Tasty Planner - Recipe - Cornell Sauce for Chicken by Carter Garrigues-cortelyou

Served every Thursday night for dinner at Camp Casowasco.

Cornell-style barbecue chicken, sometimes referred to as “State Fair chicken,” traces its origins to a Cornell University professor of animal science, Dr. Robert C. Baker. Baker’s original purpose was not necessarily to create a culinary delight, but to simply help New York poultry farmers sell more birds.

In the first half of the 20th Century, chickens were raised primarily as a source of eggs, and often they were not slaugthered until they reach a dressed weight of 4 or 5 pounds. Birds of this size were considered “fryers,” any bird larger than this was a “roaster.” Dr. Baker reasoned that if a market could be developed for a bird with a dressed weight of 2 3/4 to 3 pounds, poultry farmers could send their birds to market sooner, increasing their turnover. Thus the “broiler” with an optimum weight of 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds per half.

For Dr. Baker’s scheme of sending chickens to slaughter sooner to work, he needed to come up with a use for the smaller birds. The chicken barbecue filled the bill nicely. All that was needed was a tasty barbecue sauce recipe:

Recipe Source: Cornell University