“Little House on the Prairie” stands as one of the most iconic TV shows ever created. The show gave viewers a realistic look into pioneer life, and viewers learned important life lessons all along the way.
While the show featured real soups and stews the real-life pioneers would’ve been happy to have, the little girls on the show had something different during their lunch breaks on set.
The “Little House” actors certainly had it better than the real-life family. Melissa Gilbert played Laura on the show, and in an interview with Parade, she revealed that she and the rest of the cast got plenty of good food while on set.
According to Little Things, the cast on the show had KFC’s famous fried chicken while filming.
According to Gilbert, she’d eat “Dinty Moore canned stew, Pillsbury biscuits, pies from the local store, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. I was always the first one eating the extra food. I would just gorge myself!”
It seems the girls couldn’t escape the colonel’s 13 herbs and spices. KFC’s signature fried chicken was a regular staple for the kids on “Little House on the Prairie”
However, having KFC on the table obviously wasn’t an option for those living on small farms in the late 19th century.
The Role Of Food On ‘Little House On The Prairie’
In the Little House on the Prairie books, Wilder brought readers into her world — and that included the meals.
According to Atlas Obscura, Laura Ingalls burns her fingers on a salted pig’s tail on one occasion. Another scene depicts creating hard candy with snow and molasses.
But in reality, the Ingalls wouldn’t have actually had this much access to all the food in the real world.
The publication notes Wilder spends a lot of time in the books focusing on the meals the family cooked, but the family was still quite concerned about having enough food for the harsh Minnesota winters.
KFC was such a staple on the show, there’s even a nod to The Colonel in one episode. In an episode from season eight, a character resembling Colonel Sanders asks Harriet Oleson if she wants to serve only fried chicken at her restaurant and become part of his business.
While the character is a less than subtle tribute to KFC, “Little House on the Prairie’s” setting doesn’t add up with the restaurant’s opening, which didn’t happen until 1952.
