Secret recipes, mystery ingredients

by Nicola Shepherd

IT'S official. The recipe found in an old notebook in a box in Colonel Sanders' former home is not the original recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

But the speed with which KFC HQ acted, once it was alerted to the notebook discovery shows how jealously guarded the secret of the finger lickin' good recipe is.

The couple who made the discovery bought the house from the Colonel in the seventies and only recently started delving into some of his old abandoned possessions.

Having found the recipe containing eleven secret herbs and spices they innocently rang KFC to authenticate it, with a view to getting it valued by a local auction house.

KFC's response was a lawsuit, which barred the couple from disclosing the content of the note. That was until KFC had a chance to look at it and declare that it was not, in fact, the original recipe.

Security surounding knowledge of the actual ingredients and quantities of the famous chicken coating, is extremely tight. Even those involved in the manufacturing process do not know the whole story. Half the mixture is produced in one plant and half in another, so employees would never know what goes into the whole recipe.

Coca Cola's recipe is equally well-protected, and has been since the very early days of its manufacture. Its inventor, John S Pemberton, made employees sign confidentiality contracts. And when Asa Chandler and Frank Robinson took over the company in the 1940s, they forced suppliers to invoice using pre-agreed codes, instead of product names so that their new recipe remained the secret of the very few.

This new recipe removed the addition of the cocaine-containing coca plant, reduced the caffeine content from the kola nuts and replaced sugar with corn syrup. Maybe they felt a drink called can abbreviated form of 'cocaine-caffeine' wouldn't be such a big seller after all.

Other equally jealously guarded recipes include that of the Big Mac sauce, Irn-Bru and, of course, Pepsi. Even if you ask in Pizza Express for the recipe for their salad dressing they won't tell you.

If you want to have a go at replicating any of these special sauces or coatings there are websites dedicated to helping you. Top Secret Recipes on the Web has captured the imagination of many and lots of the recipes there are clearly the result of painstaking home experimentation.

Bet it never tastes as good as the real thing, though.