Another heavyweight falls in the fried chicken challenge. Vote in elite 8

By now, most if not all of your March Madness brackets have likely been torn to shreds. But where there is disappointment, there is an opportunity to eat one's feelings.

You might turn to a food like fried chicken, which we've been celebrating throughout IndyStar's Fried Chicken Challenge. After more than 10,000 votes, our tournament has been shaved down from 32 con-tenders to just eight, with plenty of shockers along the way. Last round saw No. 16-seed Sgt. Pepper's of Martinsville continue its Cinderella run by knocking off No. 2 Wagner's Village Inn of Oldenburg, one of Indiana's two James Beard Award recipients.

It's been tough sledding for Marion County so far; six Indianapolis-based chicken vendors fell to a suburban or small-town opponent in the not at all clumsily-named Drum-Stixteen, including No. 3 Kountry Kitchen and No. 1 MCL Cafeteria. Only No. 7 Mississippi Belle and No. 11 Papa Bears remain as representatives of Indy proper.

Although Sgt. Pepper's looked unbeatable after victories over Wagner's and presumed tournament favorite Hollyhock Hill, a possible challenger has emerged: No. 6 Kopper Kettle Inn of Morristown, central Indiana's longest-running fried chicken enterprise. The storied eatery amassed a whopping 1,512 votes in round two, clobbering Northside Social. If things continue this way, Sgt. Pepper's and Kopper Kettle appear to be on a collision course for the Frynal Four next week.

Once again, you can find the full round one results and the polls for round three below. But if you're the sort who likes to be well-acquainted with the things you eat, I have another gutful of history for you.

In fried chicken history: Black women give the bird its wings

Of the Chicken Challenge's original 32 competitors, several like His Place Eatery and Kountry Kitchen were self-described soul food spots. "Soul food" is rather loosely defined as cuisines go, but the term generally describes the hearty, comforting dishes popularized in the Southern United States. And while scholars debate what truly counts as soul food, they unanimously agree the cuisine's roots are inseparable from Black culture and the history of enslaved Africans.

In the years prior to the abolition of slavery in the United States, a variety of staple dishes emerged among enslaved African people who used inexpensive, often leftover ingredients as well as some that traveled to the States via the Transatlantic slave trade. Arguably no dish became as popular as fried chicken.

It's difficult to ascribe such a ubiquitous dish to any one group of people. Some historians claim it was the Scottish who actually pioneered fried chicken in the South. However, as other scholars have pointed out, several of the records used to support this argument are recipes written by Scottish slaveholders whose kitchens were largely tended by enslaved Black women. As one man wrote while traveling through the South in an 1825 letter published in the Natchez, Miss. Gazette, "Every delicacy that graces the tables of the rich passes through the hands of (enslaved people)."

After fried chicken became a cornerstone of Southern cuisine, it eventually became a rare means of economic mobility for Black women. The most well-documented example of this was the "waiter carriers" of Gordonsville, Va., Black women who in the years after the Civil War toted platters of fried chicken and other food atop their heads and sold their goods to railcar passengers who stopped in town on their way east from the Shenandoah Valley.

The women's entrepreneurial ingenuity and culinary prowess was such that for a time Gordonsville was known as the fried chicken capital of the country. But their livelihood was far from guaranteed. In a 1948 retrospective in the Richmond, Va. Times-Dispatch, three surviving "waiter carriers" recalled that they suddenly went from selling as many as 1,000 battered birds per week to unemployment after a restaurant opened near the train station and the city told the women to cease their operation.

Here in central Indiana, it isn't hard to find records of Black women's contribution to fried chicken craft. One 1940 Indianapolis Star article detailed the "Middle-West method" of frying chicken preferred by Indiana native and then-Republican presidential nominee Wendell Wilkie. The article goes on to detail a recipe provided by an old friend of Wilkie's mother. But according to the article, Mrs. Wilkie wasn't the one making the chicken — that was the Wilkies' cook, a Black woman named Lizzie Barber.

Indiana native and one-time Republican presidential nominee Wendell Wilkie was cited as having an affinity for "Hoosier style" fried chicken in 1940.

Last week, we examined the arrival of fried fever in Indianapolis via a handful of enterprising women including Broad Ripple's "Auntie" Kelso. I neglected to mention that the woman working the stove during those picnics wasn't "Auntie," but rather a "cleanly colored woman" who worked for her.

As you may be quick to point out, folks of all backgrounds enjoy and have contributed to the history of fried chicken in the United States. The purpose of these history lessons is not to make readers feel like they're violating the Geneva Conventions because they didn't eat their fried chicken with enough solemn reflection. But I'd argue that whether it's a dish loaded with grease and salt or a dish loaded with history, eating really good food means stomaching all the ingredients — including the ones you'd rather not think about.

See the full results from round two of the Chicken Challenge

• No. 16 Sgt. Pepper's Chicken (Martinsville) defeated No. 2 Wagner's Village Inn (Oldenburg), 412 to 299
• No. 4 Hilltop Family Restaurant (Spencer) defeated No. 3 Kountry Kitchen, 333 216
• No. 6 Kopper Kettle Inn (Morristown) defeated No. 5 Northside Social, 1,512 to 148
• No. 7 Mississippi Belle defeated No. 9 Shani's Secret Chicken, 244 to 150
• No. 2 Stone's Family Restaurant (Millhousen) defeated No. 1 MCL, 270 to 187
• No. 4 Wilson Farm Market (Arcadia) defeated No. 3 His Place Eatery, 519 to 207
• No. 11 Papa Bears Chicken defeated No. 5 Root and Bone, 193 to 179
• No. 8 Putnam Inn (Greencastle) defeated No. 7 Pa and Ma's Backyard BBQ, 215 to 169

Vote in round three of the Fried Chicken Challenge

Below you will find the four matchups for round three, aka the Elite Ate, the Emeat Eight or the Alita Eight, which works great if you know a little Spanish and don't mind flagrantly disobeying the grammar of two different languages.

You can vote as many times as you'd like between now and noon on March 26, though as a reminder, IndyStar reserves the right to remove votes where there is reasonable suspicion of fowl play. And if you're particularly aggrieved by a result or snub from our bracket, let me know why (nicely, if you could) at [email protected]. I am committed to investigating these results, no matter what my doctor might say.

Contact dining reporter Bradley Hohulin at [email protected]. You can follow him on Instagram @BradleyHohulin and stay up to date with Indy dining news by signing up for the Indylicious newsletter.