But fried chicken has a Southern soul that the marketing geniuses can't deny. Don't take my word for it. Run a search for "fried chicken" on Google. Among the first ten hits you'll find a personal Web site in Dallas called "God made fried chicken" and a Southern literary journal in North Carolina called Lonzie's Fried Chicken.

Lonzie was the black maid at the childhood home of editor E.H. Goree. "Queen of all Thursday's fragrances was fried chicken, waiting in one of Mother's serving bowls on the yellow linoleum countertop by the stove. It was close to impossible to resist the urge to pick off a piece of crust," Goree says. "In early 1998, when I needed the most descriptive name for a literary magazine of accessible Southern fiction and poetry…there was no debate. What other thing in my life was as pleasing, there for the taking, and precious for the moments you savor it?"

I bet Lonzie's fried chicken didn't stain the napkins. Contrary to popular belief, great fried chicken is not greasy. John Martin Taylor, author of Fearless Frying, writes that if the oil is hot enough, a batter-coated food submerged in it should instantly seal itself and not absorb any oil. That's the idea behind deep-frying.

"There are no secrets to fried chicken," Taylor writes. You cut up the chicken, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, dredge it with flour and fry it in very hot deep fat. What about KFC's "11 secret herbs and spices"? That claim was debunked in a 1983 book called Big Secrets by William Poundstone, Taylor says. Poundstone hired a laboratory, which detected only flour, salt, pepper and MSG in the Colonel's chicken.

It's 11:40 a.m. when we finish our Frenchy's taste test. Henderson's Chicken Shack won't be open until noon. So to kill some time, we go eat chicken at Popeyes. I figure Popeyes will serve as a sort of control group in our fried chicken experiment. I suspect that Frenchy's and Henderson's will both get stellar ratings, and I want to put them in perspective with some ordinary fast-food chicken.

I order two thighs and some red beans and rice at the drive-thru window of the Popeyes franchise at the corner of Scott and Holcombe. We pull into the vacant lot behind the restaurant and attempt to eat the chicken. The thighs are very small, dark brown and shiny with grease. Julia's piece is wet with the stuff. After a few bites we throw the chicken away in disgust, but our greasy fingers set off a slapstick routine. I drop my pencil, Julia drops her soft drink, and I drop my pencil again. The paper I'm writing on is spattered with oil, and we have trouble opening the red beans and rice, which is mostly rice and very bland.

I usually like Popeyes chicken. Maybe the fryers weren't up to full steam so early in the day. The franchise chain, which was founded in New Orleans, has spread the Creole version of fried chicken across the South. The difference between Louisiana's Creole fried chicken and the traditional Southern variety is pretty simple. Creole chicken is spicy -- usually adding a touch of cayenne is all there is to it. But Popeyes also has introduced traditional Creole accompaniments like biscuits, red beans and rice, and jalapeño peppers to the rest of the chicken-eating world.

We order two thighs, a breast and some red beans and rice at Henderson's Chicken Shack just after it opens. The little building across the street from the row houses on Alabama is still festooned with colored pennants from its grand opening. You order at a window that looks into the spotlessly clean kitchen.

We're thrown off by Henderson's chicken. There are three pieces, but they look like three breasts. I finally figure out that the thighs are actually bigger than the breast. "Yeah, that's what he said too," the woman in the window says, pointing to the fry cook.

Is it the maturity of the chicken that makes these thighs so huge and the meat so white? Or is it a special breed of bird? I don't know, but we both agree these thighs are better than the ones they use at Frenchy's or Popeyes. The breast is juicy all the way through too. The coating is not as dry and perfect as Frenchy's, but it isn't very greasy either. These three pieces of chicken make a huge portion. The red beans and rice are okay, but I don't taste any pork or sausage in them.

Henderson's Chicken Shack isn't a franchise or a chain. It's owned by a Creole woman named Ann Henderson, who was born in New Iberia, Louisiana. Henderson's Chicken Shack does a lot of things right. Cooking the chicken to order seems like a nuisance when you're waiting, but it's worth it once you bite into the hot, crunchy chicken. And if you're getting your order to go, as most people do, the chicken will cool off in the car, so it's the perfect temperature when you get home. Is it as good as Frenchy's? Well, yes and no.