Chickening Out

Even as we pulled up to the KFC parking lot, I thought it all had to be a joke— some demented April Fool’s Day prank delivered a few weeks late. But the first line on the official website description put any rumors to rest—“The new KFC Double Down sandwich is real!” Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Double Down exists. And I stove forth, like Lewis and Clark mapping unchartered territory, to bravely devour this deep fried monster of a “sandwich.”


First, some background on the Double Down. Basically, take everything your doctor doesn’t want you to eat and multiply it by 2— 2 slices of bacon and 2 slices of cheese contained in 2 pieces of fried chicken— and top it with a “special sauce” that’s probably just mayonnaise with orange food coloring. If you’re watching your figure, you can opt for the grilled version, though if you’re really health-concerned you should probably set fire to the KFC and run as fast as you can. Then add a large coke and a side of potato wedges.

The Double Down goes against every nutrition lesson I’ve ever learned in my life. With each bite, I felt a food pyramid crumble. Twenty years of sporadic dieting and food-related guilt meant that I couldn’t casually chomp down on every artery’s worst nightmare. I wasn’t raised catholic, but I now understand their sense of religious guilt—I felt it twist in my gut with every bite of greasy, cheesy chicken. And I opted for the grilled version (or as my brother puts it, I wimped out). If I’d eaten an entire fried sandwich, I think I would have imploded into a vortex of shame on the spot.

This is truly a travesty that could only be born in America: home of freedom, equality and the pursuit of gluttony. In what culinary dungeon did the Colonel’s insane alter-ego dream up this Frankenstein pile of meat and cheese?

My first problem came with the actual holding of a sandwich. They wrap it in a thin layer of paper, but that doesn’t stop oil and melting cheese to scald your fingers. Wrestling with two hot, oil-soaked chicken patties is much more difficult than containing all the fixings between a couple slices of carbs.

All sandwiches have one thing in common (bread) and that’s the one thing the Double Down rudely ignores. KFC should realize that they can’t just change the essential rules of sandwiches. These rules have been long established and respected, and a snappy ad campaign won’t make the American masses forget the definition of a sandwich. Then again, the “Double Down Pile of Meat” doesn’t sound quite as poetic.
What’s next for the restaurant world? Will Panera replace their bread bowls with hollow chicken carcasses?

Then again, it’s refreshing for a fast food joint to stop pretending they’re not killing you with every gloriously greasy bite. For awhile, KFC tried to change their name to “Kitchen Fresh Chicken,” which didn’t change the fact that 90% of their menu items are fried. Now, it looks like the charade’s up. They’re not only going back to their deep-fried roots, they’re publicly consummating their relationship with the birth of this meaty monstrosity.

To be honest, the sandwich tasted pretty good. The grilled chicken was spicy and tender, and the mayonnaise-cheese-bacon glob in the middle tasted like slow albeit happy heart failure. The sample of a fried version I tried was almost unbearably salty. The first few bites were fairly pleasant, but soon finishing the sandwich became a challenge rather than a meal. Even after I finished every gloppy bite, I was left with a souvenir—a three day heartburn spree that reminded me of just how lovely it is to a fast food-fueled American consumer.