First It Was A Movie; Now It’s A Kfc Sandwich

This week I reached out for a Chicken Twister sandwich, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s entry in the fast-food wraps race.

Here’s the blueprint: chunks of cold roast chicken, lettuce, tomatoes, real bacon bits, shredded Cheddar cheese and ranch dressing all wrapped up cozy in a 6-inch pita bread.

Total calories: 480. Fat grams: 20.

This may be the only fast-food sandwich with the same name as a disaster movie. Although it wouldn’t surprise me if the Fox network is making “The Whopper That Devoured Cleveland” for sweeps month.

KFC’s Twister is similar to Wendy’s line of Stuffed Pita sandwiches. Both are packed with pretty nifty stuff, but KFC’s pita wraps all the way around. Several times, in fact. The Twister looks like a jelly roll.

Wendy’s pita bread is smaller, more like a taco reaching only halfway around. You can count on spillage. Last time I had a Stuffed Pita, so much spilled out that I thought the Exxon Valdez had sailed into town.

The Twister is Kentucky Fried Chicken’s first on-purpose cold chicken item. I say “on purpose” because there have been times my chicken was cold not on purpose.

KFC developed the Twister for workers whose lunch hours have shrunk to 10 minutes. It’s the ultimate lightning-fast lunch, complete with meat, vegetables and bread.

You don’t need a knife and fork. You don’t need condiments. Hey, if you’ve got certain carny skills, you don’t even need to chew.

Kentucky Fried knew it had a hit when it test-marketed the Twister in Swainsboro, Ga. The town has only 5,000 residents. Yet, in only two weeks, the local KFC restaurant sold 2,900 Twisters. That means the equivalent of 60 percent of the population of Swainsboro sampled a Twister, or Marlon Brando passed through town recently and stopped for a snack.

Maybe the good people of Swainsboro are right. The Twister is like a tossed salad with a chicken breast on top. It’s swaddled in a tasty bread wrapping and served in a special Twister paper bag, conveniently marked with instructions to “tear here.”

When you’re done eating, you can shake the crumbs from the bag into your mouth, like eating Raisinets at the movie theater.

I like it. But I’d like it a lot more if KFC made a few tiny changes.

For a company that brags about all the chicken choices it offers (fried, roast, pot pies, etc.), Kentucky Fried is pretty single-minded when it comes to the Twister.

Forget “have it your way.” The Twister comes only one way, with ranch dressing. I’m not a ranch dressing guy. Even if I were, I’d go for a low-fat ranch. Right now, all you can get is high-test. In addition, I’d prefer the pita bread toasted, or at least warmed.

Where’s my Italian Twister, with mozzarella and tomato sauce? Or my Barbecue Twister? I know KFC has some barbecue sauce lying around. Or Mexican, with guacamole and chili sauce?

The possibilities are endless, almost as endless as the line I’m stuck in at the drive-through.

Here’s something to ponder the next time you’re trapped in drive-through gridlock: You know that famous statue of Atlas holding up the world?

What’s Atlas supposed to be standing on?