An Ode to Fried Chicken, or, Why One Should Visit the Beaumont, In Short Verse

Oh, the golden chicken legs mounded up on platters

Hot from Beaumont’s kitchen where the taste’s not all that matters

Steaming, juicy, tantalizing crusty fried and yellow

Pass the plate and let’s recall our once fowl feathered fellow.

G D Gardner

Alright, not the most memorable elegy, but if haggis gets a poem and ceremony each year, then surely the yellow legged fried chicken from the famed Beaumont Inn of Harrodsburg, Kentucky deserves a little recognition to rightly, if not poetically, set it apart from fast food imposters.  Now please, don’t assume I’m touting a chicken house.  I’m certainly not.  But if any single dish could act as a trademark symbol for this venerated white tablecloth Southern culinary sanctum sanctorum, then the house specialty fried chicken would sure rate up there alongside their fork tender Kentucky country ham, and the melt in your mouth corn pudding, and the bourbon laced bread pudding, and the Robert E. Lee layer cake, and….pardon me while I digest my thoughts here.

It would be wrong to say that time has stood still at the Beaumont, though honestly if one goes there to seek out that sort of experience they can certainly do so, as the classic appointments and all the quality services of a past generation have been retained.  The Dedmans are happy to cater to a more modern demand as well, and won’t inflict the past upon those who don’t appreciate, though frankly it’s hard to imagine a lack of historical appreciation when staying in such a majestic Greek Revival structure.  Your hosts at the Beaumont simply refuse to shove any form of a disposable go-box of culture down any patron’s throat.  Guests won’t find teenage girls donning cheap prom dress-like “Southern Belle” costumes, guides with exaggerated drawls as sweet as sticky buns, or fanciful tales that perpetuate a glorified Old South romanticism at the expense of those who physically built that world to begin with.  No, at the Beaumont, the past is all around you, yet, dignified, tasteful (yes, I mean that both ways).  There are plentiful reminders to those visiting from the Midwest or Northeast that they are in a distinctly different realm.  Visitors are treated with gracious respect.  The atmosphere, like the voices and hands that greet you, are soft and gentle, eager to please. Nothing glares, nothing screams.  To step across the threshold of the Beaumont is to experience peace and tranquility. In other words, you are treated in the true epitome of Southern fashion, like family.  Clearly this isn’t Natchez.  This is Harrodsburg, and they don’t need the Mississippi River to revel in their heritage here, and they sure don’t need theatrics to show visitors gracious Southern charm.

Y’all come on and visit, and eat!  You won’t be disappointed.

gdg