The Delmarva Chicken Festival (Del-Mar-Va Chicken Festival, Delmarva Chicken Festival and National Chicken Cooking Contest) is an annual event sponsored by Delmarva Poultry Industry, Inc started in 1948 [1] or 1949 [2] with the purpose of publicizing the Delmarva Peninsula with an emphasis on its arguably most important agricultural enterprise, raising chickens.
The two-day event hosted in various locales on Delmarva features poultry equipment trade shows, the Miss Del-Mar-Va contest, the National Chicken Cooking Contest, a parade, arts and crafts, a carnival, entertainment, and food concessions. Chicken is the featured food, but french fries, corn-on-the-cob, funnel cake, ice cream, kettle corn, and fresh-squeezed lemonade are other local favorites. Nearly three tons of chicken are cooked each year in the world's largest frying pan. The pan made its debut at the second annual festival in 1950. [3] The first and original pan was used and made by the Mumford Sheet Metal Company in Selbyville, Delaware, and was "given to the Delmarva Poultry Industry for use in promoting chicken produced on the Delmarva Peninsula". [3] It was ten feet in diameter and had an eight-foot handle, was 18 inches deep, required 180 gallons of cooking oil and 150 gallons of LP gas, weighed 650 pounds, and could hold 800 chicken quarters. [3] The 65th Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival was estimated to use four tons of chicken. [3]
The 65th Delmarva Chicken Festival in 2014 was expected to be the final year for the festival and its Giant Fry Pan. [3] [1]
The Del-Mar-Va Chicken Festival took place June 13-15, 1950 in Dover, Delaware; the 18th Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival took place June 17-19, 1965 in Salisbury, Maryland; [4] the 19th Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival took place in 1966; [5] the 20th Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival took place June 22-24, 1967 in Dover, Delaware; [6] the 22nd Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival took place June 19-21, 1969 in Seaford, Delaware; [7] the 60th Delmarva Chicken Festival took place June 19-20, 1990 in Centreville, Maryland; the Delmarva Chicken Festival took place June 12-13, 1998 in Millsboro, Delaware; [8] the 65th Delmarva Chicken Festival took place June 20-21 in Centreville, Maryland; [3] the 71st Annual Delmarva Chicken Festival took place in mid-June 2020 in Centreville, Maryland on a scaled-down basis caused by COVID-19 pandemic; the Delmarva Chicken Festival took place May 21, 2022 in Ocean View, Maryland. [9]
Delaware is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the nearby Delaware River, in turn named after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginia's first colonial governor.
The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several regions, including Tidewater, Appalachian, Lowcountry, Cajun, Creole, and Floribbean cuisine. In recent history, elements of Southern cuisine have spread to other parts the United States, influencing other types of American cuisine.
KFC is an American fast food restaurant chain headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, that specializes in fried chicken. It is the world's second-largest restaurant chain after McDonald's, with 22,621 locations globally in 150 countries as of December 2019. The chain is a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, a restaurant company that also owns the Pizza Hut and Taco Bell chains.
Paella is a rice dish originally from Valencia. While it is commonly viewed by non-Spaniards as Spain's national dish, Spaniards almost unanimously consider it to be a dish from the Valencian region. Valencians, in turn, regard paella as one of their identifying symbols. It is one of the best-known dishes in Spanish cuisine.
An enchilada is a Mexican dish consisting of a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a savory sauce. Enchiladas can be filled with various ingredients, including meats, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables, or combinations. Enchilada sauces include chili-based sauces, such as salsa roja, various moles, tomatillo-based sauces, such as salsa verde, or cheese-based sauces, such as chile con queso.
The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia. The peninsula is 170 miles (274 km) long. In width, it ranges from 70 miles (113 km) near its center, to 12 miles (19 km) at the isthmus on its northern edge, to less near its southern tip of Cape Charles. It is bordered by the Chesapeake Bay on the west, Pocomoke Sound on the southwest, and the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
Sussex County is located in the southern part of the U.S. state of Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula. As of the 2020 census, the population was 237,378. The county seat is Georgetown.
Kenton is a town in Kent County, Delaware, United States. It is part of the Dover, Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 261 at the 2010 census.
Georgetown is a town and the county seat of Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 6,422, an increase of 38.3% over the previous decade.
Chicken-fried steak, also known as country-fried steak or CFS, is an American breaded cutlet dish consisting of a piece of beefsteak coated with seasoned flour and either deep-fried or pan-fried. It is sometimes associated with the Southern cuisine of the United States. It is breaded and fried with a technique similar to the more common fried chicken, hence "chicken-fried". When deep-fried, it is usually referred to as "chicken-fried steak". Pan-fried versions are typically referred to as "country fried steak".
Scrapple, also known by the Pennsylvania Dutch name Pannhaas, is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then pan-fried before serving. Scraps of meat left over from butchering, not used or sold elsewhere, were made into scrapple to avoid waste. Scrapple is best known as an American food of the southern Mid-Atlantic region.
Punjabi cuisine is a culinary style originating in the Punjab, a region in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, which is now divided in an Indian part to the east and a Pakistani part to the west. This cuisine has a rich tradition of many distinct and local ways of cooking. One is a special form of tandoori cooking that is now famous in other parts of Pakistan and India, England, Canada, America, and in many other parts of the world.
U.S. Route 113 (US 113) is a U.S. Highway that is a spur of US 13 in the U.S. states of Maryland and Delaware. The route runs 74.75 miles (120.30 km) from US 13 in Pocomoke City, Maryland, north to Delaware Route 1 (DE 1) in Milford, Delaware. In conjunction with DE 1, US 113 is one of two major north–south highways on the Delmarva Peninsula that connect Dover with Pocomoke City and the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The U.S. Highway is the primary north–south highway in Worcester County, Maryland, where it connects Pocomoke City with Snow Hill and Berlin. US 113 is one of three major north–south highways in Sussex County, Delaware, where it connects Selbyville, Millsboro, and Georgetown with Milford. While US 113 does not pass through Ocean City or the Delaware Beaches, the U.S. Highway intersects several highways that serve the Atlantic seaboard resorts, including US 50, Maryland Route 90 (MD 90), US 9, DE 404, DE 16, and DE 1. US 113 is a four-lane divided highway for its whole length.
Allen Family Foods was a large American producer and exporter of chicken, headquartered in Seaford, Delaware. Founded in 1919 by Charles C. Allen and Nellie G. Allen as a small local hatchery. At one time Allen Family Foods was the world's 18th-largest producer of chicken products, producing 10.5 million pounds of finished products per week. Their network of 500 independent growers houses 25 million chickens at any given time. It employed 3,400 people in three states, with an annual payroll of $90 million. under the slogan is "The Quality Chicken People".
The Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company is a Class III short-line railroad, formed in 1977 to operate several branch lines of the former Penn Central Railroad in both Maryland and Delaware, United States. These branches were omitted from the system plan for Conrail in 1976 and would have been discontinued without state subsidies. As an alternative to the higher cost of subsidizing Conrail as the operator of the branch lines, the Maryland and Delaware governments selected the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company (MDDE) to serve as the designated operator.
The term "Chicken Maryland" or "Maryland Chicken" refers to a historic dish associated with the U.S. state of Maryland, but has other meanings from other nations. In its home base, the food dish consists of fried chicken served with a cream gravy. It is traditionally garnished with bananas, which were historically one of Baltimore's leading imports.
Fried chicken, also known as Southern fried chicken, is a dish consisting of chicken pieces that have been coated with seasoned flour or batter and pan-fried, deep fried, pressure fried, or air fried. The breading adds a crisp coating or crust to the exterior of the chicken while retaining juices in the meat. Broiler chickens are most commonly used.
Arthur W. Perdue was an American businessman and the founder of Perdue Farms along with his wife Pearl in 1920. The business was started in his backyard, and at the time only produced table eggs from chickens, but eventually grew into a $4.1 billion company.
Texan cuisine is the food associated with the Southern U.S. state of Texas, including its native Southwestern cuisine influenced Tex-Mex foods. Texas is a large state, and its cuisine has been influenced by a wide range of cultures, including Southern, German, Czech, British, African American, Creole/Cajun, Mexican, New Mexican, Native American, Asian, Jewish, and Italian.