Chicken à la King is a recipe

Recipe

A recipe is a set of instructions that describe how to prepare or make something, especially a culinary dish.-Components:Modern culinary recipes normally consist of several components*The name of the dish...

 consisting of diced

Dicing

Dicing is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is cut into small blocks or dice. This may be done for aesthetic reasons or to create uniformly sized pieces to ensure even cooking...

 chicken

Chicken (food)

Chicken is the most common type of poultry in the world, and is prepared as food in a wide variety of ways, varying by region and culture.- History :...

 in a cream sauce, and often with sherry

Sherry

Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes that are grown near the town of Jerez , Spain. In Spanish, it is called vino de Jerez....

, mushrooms, and vegetables, served over bread

Bread

Bread is a staple food prepared by cooking a dough of flour and water and often additional ingredients. Doughs are usually baked, but in some cuisines breads are steamed , fried , or baked on an unoiled frying pan . It may be leavened or unleavened...

 or pasta

Pasta

Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...

.

History

Several competing accounts about its origin have circulated. One claims it was created by Delmonico's chef Charles Ranhofer as Chicken à la Keene in the 1880s, named after Foxhall Parker Keene. Another version claims it was created in 1881 at Claridge's Hotel

Claridge's

Claridge's is a luxury hotel in Mayfair, central London. It is located at the corner of Brook Street and Davies Street.-History:Claridge's is a traditional grand hotel. Its extensive and old connections with royalty have led to it being referred to as an "extension to Buckingham Palace"...

 in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and named for James R. Keene

James R. Keene

James Robert Keene was a Wall Street stock broker and a major thoroughbred race horse owner and breeder.-Biography:He was born in London, England in 1838. He was fourteen years of age when his family emigrated to the United States in 1852...

, father of Foxhall. Another account claims chef George Greenwald of the Brighton Beach Hotel in Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach

Brighton Beach is an oceanside neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. As of 2000, it has a population of 75,692 with a total of 31,228 households.-Location:...

 created it in 1890s, naming it after patron E. Clarke King and his wife.

The most likely account is that Chicken à la King was created in the 1890s by hotel cook William "Bill" King of the Bellevue Hotel

The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel

The Bellevue is a landmark building at Broad & Walnut Streets in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It has continued as a well-known institution for more than a century. In the past 30 years the hotel has undergone minor name changes, but still is widely known by its historic name, The...

 in Philadelphia. Several obituaries in early March 1915 credited King after he died on March 4, 1915. A New York Tribune

New York Tribune

The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...

editorial at the time of King's death stated:

The name of William King is not listed among the great ones of the earth. No monuments will ever be erected to his memory, for he was only a cook. Yet what a cook! In him blazed the fire of genius which, at the white heat of inspiration, drove him one day, in the old Bellevue, in Philadelphia, to combine bits of chicken, mushrooms, truffles, red and green peppers and cream in that delight-some mixture which ever after has been known as "Chicken a la King."

The recipe was mentioned in the New York Times in 1893, and early published recipes appeared in 1900 and 1905. Fannie Merritt Farmer included a recipe in her 1911 publication on catering. The Fannie Farmer Cookbook includes a recipe for Chicken à la King in the 1996 update. It became a popular dish during the middle to late 20th century.

In popular culture

"Chicken a la King" is the title of a 1937 Color Classics

Color Classics

Color Classics were a series of animated short subjects produced by Fleischer Studios for Paramount Pictures from 1934 to 1941 as a competitor to Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies. As the name implies, all of the shorts were made in color, with the first entry in the series, Poor Cinderella, being the...

cartoon.
It is also the name of a character in DuckMan, voiced by Tim Curry.

Tommy, a character in the Fox television series "Titus" has an argument with an airline steward over the name of this dish in the episode "Genetic, part 1."

In the episode "Opie's Newspaper" of The Andy Griffith Show

The Andy Griffith Show

The Andy Griffith Show is an American sitcom first televised by CBS between October 3, 1960, and April 1, 1968. Andy Griffith portrays a widowed sheriff in the fictional small community of Mayberry, North Carolina...

, Aunt Bee likens her friend's Chicken à la King recipe to "wallpaper paste," but is later trapped into eating a whole meal of it.

External links

• History of Poultry Dishes at whatscookingamerica.net