While the country’s biggest burger chain hasn’t featured current chef Dan Coudreaut in its advertising or marketing, he has played a PR role, having been interviewed in multiple publications for product introductions, including fruit and maple oatmeal, smoothies and frappes, Angus third-pounders and snack qraps. His title is executive chef and director of culinary innovation, but a spokeswoman said his innovation team works with various departments including supply chain, operations and marketing. He joined McDonald’s in 2004 and studied at the Culinary Institute of America, later working as executive sous chef at Dallas’ Café Pacific and chef de cuisine at the Four Seasons.
The company thinks Sanders probably wrote it around 1965, a year or so after he sold his interest in Kentucky Fried Chicken for $2 million. He died in 1980 at age 90.
The half-inch-thick document is chock full of homespun anecdotes and life lessons from Sanders, who struck it rich late in life. It also includes a heaping helping of his favorite personal recipes.
“This is a new kind of book,” Sanders wrote in the first chapter of an approximately 200-page, typewritten manuscript that KFC plans to offer up on the Internet. “There’s never been another written like it as far as I know.
The company is treating the manuscript like its own Holy Grail. The manuscript is tucked inside KFC’s electronic safe in a vault at its Louisville headquarters. It sits next to the Colonel’s famous handwritten chicken recipe.
But the Colonel proved he was more than a chicken man. On these pages are preserved his personal recipes for omelets, pancakes, casseroles, pies and many more dishes that he said reflected his affinity for “real old-time country and farm cooking.” It’s a veritable smorgasbord of main dishes, side dishes, desserts and sauces.