Give credit where it's due
By Nicole A. Taylor Updated February 13, 2018
EC: Chicken and Waffles Was Invented in the South, Despite What You Have Heard
Credit: Photo by zkruger via Getty Images
“Chicken and waffles is a Harlem thing. The South didn’t have anything to do with this invention.” That’s been my go-to sermon for people inquiring about the combo. To back that up, I ordered a pecan waffle and the sassy, blonde waitress, holding the oversized greasy yellow and black menu with a gazillion options asked, "Anything else?" Since I was at a Waffle House in East Point, Georgia, I asked for an order of wings and she replied, "No fried chicken here, hon." Despite that, it seems my claims turn out to have been alternative facts. Though the iconic around-the-clock breakfast spot doesn’t serve chicken and waffles (turns out there’s no deep fryer on premises), the dish is indeed a Southern invention.
Food scholars have plenty of origin theories about chicken and waffles. Many of them declare that a 1930s Harlem restaurant named Wells Supper Club came up with the notion of serving crispy thighs alongside deep-pocketed batter, or that the practice started with Pennsylvania Dutch home cooks of the 1600s. My conclusion is that it began with enslaved Africans mixing rice flour batter and cooking it to create golden-edged waffles, dabbing on spoonfuls of blackberry preserves (a la iconic Southern chef and author Edna Lewis), and frying chicken—taking simple victuals to new heights.
In his book As American as Shoofly Pie: The Foodlore and Fakelore of Pennsylvania Dutch Cuisine, food historian William Woys Weaver describes the appearance of the Dutch settlers’ bird as "pâté" like. He wrote, "It is a dish that comes to the table in many varied forms, chicken is a latecomer to the culinary story, because in the early nineteenth century—and perhaps even before that—other creatures were stewed and poured over waffles."
Soul food scholar Adrian Miller wrote in his James Beard award-winning Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, "German settlers made chicken and waffles smothered in gravy a Sunday dinner dish during much of the nineteenth century. By the early 1800s, a ‘Virginia Breakfast,’ featuring a combination of fried or baked meats with any sort of hot quick bread, was the gold standard of plantation hospitality."
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Credit: Photo by EuToch via Getty Images
Chicken—a currently on-trend protein—has deep roots on the Black community’s feasting table. After the Civil War, African-American “waiter carriers”sold vats of homemade fried chicken and biscuits to train passengers from railway platforms in Gordonsville, Virginia. In big house kitchens, enslaved cooks dry-brined yard birds to drop in full skillets of lard and devour with a side of carbs. Slave narratives from the Federal Writers Projects of Workers Progress Administration note “roasting, boiling, and frying chicken” as most common cooking methods.
As for the waffle component, chef Paul Fehribach described the technique perfectly in The Big Jones Cookbook: “Every well-equipped antebellum kitchen would have a wafer iron or two, in those days, wafers tended toward the thinner and crisper side.”
I also asked food writer and plantation cooking interpreter, Michael Twitty to describe his experience cooking wafers and waffles old-school style. Twitty noted the technical skills involved in lubing the utensil and keeping the metal piping hot: “When you make waffles and wafers on the open hearth it's a two person job. The irons are two long handles attached to two adjoined baking plates placed in the fire. You have your batter ready, take the irons out of the fire, butter them and pour the batter in and slam it shut. After one minute per side in the fire you have a waffle or wafer. Tedious isn't even the word.”
As we moved into new centuries, modern stoves changed the wafer game. Individuals no longer needed assistance making the “gloried wafer”—just an electric outlet. The design of irons improved; American households began to see larger patterns for batter and the appliance became a countertop staple.
For sure, Joseph Wells, founder of Wells Supper Club and Herb Hudson of Roscoe’s—the Long Beach-based soul food chain launched in 1975—pushed chicken and waffles into the culinary lexicon, and this culturally significant fare is mentioned in Faith Ringgold’s Harlem Renaissance Party and Brooklyn born rapper Biggie Small’s Going Back to Cali. After the 1996 Olympics, homegrown Atlanta joint, Gladys Knight's Signature Chicken and Waffles propelled the craze to another plane. In 2011, IHOP introduced the masses to the sweet bird and fluffy carb combo but Black Southern cooks had long perfected the combination.
This mighty knowledge nugget changes my Harlem didn’t birth chicken and waffle speech, and I must leave behind my “American great migration folks” ownership conversation. We all must tell a fresh story—a tale inclusive of the forgotten faces of the past, the collective that took American food higher.
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FAQs
The earliest known American version of chicken and waffles appeared in Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1600s, the site claims, while the fried chicken version appeared at the Wells Supper Club in Harlem in 1938.
Did chicken and waffles originate in the South? ›
The earliest version of the American chicken and waffle combo traces back to the Pennsylvania Dutch in the 1600s, where waffles were served with pulled chicken and gravy. A different interpretation, influenced by soul food, emerged much later with the opening of Wells Supper Club in Harlem, New York, in 1938.
Who first put chicken and waffles together? ›
Food scholars have plenty of origin theories about chicken and waffles. Many of them declare that a 1930s Harlem restaurant named Wells Supper Club came up with the notion of serving crispy thighs alongside deep-pocketed batter, or that the practice started with Pennsylvania Dutch home cooks of the 1600s.
What is a fun fact about chicken and waffles? ›
It was a 19th century Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy. Fast forward to 1917 when a Chicago restaurant advertised a Southern chicken dinner with waffles and real maple syrup (35 cents each!) Today, Metro Diner serves more than 1,300 orders of fried chicken and waffles every day!
Which fast food chain introduced the idea of eating fried chicken and waffles together in 1975? ›
Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles is a Hollywood, California-based soul food restaurant chain founded by Herb Hudson, a Harlem native, in 1975. It is best known, as the name states, for serving chicken and waffles, both together and separately, although they do offer more traditional menu items as well.
What is the origin story of waffle? ›
The waffle in Old Greece was a fundamental variant of flat cakes, which were produced by baking the cakes between two metal plates. Obelios, as these cakes were called, weren't especially sweet, but their design developed over time as people started customizing the food.
Did fried chicken come from the South? ›
The Southernization of Fried Chicken
The South is the birthplace of American-style fried chicken. Scottish immigrants are sometimes credited with creating the recipe. Many, however, believe it was brought from Africa.
Is chicken and waffles a breakfast or dinner? ›
While you may find chicken and waffles appearing on many brunch menus, it is typically appropriate to order it either day or night. This means you have a great excuse to enjoy crispy fried chicken for breakfast or a sweet waffle for dinner any time you want. How do I Eat Chicken and Waffles?
Who were Wells chicken and waffles in the 1930s? ›
What we know for sure is that in the late 1930s, fried chicken and waffles as a dish was being popularized by a Harlem restaurateur, Joseph T. Wells, who opened Wells Restaurant (later, Wells Supper Club) in 1938.
Do chicken and waffles taste good together? ›
This iconic dish of flavorful, crispy fried chicken paired with fluffy, buttery waffles is a match made in culinary heaven. The homemade spice mix takes this chicken to a whole new level–you will be making it in batches to have on hand for years to come!
There are many different stories that claim to be the origin of chicken and waffles from LA to Georgia to Halem. Like many recipes, there have been hundreds of chefs and cities all claim credit for the original. However, the one undisputed fact about chicken and waffles is their link to African American cuisine.
Why do people love chicken and waffles? ›
Chicken and waffles has everything you could want in a dish: it's crunchy, salty, sweet, and savory. Chicken and waffles are like bacon and eggs, not so much an individual dish as an imaginative fusion of two different things indelibly joined in a celebrated coupling.
Is chicken and waffles a southern thing? ›
The dish is iconic. Legendary. Widely recognized as a southern delicacy and a soul food classic, my readings on this topic also indicate that the combo of chicken and waffles (in gravy) originated in North America with the Pennsylvania Dutch.
How did chicken and waffles originate? ›
Description. Chicken and waffles, as a combined recipe, first appeared in the United States' colonial period in the 1600s in Pennsylvania Dutch country. The traditional Pennsylvania Dutch version consists of a plain waffle with pulled, stewed chicken on top, covered in gravy.
Who ate the first fried chicken? ›
The first dish known to have been deep fried was fritters, which were popular in the European Middle Ages. However, the Scottish were the first Europeans to deep fry their chicken in fat. There is an English cookbook from 1736 which mentions fried chicken, the “Dictionarium Domesticum”, by Nathan Bailey.
Where did Southern classic chicken originate? ›
Enter Southern Classic Chicken, the Shreveport, Louisiana-based franchise that serves up home-style fried chicken. The brand was started by Leon Fanning, who entered the industry with his first fried chicken restaurant in 1976.
Who invented Southern chicken and dumplings? ›
By the mid-1800s, a variety of dumpling and meat dishes began to appear in southern cookbooks and a recipe of chicken stewed with dumplings was first published in 1879 by Marion Cabell Tyree in a cookbook called “Housekeeping in Old Virginia.” Many historians are also quick to point out that these recipes were cooked ...
What state did Waffle House originate from? ›
The very first Waffle House opened its doors for the first time Labor Day weekend 1955 in Avondale Estates, Georgia. Now the site of the Waffle House Museum, the interior has been lovingly recreated to capture the look and feel of the original restaurant.
Where was waffle birthplace? ›
Waffles were born in ancient Greece
In fact, culinary historians often consider it as one of world's oldest desserts that acted as a form of rustic hotcake, made out of cereal pulps and cooked by flipping both sides on heated stones.
