Harlan Sanders’ Other Secret Recipes: One of the Weirdest Stories You’ll Read Today

Even in death, the Colonel can’t be stopped. Like some kind of string-tie wearing zombie, the man just keeps producing, even from beyond the grave.

According to an article posted this morning on the Huff Post food site, a manuscript written by the late fried chicken magnate was recently found by a Yum Brands employee doing research in the “Mysterious, Yellowed Documents” wing of the KFC Global Dominance Department. Discovered in a locked drawer, inside a locked room, at the end of a dark hallway hung with a sign that said “Beware of the Cockatrice,” the hallowed document is rumored to contain the Colonel’s life story, written by the man himself, along with recipes for “real old-time country and farm cooking.” Unfortunately, none of this can be independently verified because the manuscript itself has since been sealed inside an electronic safe, inside a vault, buried beneath the company’s headquarters in Louisville–taking a place of honor beside the Colonel’s original hand-written recipe for fried chicken with 11 secret herbs and spices (hint: 10 of them are salt).

You know the funny thing? Of the 14 ridiculous facts contained in the above paragraph, I only made up five of them. Can you guess which ones?

Yes, there really was a manuscript found. It really was written by Sanders. It does, in fact, contain both his life story and recipes. It truly is currently being held under lockdown in a secret vault beneath KFC world headquarters. And KFC really does keep a herd of genetically engineered cockatrices on the premises to defend their property. What’s a cockatrice? It’s like a big chicken. A big, angry, scary chicken that will bite your head clean off for no good reason at all. Ironic, huh?

Anyway, here’s the nut of the story, straight from HuffPo:

“We can’t wait to share its secrets with KFC fans around the globe,” said Roger Eaton, the restaurant chain’s CEO. “Colonel Sanders was a lifelong cook and sage and his life lessons are just as powerful and relevant today as they were 40 years ago.”

The company plans to publish the manuscript online, probably sometime next year, said Laurie Schalow, a spokeswoman for Yum Brands Inc., the parent of KFC. The Colonel’s insights on hard work and giving it your best will be available for free, she said.

KFC plans to share some of the recipes, but others may stay hidden in the vault.

“We’re in the early stages of testing recipes and are excited about the potential to incorporate some of the newly discovered dishes alongside the Colonel’s Original Recipe on menus around the globe,” Eaton said.

Did you catch that last line? They’re currently testing some of the recipes from the book and hoping to put them on the menu.

So now, finally, we know where the inspiration for the Double Down came from.

You can check out the full (non-cockatrice-containing) story by following the link below.

Colonel Sanders Unpublished Manuscript Discovered By Yum Brands Employee [Huffington Post]