The man who founded Kentucky Fried Chicken apparently had one more trick up the sleeve of his ubiquitous white jacket.
But this time around, its page-flippin' – not finger-lickin' – good.
Col. Harland Sanders, the mustachioed face behind fast-food chicken goliath KFC, is said to have penned an autobiography that chronicles his love of food and even shares some of his personal recipes.
KFC announced Thursday that a company employee stumbled across the "hidden" manuscript at a storage facility in Louisville, Kentucky.
"We've uncovered a new secret of the Colonel's and we want to share it with millions of KFC fans around the world," KFC Corp. CEO Roger Eaton said in a prepared statement.
But the world's fried chicken fans will have to wait for the Colonel's musings. KFC has decided to release the "food autobiography" next year.
In a plot that's thicker than a Double Down Sandwich, KFC said it plans to lock the manuscript in the same vault that houses the Colonel's trademarked original chicken recipe.
According to KFC, anyone who wants to be privy to the original autobiography or the Colonel's "secret mix of 11 herbs and spices" will have to crack open a custom-made fireproof safe that weighs more than 770 lbs.
Sanders is considered a pioneer in the realm of fast-food chicken.
Though he took an interest in cooking as early as age six, the "Colonel" built his chicken empire relatively late in life. At age 65, he turned a $105 social security cheque into the company that would come to be known as KFC.
By the time he died in 1980, Sanders had spent several decades on the road visiting his restaurants worldwide.
"The food I've liked, the work I've done and the way I think are all the same thing," Sanders wrote in a leaked portion of his autobiography.
Sanders also moved to Mississauga, Ont., in 1965 to oversee his Canadian operations after selling his stake in the U.S.
