Japanese-Style Fried Chicken

Before Kentucky Fried Chicken came to Japan, we Japanese had our own popular version: tori no kara-age, chicken coated with potato starch and fried. My mother, who has loved chicken since her childhood, frequently cooked this dish when I was growing up. At the table during dinner, while everyone was busy eating the piping-hot fried chicken with our hands, my mother would repeat the story of how she became so attached to the flavor of chicken. Her father, who operated a rural pediatri