There are other things to eat in the Akron suburb of Barberton, but the #1 reason to bring your appetite is a meal of Barberton fried chicken. Yes, a full meal — not just the chicken alone. Oh, the chicken is great, fried in lard until it attains a crisp, red-gold crust that shores in torrents of juice. But the ritual meal also includes a bowl of spicy tomato-rice hot sauce plus a timbale of sweet cole slaw, French fries (also fried in lard), and bread. The chicken recipe and the meal itself were brought to the New World from Serbia when the Topalsky family immigrated to the farmland of Ohio at the beginning of the 20th century. After they opened Belgrade Gardens, three more restaurants in town began serving the same chicken dinner, which is now Barberton’s claim to culinary fame. Barberton chicken aside, there is one other essential stop in town: Al’s Corner Restaurant. A modest storefront that serves only lunch, Monday through Friday, Al’s is affiliated with Al’s Quality Market just down the street, which is where its sausages are made. The sausages are divine, as is everything else on an Hungarian-accented menu that includes chicken paprikash, halushka, stuffed cabbage, and pierogies.
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Denny Gray, proprietor of Al’s Quality Market, in Barberton, Ohio, opens the door of his smoker. Hot, white clouds billow out forcefully enough to fog glasses and make eyes...
Scenery-wise, it's not the Pas de Calais or the Beartooth Highway, but an Ohio road trip from the shores of Lake Erie to Rubber City (Akron) is an eager...
Fried chicken is popular all across America and so different everywhere that it is not possible to say what city, state, or region does it best. While the process...
