Since colonial times, Maryland’s economy has relied on the underwater discoveries of the Chesapeake Bay, including rockfish, oysters, and most importantly the Maryland blue crab. It’s a symbol that follows you everywhere in the most tourist-y parts of state, particularly the Inner Harbor located in downtown Baltimore. Blue crabs are emblazoned on t-shirts and mugs for visitors. They’re a celebratory go-to meal after an Orioles games at Camden Yards for wealthier folks, and almost everyone enjoys them during their summer holiday cookouts. You can find uniquely decorated crab statues around the city from a local fundraiser back in 2005.
Like most expensive cuisine, there’s an air of luxury and sophistication associated with Baltimore’s seafood industry, hence its national recognition. The same sort of large-scale publicity isn’t granted to our legendary carryout scene. In particular, Baltimore’s other signature meal: the chicken box.
As a lifelong patron of Baltimore’s food economy, I would argue that the chicken box is the best meal the city has to offer and the best kept secret from tourists and Baltimore’s white middle and upper class. Imagine the feeling of a warm Styrofoam box in your hands. You open it, and inside are four chicken wings, seasoned French fries, maybe a roll. It comes with an ice-cold can of soda and costs under $10. Or you can opt for a jumbo half-and-half (a sweet mix of lemonade and iced tea), best on a scolding-hot summer day. Whether this meal should or could become a mainstream staple sold in expensive tourist spots and fancy restaurants like Maryland crab is a more contentious discussion. A restaurant in Mount Vernon called Square Meal began serving a $21 version of a chicken box in 2018 that set #BaltimoreTwitter ablaze. Nevertheless, the chicken box remains an important cultural fixture in black neighborhoods amid rising gentrification and commercial whitewashing.
Growing up in the east side of Baltimore, chicken boxes were more accessible than a bushel of crabs as a summer indulgence, both geographically and financially. During my first summer job as a teen, I spent my lunch breaks hitting up carryout spots with my friends for a then $5.99 chicken box until we became reasonably concerned about the high levels of sodium we were consuming. Carryouts on the east side of Baltimore, where I reside, like Sunny’s Subs, Stoko’s, Hip Hop Fish and Chicken, and the now defunct Giorgio’s and Tyrone’s Chicken all provided quick, delicious and reliable meals with their own unique spin. Hip Hop Chicken and Fish, which has multiple locations around Baltimore city, is known for the subtly sweet taste of its chicken, often joked about as crack by consumers. Stoko’s chicken and fries are dosed in Old Bay, a Maryland-produced blended seasoning. And Sunny’s Subs, routinely praised as the best chicken in Baltimore by locals and city publications, is known for its house sauce, the owner Steve Hwang’s take on Washington’s sweet and tangy mumbo sauce.
“I went to Morgan, so Sunny’s was the closest option,” said Deja Ward, 24, a West Baltimore native. “I mostly ate the food that was on campus. But every once in a while, when we got sick of Chick-Fil-A or the food in the dining hall, it was nice to just walk up the street and get a chicken box. It was good comfort food on the weekends.”
Joshua Moore, a 22-year-old resident of Northeast Baltimore, wasn’t even aware that chicken boxes were a Baltimore staple.
“I thought chicken boxes were popular everywhere,” said Moore. “But it’s cool that we have our own thing that outsiders can try and be impressed by, like how New York and Chicago are famous for pizza.”
The chicken box has roots in the slavery era for African-Americans and extends beyond Baltimore. Despite the ubiquity of fried chicken in American culture, the details of its evolution are hard to track, aside from its birthplace in the South. Whether African-American house slaves or white Southerners came up with the idea to bread and fry is disputed in academia. One of the earliest versions of the chicken box was recorded in 1993 as an ad in The Baltimore Sun. It contained “two whole fried spring chickens and a loaf of toasted bread” meant to be shared by four people. There are also noticeable similarities between the packaging and pricing of modern chicken boxes and the shoebox lunches used by Black travelers during the Jim Crow Era that contained food items like boiled eggs, pound cake and, of course, chicken.
As long as fried chicken has been a mark of Black tradition, it has been a fraught symbol as a hurtful stereotype and a prop for racist caricatures. A high school classmate recalled a time he and his friends were eating the chicken they just purchased from Royal Farms–Maryland’s chain of convenience stores that also sells chicken boxes– outside the store and were laughed at by a group of white passengers in a car.
As much as being black and consuming fried chicken, let alone discussing it on the Internet, is stereotyped by racists, it will always be a source of cultural pride for me as a member of Baltimore’s predominantly Black population. Baltimore is one of the most segregated cities in the United States, and the longer I remain here and interact with residents from different racial and economic backgrounds, the more obvious and upsetting the contrasts between the two Baltimores become. Nevertheless, chicken boxes will always be one of the sacred joys of living on my side of the tracks. It may never be city-pride symbol like the Maryland carb, but maybe it’s better that way.
