Delores' Crispy Lemon Chicken
by Will Lindsey
When it comes to a family recipe that my family mutually enjoys is my grandmother Delores’ Crispy Lemon Chicken. It connects with us all primarily because it’s delicious, but also because the story she would tell us was interesting as well. The recipe would reveal the importance of our family and why we all love the meal so much. What the recipe unveils about my family all started with my grandmother, Delores, who was raised in a country town. My aunt Debra always tells us our grandmother Delores would be in the country, and as a child, constantly craved something sweet and tangy. However, her mother, my great-grandmother, would never allow her to eat sweets. So what she would do was eat lemons and savor the taste of the sweetness and tanginess. She always told us the tanginess was the best part and how it’s still her favorite fruit to enjoy. So as she would constantly beg my great-grandmother for lemons, she would never give them to her, unless she ate all of her chicken for dinner, which was a very frequent meal. My grandmother Delores’ would tell her daughter, Debra, that she would eat chicken a lot growing up. Many times she wanted to eat lemons before she ate her chicken, but was forbidden to do so. As she grew older when wondered if there was a way to combine lemons with chicken, so she could easily mix business with pleasure. This gave her an idea to create, what she calls, a lemon chicken recipe. She often told us the many times in which she failed at making it the right way, but she was eventually able to create a great dish.
My family along with my extended family were able to go out to the country on a few occasions and taste her lemons. The lemons were more fresh where she lived and there was always a difference when we tried her recipe at her residence. The recipe tells about our family is the closeness we all share and a large part of it is because of this recipe. Whenever there’s disputes or issues between certain people, we know that the Crispy Lemon Chicken recipe could definitely ease the tension. Fortunately for my family, my grandmother Delores was able to pass the recipe down to her daughter, Debra. The recipe is still good, but it’s something about the lemons that makes the recipe different. The Baked Lemon Chicken still brings us together, it still allows us to reminisce about times of hardships, and we still have our grandmother in a very vivid memory…food.
Ingredients:
2 Chicken Breasts
2 Lemons
3 Tbsp Butter
2 Tbsp Flour
1 Tsp Salt
2 1/2 Tsp Cracked Black Pepper
1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder
Olive olid
Instructions:
Cut chicken breasts into two halves. Juice 1 lemon unto each chicken breast. Slather olive oil unto chicken. Mix flour, salt, pepper, and garlic powder in bowl. Dip chicken into flour mixture, shaking any excess seasoning. Spread 1 tbsp butter in a skillet, place chicken in pan with medium heat for 30 minutes put additional tbsp of butter after 15 minutes, then put on low heat for 45 minutes and spread final tbsp of butter when put on low heat. When out of moisture for chicken use olive oil.
I was able to speak with my aunt Debra about the recipe her mother cooked. I wanted to know how it affected her growing up in her mother’s household. She told me that particular meal was always her favorite meal to eat and it had a very profound idea of home to her. Whenever she was away from home or hadn’t visited her mother in a while, she always knew that the Crispy Lemon Chicken dish would motivate her to come back home and experience the entirety of home. My aunt Debra mentioned how she was able to never quite get it as identical as her mother. She often jokes about there being some missing ingredient my grandmother had, but my grandmother was unwilling to share the knowledge. She says the dish really describes the family identity as togetherness and solidarity. Food is one of the many things that keeps us relational with each other along with being unified and enjoyable. The Crispy Lemon Chicken has allowed many people in our family to have better relationships and how to resolve them with just sitting down and eating together. My mother grew up eating the dish as well, she was never as skilled at cooking as my aunt Debra or my grandmother Delores, but she was able to experience the pleasure of such a divine dish.
My mother would describe the meal as being soothing and settling to the soul. She often reminisces of times where her and her siblings would fight at such a young age or have strong disagreements, but the Crispy Lemon Chicken would cancel the feuds and bring about peace to the household. From my own personal perspective, I never really thought about how effective this particular dish was to our family. It seems to have been there subconsciously, but never acknowledged as an apparent realization. The Crispy Lemon Chicken ultimately symbolizes resolution and peace, it’s the one thing certain to bring two conflicting people together.
Normally for certain holidays we’ll sit together and just enjoy the chicken along with each other’s company, but probably more so over the chicken. It’s become a true ritual for us as a family. The only person that has the recipe is my aunt Debra. She follows the same rules as my grandmother, never give the family recipe away, but only continue the recipe through generational transaction. This one done so that if you wanted to eat the dish you had to come visit. Normally, if you make the dish for one person, you might as well make it for as many people as possible. This is a great reason why we’ve made the dish ritualistic as well.