In the years I’ve been writing about food for the Herald Palladium, the largest newspaper in Southwest Michigan, I’ve received many requests from readers for recipes but undoubtedly the most popular request has been for the fried chicken and Cole slaw recipes from Mead’s Chicken Nook, a very popular eatery in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph from 1945 until the late 1980’s which was started by Pearl and Buster Mead.
I was always told that the familynever shared the recipes from the restaurant so I was surprised when I heardfrom Gina Lewis Schmaltz of Baroda suggesting I contact her brother Guy Lewis.A quick message to him on Facebook and within a week we met at WatermarkDistillery in downtown Stevensville (Guy lives nearby) and I suddenly had acopy of the recipes and more family history in my hands. It was like strikinggold.
“It wasn’t that we wanted to keepthese secret,” Lewis told me. “It’s just that I was afraid people wouldn’t believeme because the chicken recipe is so simple. I thought people would think wewere keeping out a secret ingredient.”
It is indeed a very simple recipe.An egg and milk batter, a little salt and flour. The steps are important, Guytold me. The chicken is salted right before it’s dipped.
I told him that I was oftensurprised at how simple some recipes are. There’s a famous perch, chicken andfrog leg place in Northwest Indiana where I grew up. It’s called Teibel’s FamilyRestaurant and has been in business in Schererville for 90 years. When I wasgiven the recipe for their chicken, perch and frog legs, I was astounded it wasso simple. Basically flour and some seasonings the same recipe the originalMrs. Tiebel had brought with her from Austria, her native country. But like piano playing and other skills, themagic is in the cooking. We can all be given the same recipe or the same sheetof music, but how it comes out is often extremely different.
Obviously the Mead family knew howto fry chicken. During Prohibition Buster Mead learned how to do so at theAllendale Resort in Branson, Missouri where he and his future wife, PearlMcClure, were from.
“My grandparents moved from Branson to Benton Harbor at the start of World War IIbecause Buster assumed he would be drafted into military service and while hewas gone Pearl could live with her parents, Daisy and Jim McClure,” Lewis says.“They lived in Stevensville and Jim worked at Emlong’s Nursery. They had alsorecently moved from Missouri. Buster took a job at Upton Machine company–nowWhirlpool)–operating a machine which made parts for the war effort. InSeptember 1945 they opened the first Chicken Nook at 297 East Main St. inBenton Harbor. In 1956 they moved to the newly built Chicken Nook at 1111 MainSt. in St. Joseph. My first job was bussing tables there on weekends when I wasabout 15.”
At its peak, a lot of chickens gotfried at Mead’s. A 20 to 30-foot wall was line with fryers, all custom made aswere the griddles with sides of about an inch to two inches high.
“He’d pour oil in them to panfrysome of the chicken,” he says. “The legs and wings went into the deep fryers.”
Their poultry was delivered almostdaily from Troyer’s in Goshen, Indiana—talk about fresh. As an aside, Troyer’sCounty Market, which opened in 1912, is still in business.
“It came in big crates that wereslid down the stairs to the basem*nt. From afternoon to evening, the staffwould be downstairs cutting up the chickens which came in whole,” says Guy.“They then went into a big tub of ice.”
Gina Lewis Schultz remembers workingat Mead’s when they were located on Red Arrow Highway in Stevensville in whatis now Lee’s Hunan.
“I was in my teens,” she says. “Iremember my dad taught me how to make Pearl’s Dressing two gallons at a time.”
Her grandfather created most of therecipes on the menu including the dressing which he named after his wife.Schultz says she’s seen other recipes for it but the dressing served at therestaurant contained apple cider and what she calls “heavy mayonnaise” such asHellman’s.
“But no Miracle Whip,” she saysemphatically.
Schultz still makes the friedchicken about once a month or so for her husband using the originally recipe.When I mentioned that I had made it earlier in the evening and my kitchenlooked like a disaster with egg dip, flour and oil scattered around, she said,“well, it is kind of messy,” though I felt, from the kindly tone of her voice,that it wasn’t a messy process when she did it.
I asked Schultz what she remembersmost about her time working there and she recalls how busy it was.
“And there was constantly andconstantly chicken being served or going out the door,” she says.
In the early 60’s the Meads opened asecond location at 325 W. Main St. Benton Harbor but it was only open for a fewyears.
“That location has been the home ofmany other restaurants since then,” says Lewis. “In the late 70’s the Meadsretired and sold the restaurant. Buster worked part time in the deli for HarryZick at his Vineland Foodland on Vineland Road in St. Joseph Township.Eventually my grandfather decided hewasn’t done in the restaurant business and opened his new Chicken Nook on Red Arrow Highway. They were in business there for just a coupleof years then age finally caught up with them and they had to shut down thefryers for the last time. I worked there a few hours per week to help out andso learned some of Grandpa Meads recipes but also, even better, I got a lot ofadult time with my grandfather.”
Sidebar:Recreating Mead’s Fried Chicken
I have the hardest time followingrecipes, I always want to take short cuts, add my own tweaks or substituteingredients. But I vowed to myself that I would follow the fried chicken recipegiven to me by Lewis and Schmaltz. So Ibought whole milk instead of substituting the almond milk which I had in myrefrigerator (though I thought about doing so a couple of times) and thoughfour to six eggs seemed like way too many, I added six to a pint of milk justlike the recipe called for.
Now I really like fried food that’sdone well but I’m not sure I’m the person who can do that—it’s a skill I don’tpossess. Despite that, I filled a verylarge skillet (and large is important as the you don’t want oil sputtering allover the stove and countertop) with vegetable oil and set the burner to high. Ialso turned on the vent over the stove—also necessary because the heat from thebubbling oil can set off the smoke detector. I also left my front door openjust in case.
The Mead recipe said you coulddouble dip the chicken into the egg-milk mix and flour if you wanted extracrispy and so I did. But then I made a mistake. I dipped all the pieces whilewaiting for the oil to heat up. I would have done better to dip (or double dip)just before I put the meat in the hot oil. Because I didn’t, some of the batterstarted dropping off and by then I was out of the mix so I had to try to patchit back on resulting in some serious clumps of breading. But hey, I like crispycoating even if it didn’t make the chicken look somewhat misshapen.
The chicken pieces sizzled when Iplaced them in the oil. I followed Guy’s instructions to do the legs and wingsseparately because they cook more quickly which meant that the batter on thosepieces had even more time to drop off. Patch, patch again.
Because I don’t fry often, the onlythermometer I could find was one for meat which doesn’t go high enough to tellme when the oil is at 350°F. (I think my daughter borrowed my candythermometer but that’s a different story). But I remembered a trick from my onefood class in high school and that was if you stick a wooden spoon in oil andbubbles form around it and then start to float to the surface, that it’s aboutthe right temperature for frying—somewhere between 325°F to 350°F.
The chicken made a satisfyingsizzling sound when I plopped it in the oil. But here’s another issue Iencountered. How to tell when the chicken was done–I like sushi, pink porkchops and bloody steaks but really like my chicken thoroughly cooked. I didn’tknow whether I could stick my meat thermometer into the frying meat or ifbreaking the crust would somehow ruin the taste or make it too greasy. That’swhen I turned to Google which informed me that it was indeed okay and that Icould either cut the meat to see if it was done or use the thermometer todetermine if the interior had reached a temperature of165°F. You can also, the directionssaid, finish off the chicken in a 350°F preheated oven.
When it was all over, I had a largeplatter of fried chicken, a large amount of Pearl’s Dressing for my salad (andmany more) and a very messy kitchen.Overall—it might not be the chicken we would have eaten at one of theChicken Nook’s restaurants but it was pretty good.
Sidebar:Memories
“The Meads have since passed on butthe legacy of the Chicken Nook lives on,” says Guy Lewis.
That is so true. So many people haveChicken Nook memories.
John Madill, a long timephotographer for the Herald Palladium and now retired, emailed me to say heremembered getting a photo assignment in the early or mid 80’s for a newrestaurant.
“Turned out to be Mr. Mead comingout of retirement to start making his chicken again,” he says. “I remember himwell in a white apron, stopping his prep work in the kitchen to come out andtalk to me.”
Kathy Thornton, owner of Thornton’s Café in downtown St.Joseph, remembers when she married her husband, Bob, that her in-laws. Normanand Annabelle Thornton hosted their rehearsal dinner at the Chicken Nook in1973.
“As I recall it was a wonderful—alovely experience,” says Thornton who went attended St. Joseph High School withGuy Lewis.
As for Lewis, he remembers asandwich at the Chicken Nook that he really liked. Called the Dutchburger, hesays it was basically shaved ham grilled on the griddle, flipped over withcheese being added and them flip it over again.
“It was served on a Kreamo bun,”says Lewis, “we also used Kreamo.”
Lewis seldom makes the friedchicken, he’s turned his interest to artisan beers—teaching himself and alsolearning from the brew master at The Livery.
“I make about gallons at a timeinclude German-style Hefeweizen I call Hagar Hefeweizen and Pitcairn VanillaPorter because I use an authentic Tahitian vanilla bean.
When doing research on his family’shistory, Lewis found an old advertisem*nt for Pearl’s Dressing. It seems thatan enterprise called Pasquale’s was bottling the dress and selling it. Therewas also a Pasquale’s Pizza in Benton Harbor, but neither Lewis or I have beenable to find out any more information about the bottled dressing. But we’llkeep looking.
Thefollowing recipes are courtesy of Gina Lewis Schmaltz and Guy Lewis,grandchildren of Pearl and Buster Mead.
Chicken NookPan-Fried Chicken
2 ½ to 3pound chicken
4-6 eggs
1 pint ofwhole milk (approximately)
All-purposeflour for dredging
Salt totaste
Cut up thechicken into make 8 pieces. Make an egg dip of approximately 4 to 6 eggs whiskedtogether with about a pint of milk. The egg mixture should be thick enough soit sticks well to the chicken pieces.
Dip thechicken into the egg dip then dredge in all-purpose flour. Salt the chickenwell as the pieces are going into the flour.
If you wantextra crispy crust, return to the egg dip mixture and then back into the flour.
Pan fry atabout 350 to 365 degrees in enough vegetable oil to more than halfway cover thepieces. Breast and thighs should be fried separately for the legs and wingssince the larger pieces take longer.
Turn thepieces when golden brown and finish frying the other side.
Cole Slaw
1 headcabbage
Shreddedcarrots (optional)
Apple cidervinegar, one splash
Sugar, totaste
Mayonnaise,to taste
Shred cabbagewith a box shredder. Do not use pre-shredded cabbage, it is already too dry.
Add salt asyou shred, it helps to release the moisture from the cabbage.
Mix sugarand heavy mayonnaise such as Hellman’s (not Miracle Whip) to taste. Mix welland set aside for a short time to let it all blend together.
Pearl’sDressing
Note: Thisis a slightly different recipe than the one I published in my column severalweeks ago.
1 quartmayonnaise
3 ouncessugar
½ pint saladoil
2 ouncesapple cider vinegar
1 10-3/4ounce can of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup
Put all inmixer and blend at slow speed. Don not whip as this will cause your oil forseparate from mixture.
