Shared Flavors , Shared Memories
A Whole Chicken in the Alley
A childhood treat from a small market alley leads to a story of how fried chicken transformed in Korea—and eventually traveled back out into the world.
A childhood treat from a small market alley leads to a story of how fried chicken transformed in Korea—and eventually traveled back out into the world.
My earliest memory of fried chicken goes back to when I was about six or seven years old. One day I tried to run fast enough to catch up with my older brother so I could be part of the gang, and I ended up dislocating my shoulder.
One good thing about living in a small village is that you know exactly who to turn to when something like this happens. It was the weekend, but my parents knew where to go for help.
The taekwondo master in town, the sabomnim (사범님), was someone they personally knew. He reset my shoulder himself. I remember feeling relieved but also frightened, and I might have cried a little. To comfort my pain — or perhaps my little sadness — my parents decided to treat me to something special afterward.
Near the taekwondo gym there was a sijang (시장), a traditional market. At the edge of the market, down one of the narrow alleys, there was a small dakjip (닭집), a chicken shop. I remember it clearly because they sold everything related to chicken. Live chickens were kept in a coop, and when someone ordered one, the chicken would be processed on the spot.
My mother sometimes stopped there to order a chicken ahead of time. Because it took time to prepare, she would place the order first, do the rest of her shopping in the market, and return later to pick up the chicken, already cleaned and chopped, ready for cooking.
The special thing about this place was that they also sold fried chicken. Not the small individual pieces that are common today. It was the entire chicken, deep-fried whole in one piece. I don’t remember it being coated in batter or dredged in flour. It was simply a whole chicken lowered into hot oil.
We called it tongdak (통닭), literally “whole chicken.” The word “fried” was already implied because deep-frying outside of tongdak was not really common. Today people often call it yetnal tongdak (옛날 통닭), meaning “old-style whole fried chicken,” but back then it was simply tongdak.
That was my first memory of fried chicken.
Food like this did not appear often in our house. It was reserved for particular moments: when I was sick, when something important happened, or on wolgeupnal (월급날), the day my father received his monthly salary. On those days my parents might bring home tongdak, or sometimes samgyeopsal (삼겹살).
Because it was unusual, it felt like a celebration.
Looking back now, it is remarkable how fried chicken transformed Korean food culture.
Today Korea is famous for fried chicken, usually simply called chikin (치킨). Much like tongdak, the word already implies deep-fried chicken. In traditional Korean cooking, deep-frying was never a dominant technique. Most dishes are grilled, braised, steamed, or stir-fried, so fried chicken once felt less like everyday food and more like an occasional treat.
Part of this had to do with practicality. Cooking oil used to be expensive, making large-scale deep-frying difficult. But as oil became cheaper and more widely available, frying suddenly became easier and more profitable. Fried chicken shops, known as chikinjip (치킨집), began appearing in neighborhoods across the country. Today it is almost impossible to walk through a Korean street without seeing the glowing sign of a chickinjip somewhere nearby.
One defining feature of Korean fried chicken is the balance Koreans look for between flavor and texture.
Fried food on its own can quickly feel neukkiham (느끼함), a word Koreans use for food that feels overly rich or greasy. At the same time, Koreans deeply appreciate the texture described as basak-basak (바삭바삭) — that light, brittle crispness that shatters when you bite into it. Much of Korean fried chicken evolved around maintaining that balance: keeping the chicken crispy while preventing it from feeling too heavy.
One solution was sauce.
Sauced fried chicken soon appeared in the form of yangnyeom chikin (양념치킨), coated in a sweet, spicy, garlicky glaze. The flavor profile feels unmistakably Korean, built on ingredients like gochujang and ganjang.
Some people trace the roots of this style back to dak-gangjeong (닭강정). Versions of the dish appeared in the 1970s and 80s, using the traditional gangjeong technique of deep-frying food and coating it in a sticky glaze. The method helped the chicken stay crunchy even after it cooled, an important quality for food that was often shared slowly. In the traditional preparation of dak-gangjeong, the chicken was typically fried in a gamasot (가마솥) at high heat before being tossed in sauce.
Once sauced chicken became popular, the non-sauced version began to be called huraideu (후라이드), borrowed from the English word “fried.” For those who couldn’t decide between the two, restaurants introduced the now-famous compromise: yangnyeom-ban, huraideu-ban (양념 반, 후라이드 반) — half sauced, half fried.
Fried chicken also gained an essential companion: chikin-mu (치킨무), the small cubes of sweet-and-sour pickled daikon radish served alongside almost every order of chicken. The reason is simple. Just as kimchi (김치) balances many Korean meals, the pickled radish cuts through the oil and refreshes the palate between bites. It prevents fried chicken from becoming too neukkiham, allowing people to keep eating piece after piece.
Soon fried chicken found its perfect partner: beer.
Before long, fried chicken and beer became inseparable. Koreans call it chimaek (치맥), from chikin and maekju (맥주). On Friday nights people gather with friends, order delivery, and share chicken with cold beer. It has become part of the atmosphere of bulgeum (불금), the feeling that the workweek is finally over.
Fried chicken in Korea is not just food. It became a ritual.
Still, chikin is most closely associated with delivery food. In many ways this built on the earlier delivery culture of jjajangmyeon, though fried chicken developed its own packaging and techniques. Shops learned how to fry the chicken so it stayed basak-basak even after traveling twenty or thirty minutes on the back of a delivery motorcycle. Specially designed boxes kept the chicken warm without trapping steam that would soften the crust.
The result was crispy fried chicken just a phone call away, ready to be enjoyed in the comfort of your own home — no dining room required, and no nunchi about eating an entire chicken by yourself.
Growing up, the first foreign fried chicken brand I encountered was KFC. To me, that was the original version — the fried chicken from abroad.
I remember admiring those large buckets filled with pieces of chicken. The taste was different from the Korean versions I knew, but what fascinated me most was that you could choose the parts you wanted. In Korea you usually ordered the whole bird, which meant there were only two drumsticks. Someone always had to compete for them. If your rank in the family was low, you might end up with a chicken neck instead. At KFC it suddenly felt as if the drumsticks were endless.
At first the pairing felt unusual. The chicken came with buttermilk biscuits, very different from the biscuits I knew at the time. Only later did I realize that this combination was rooted in the food traditions of the American South. The chicken itself was also different: large, thick bone-in cuts soaked in buttermilk and dredged in seasoned flour, creating a sturdy, flavorful crust. They were often fried in shallow cast-iron skillets or Dutch ovens. In a way, this reminded me of the Korean gamasot, since both rely on heavy cast-iron cookware that holds heat well.
This frying tradition also produced some uniquely named dishes such as chicken-fried chicken and chicken-fried steak. I remember being puzzled at first. Chicken-fried steak, despite its name, contains no chicken at all. The name simply refers to the cooking method. A thin beef steak is coated in the same seasoned batter used for fried chicken, then deep-fried and served with a thick peppery gravy. Sometimes fried chicken even appears on top of a Belgian waffle, a dish known as chicken and waffles, often served in portions so large that even visitors from other states stare in surprise.
Among the many things I encountered, the most pleasant discovery was finding something that felt like an American version of my chimaek ritual: hot wings and beer.
The flavor was intensely spicy and vinegary, very different from Korean yangnyeom sauces. At first it took some time for the taste to grow on me. In Texas, places like Pluckers offered wings with spice levels ranging from mild all the way to something called “Armageddon.” I can handle spicy food, but that was a different level entirely — the kind of heat that requires generous gulps of beer just to keep going. Much like the role of chikin-mu in Korea, wings are usually served with celery sticks and thick mayonnaise-based dipping sauces.
The ritual felt familiar: fried chicken, beer, and something crisp on the side, yet each place revealed its own subtle differences.
I still like KFC. But recently I noticed something unexpected. In some countries the menu now includes Korean-inspired flavors: Korean spicy chicken burgers, Korean-style fried chicken, even limited promotions tied to Korean pop culture.
The situation has quietly reversed. What once felt like foreign fried chicken arriving in Korea has now become Korean fried chicken spreading outward. I see it even where I live now, in the Netherlands, where Korean fried chicken restaurants have begun appearing. Sometimes they even introduce small details of Korean eating culture, like the disposable plastic gloves used when eating sauced chicken.
Every Friday we still look forward to chimaek Friday. Whether in Korea or elsewhere, the ritual continues, sometimes with a slightly different setup depending on where we are. It has become a small weekly tradition, something that quietly resets the rhythm of the week.
What began for me as a rare childhood treat—a whole fried chicken from a small shop in a market alley—has now become a global food trend. Even though I can now afford a whole chicken for myself, and no longer have to compete with anyone else for drumsticks, my mind still returns to that small shop near the market in the village where I grew up, and to the simple taste of tongdak shared on a special day.
