings and companies each mixing parts of the recipe before it’s combined and mixed in a top-secret location.
The first Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant outside of the U.S. opened in Calgary in 1956. Colonel Sanders maintained a close relationship with Canada ever since, including being a Parade Marshall of the Calgary Stampede and living in Toronto for many years. KFC Canada now has more than 800 franchised locations in Canada.
The Colonel would have been 121; he died in 1980.
