The Battle of the Southern Fried Chicken: Raising Cane's versus Zaxby's
When brainstorming ideas to divide regions of Garreau's definition of the South, I first thought of southern fried chicken! It is no secret that the South is picky about their fried chicken. After doing some research, it is quite apparent that Popeyes runs the bone-in chicken race in The South. However, when it comes to the fried tenders, it gets a bit more tricky and there seems to be a divide. There are two apparent leaders of the chicken tenders in the Southern region, Raising Cane's and Zaxby's. It is completely unheard of to enjoy both Raising Cane's and Zaxby's. It is either one or the other. After researching many maps and data and using Garreau's outline of Dixie, I was able to map out a pretty good representation of the battle of the southern fried chicken. This map that I have drawn is a formal region, meaning the members in each region share a common characteristic or way of life. Also known as sharing a favorite fried chicken tender in common. One thing that surprised me about these two regions is how much of an even divide it was. It was pretty much half and half. There is a bit of a blended area found in Mississippi and Alabama, you can see this present on the map. But, who's surprised? Alabama and Mississippi never know what they want. These fried chicken regions may sound a bit silly when looking from the outside. However, I feel that this silly division, along with many other, are what makes The South such a unique and interesting place.
Counties with at least 1 Raising Cane's location.
All Zaxby's locations in the United States. These two maps are where I gathered much of my data from to complete my region map. Despite some outliers, Garreau's region of Dixie was pretty cohesive with the southern fried chicken data.
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