Eastern Sho’ Bar-B-Q Chicken a.k.a. Delmarva Barbecued Chicken

ByKara
Seasoned barbecued chicken legs with creamy coleslaw on a gray plate, served with ice water

There is only one thing that excites me more than finding an old cookbook that I didn’t know about, and that’s finding a local dish that I didn’t know was local.

When Matthew Korfhage wrote to me last summer to ask about Delmarva Barbecued Chicken I was confused. We have a barbecue tradition in Maryland other than pit beef? Don’t organizations everywhere raise funds by selling chicken by the side of the road?

Maybe they do, but on the Eastern Shore, the chicken in question is a little bit different.

Chicken Cooking Delmarva Style with engraved hen illustration and The Best text
Baltimore Sun, 1984

With a sauce made from vinegar, oil, poultry seasoning, and the strange addition of an egg, this “barbecue sauce” is nothing like the dozens of ketchup-based personal barbecue sauce recipes found in my database.

Korfhage’s email inspired me to take a closer look at those recipes. It wasn’t long until I found exactly what I was looking for.

In none other than Maryland First Lady Helen Avalynne Tawes’ 1964 cookbook, “My Favorite Maryland Recipes” is a recipe for “Eastern Sho’ Bar-B-Q Chicken.” Later local cookbooks like “What Is Cooking On Party Line” and cookbooks from local fire departments had similar recipes. The style of chicken is particularly associated with volunteer fire departments, for which the roadside sales are a big money-maker.

It makes sense that particular chicken recipes would disseminate throughout the Delmarva peninsula, longtime home of the Delmarva Chicken Festival. Since 1948 (and with a brief hiatus 2015-2023), the festival has celebrated the poultry industry that is central to the local economy. The festival and its multiple cooking contests, including a barbecue division, produced many cookbooks to further spread the prizewinning recipes.

But Delmarva BBQ Chicken didn’t come from a contestant. The clue to its origin lies in another of its names: “Cornell Chicken.”

Vintage black and white photo of people preparing barbecued chicken outdoors at Eastern Shore community gathering or fundraiser event
Delmarva Poultry officials show a Baltimore brewery staff how to make barbecued chicken to raise money, Salisbury Times, 1963

J. Frank Gordy, the first director of the Delmarva Poultry Association, had a background doing poultry research at universities. In addition to whatever industrial or agricultural research he produced, he developed chicken recipes and promoted them in the 1940s at Cornell and later, Penn State. At the Delmarva Poultry Association, Gordy’s influence took hold in the region.

Mrs. Tawes has never led me astray, so I followed her recipe, which included a dash of Tabasco and some paprika in addition to the poultry seasoning and pepper.

Like the firefighters and clubs who make the chicken for sale, I knew that the success of this recipe depended less on the ingredients in the sauce and more on the careful cooking of a quality chicken. The result was absolutely delicious.

Thanks to Korfhage’s inquisitiveness and research into this tradition, barbecue chicken may now be yet another mandatory stop on my trips through the Delmarva peninsula. It’s getting longer and longer to get wherever I’m going. But what better way to spend a summer’s day than a journey through the Eastern Shore, where so much deliciousness is hiding in plain sight?

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Recipe:

Ingredients for Eastern Shore barbecued chicken recipe including peanut oil, apple cider vinegar, chicken, egg, poultry seasoning, paprika, and black pepper
  • .5 cup vegetable oil
  • .5 cup apple cider vinegar
  • 1 Tablespoon salt
  • .25 Teaspoons black pepper
  • 1 Teaspoon poultry seasoning
  • 1 well-beaten egg
  • dash Tabasco sauce
  • dash paprika
  • 1 chicken

Mix dry ingredients. Add liquids, then egg. Mix well.

Start with a 2.5 lb broiler, split. Dip the chicken in barbecue sauce and place on grill or under oven broiler. Turn chicken over every 10 minutes and baste with the sauce. Cooking time varies from 1 to 1 1/4 hours, depending on the size of chicken.

Recipe adapted from “My Favorite Maryland Recipes,” Mrs. J. Millard Tawes, 1964

Raw chicken pieces seasoned with paprika and spices in broth ready for Eastern Shore barbecue cooking
Seared chicken pieces simmering in golden paprika sauce in red cast iron Dutch oven
Seasoned barbecued chicken legs on gray plate with coleslaw and glass of water, Eastern Shore style

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