(AOL News)
On Monday, KFC unleashes a menu item that would make even the gluttonous Earl of Sandwich take pause: a meat-on-meat creation featuring cheese, bacon and mayonnaise layered between not bread, but two fried chicken breasts.
News of this not-sandwich, dubbed the Double Down, has brought out a special kind of vitriol in the blogging community. "The vilest food product created by man," wrote TreeHugger, while Consumerist called it "potentially lethal."
Hyperbole aside, the Double Down's over-the-top nature seems to be the main selling point. With it, KFC joins the ranks of Burger King, Wendy's and other fast-food outlets that have had success marketing enormous, unhealthy burgers.
Among the first to embrace the concept of unapologetically decadent food was Hardee's, maker of a double bacon cheeseburger called the Monster Thickburger -- a culinary invention so excessive it inspired the term "food porn," says Brad Haley, executive vice president of marketing for Hardee's parent company, CKE.
According to Haley, fast food is a guilty pleasure for many people, and so they want products that cater to their unhealthy cravings, rather than fight them.
In the past, KFC has made attempts to shake its greasy image by slimming down its mascot, the Colonel; dropping the word "fried" from its title; and adding grilled chicken options to the menu. The Double Down, then, is a dramatic break from that trend -- and one that Haley is surprised hasn't come sooner.
"This product is the first thing of this kind that I've seen from them in a long time," Haley told AOL News. "They've said, 'We'll just kind of accept that this is a decadent food. And we'll take it up a notch rather than minimize it or downplay it.' "
