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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2342904" data-attributes="member: 14159">Let me speak up here as a Kentuckian, born & raised.Kentucky Fried Chicken was first created in 1939 in the small town of Corbin, Kentucky by Col. Harlan Sanders.  The first resturant is still open and used as a museum as well.  The first franchise opened in 1952.  In 1964 he sold the resturant chain to a group of investors, including John Y. Brown (a future Governor of Kentucky), although he remained affiliated with the company and their spokesman for most of his life.  At one point is was sold to a company which decided to cut corners and change recipes to cut costs.  Col. Sanders was outraged, and was very outspoken in the media that the "gravy tastes like wallpaper paste" when they were done.  The new company sued for slander, but suing Kentucky's favorite son in a Kentucky court for complaining about the drop in quality of his product didn't get very far and he won the case.In 1991 they changed their name from "Kentucky Fried Chicken" to "KFC" because the term "Fried" was considered unhealthy.  There are bogus rumors that the state government wanted to charge a fee for the use of the name "Kentucky" (I'm about 99% sure they legally can't do that) or that they were using genetically modified fowl that couldn't legally be called "chicken", but they were both easily debunked urban legends.  It was all about worrying about an image problem for selling "fried" food.  They tried that "Kitchen Fresh Chicken" idea for a short while in 2001, but there were a lot of objections from Kentuckians about their namesake resturant turning their back on them.In April of this year, they started slowly going back to their original name, by opening new resturants called "Kentucky Fried Chicken", starting in Louisville, Kentucky.In Kentucky though, I've noticed we don't have as many Kentucky Fried Chicken as I see in other states when travelling.  Fried chicken, mashed potatos and gravy, green beans, and biscuits are certainly a very popular meal, but are typically homemade or from a local non-chain resturant.As for what Kentucky is like, it's mostly rural, lots of beautiful rolling hills (becoming low mountains in the east and southeast) and lots of forests.  Heavily dotted with farms (tobacco until recently), and horse farms in the central part of the state (horse country is quite beautiful, with lots of old handmade stone fences).  Plenty of small towns, but only two cities of note, Lexington and Louisville, which have a big rivalry in college basketball (University of Kentucky vs. University of Louisville).  The state has an unfortunate reputation of being ill-educated and uncivilized, and the more rural parts of the state can regrettably sometimes live up to the stereotype, but it's much different in the cities.  The state takes great pride in its horse breeding/racing industry, and the production of bourbon whiskey.  There is little in the way of professional sports, but University of Kentucky Basketball is the sport most commonly followed statewide (except near Louisville).  Much of the state is religously and socially conservative, and evangelical Christianity (especially Southern Baptist) is the most common religion, but in the cities you can find everything (including Wiccan, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist).As for regions of the country, the culture really does vary a whole lot based on where you go.  I guess we probably do look a little monolithic to an outsider, but on the inside there is a world of difference between a stereotypical New Yorker, Texan, Californian and a Kentuckian.  We have one common language, but pronounciations and vocabulary widely vary.  The Boston accent is often impenetrable to my ears, and the signature Texas twang sometimes grates on my ears, and while I try to keep my accent under control, I know sometimes I slip into a "southern" accent.  Also, within the U.S., "Yankee" does not mean somebody from the U.S., it mean somebody from the northeastern US.  Exactly what denotes a "Yankee" varies, but I generally consider it to be the state of Ohio and further north or east.  Many people from the southeastern U.S. (typically parts of the U.S. that formed the Confederacy during the Civil War) consider "Yankee" to be a perjorative and calling one that could easily be taken as a significant insult.</blockquote>

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