Chicken and waffles

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.{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-chicken-and-waffles/2/ |title=Discover History of Chicken and Waffles |author=Tori Avey |date=18 January 2013 |website=PBS Food |publisher=PBS |access-date=1 May 2014 |archive-date=2 May 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140502004304/http://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-chicken-and-waffles/2/ |url-status=dead }}

A version using fried chicken is associated with the American South. The waffle is served as it would be for breakfast, with condiments such as butter and syrup. This version of the dish is popular enough in Baltimore, Maryland to become a local custom.

File:Chicken and Waffles 201 - Evan Swigart.jpg

The origins of the dish are unknown. Waffles entered American cuisine in the 1600s with European colonists. The food's popularity saw a notable boost after 1789 with Thomas Jefferson's purchase of four waffle irons in Amsterdam.{{cite web |url=https://gardenandgun.com/articles/a-pressing-mystery-thomas-jefferson-and-the-waffle/ |title=A Pressing Mystery: Thomas Jefferson and the Waffle |first=Will |last=Price |date=April 13, 2016 |work=Garden & Gun |access-date=July 18, 2019 |archive-date=July 18, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190718220718/https://gardenandgun.com/articles/a-pressing-mystery-thomas-jefferson-and-the-waffle/ |url-status=live }}{{cite encyclopedia|author=Kimberly Lord Stewart|editor=Andrew Smith|title=Waffles|encyclopedia=The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DOJMAgAAQBAJ&pg=RA2-PA554|date=31 January 2013|publisher=OUP USA|isbn=978-0-19-973496-2|page=554}}

In the early 1800s, hotels and resorts outside Philadelphia served waffles with fried catfish.{{cite web |url=http://tablematters.com/2013/06/04/the-dutch-country-waffle-dinner/ |title=The Dutch Country Waffle Dinner |author=William Woys Weaver |work=Table Matters |publisher=The Center for Cultural Outreach, Pennoni Honors College, Drexel University |date=June 4, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710053026/http://tablematters.com/2013/06/04/the-dutch-country-waffle-dinner/ |archive-date=2018-07-10}} Waffles served with chicken and gravy were a common Sunday dish among the Pennsylvania Dutch by the 1860s. By the end of the 19th century, the dish was a symbol of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, brought on in part by its association with tourism. A 1901 memoir recalled a tavern in the Pittsburgh neighborhood East Liberty in western Pennsylvania that was known for "suppers of spring chickens and waffles".{{cite book |title=Life and reminiscences from birth to manhood |first=William G. |last=Johnston |year=1901 |location=Pittsburgh |publisher=Knickerbocker Press |pages=292–3 |url=https://archive.org/stream/lifereminiscence00john/lifereminiscence00john#page/292/}}

By the 1840s, broiled chicken and waffles were the celebrated specialty at Warriner's Tavern in Springfield, Massachusetts, owned by "Uncle" Jeremy Warriner and his wife "Aunt" Phoebe, two well-known abolitionists. Prior to the Civil War, chicken and waffles were extravagant breakfast staples in plantation houses through much of the South, prepared by the well-trained cooks.{{cite news | title= Chicken and Waffles, the Most Complete Expression of Southern Culinary Skill | work= An Eccentric Culinary History | date= September 4, 2016 | url= https://eccentricculinary.com/chicken-and-waffles-the-most-complete-expression-of-southern-culinary-skill-part-1/ | access-date= May 8, 2019 | archive-date= May 8, 2019 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190508204658/https://eccentricculinary.com/chicken-and-waffles-the-most-complete-expression-of-southern-culinary-skill-part-1/ | url-status= live }}

In 1909, a Griswold's waffle iron advertisement promised, "You can attend a chicken and waffle supper right at home any time you have the notion if you are the owner of a Griswold's American Waffle Iron."

A traditional story about the origin of the dish in soul food states that because African Americans in the South rarely had the opportunity to eat chicken and were more familiar with flapjacks or pancakes than with waffles, they considered the dish a delicacy. For decades, it remained "a special-occasion meal in African American families."{{cite news |title= Serving up chicken & waffles |work= Los Angeles Business Journal |date= September 22, 1997 |page=1}} The combination of chicken and waffles does not appear in early Southern cookbooks such as Mrs. Porter’s Southern Cookery Book, published in 1871, or in What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking, published in 1881 by former slave Abby Fisher.{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/whatmrsfisherkno00fishrich |title=What Mrs. Fisher Knows about Old Southern Cooking |first=Abby |last=Fisher |year=1881 |location=San Francisco |publisher=Women's Cooperative Printing Office}} Fisher's cookbook is generally considered the first cookbook written by an African American. The lack of a recipe for the combination of chicken and waffles in Southern cookbooks from the era may suggest a later origin for the dish. Popular culture may have associated the dish with the South by 1917, when Edna Ferber's Fanny Herself mentioned a Chicago restaurant falsely advertising "Southern chicken dinner with waffles and real maple syrup, 35 cents each."{{cite book|last=Ferber|first=Edna|author-link=Edna Ferber|title=Fanny Herself|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OmHuCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT143|date=18 June 2015|publisher=Booklassic|isbn=978-963-524-010-4|page=143}}{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

Fried chicken and waffles came to Los Angeles by 1931, when they were served at The Maryland, a restaurant that marketed the dish as a Southern specialty.{{cite news |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-mar-02-fo-mildredpierce2-story.html |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |first=Charles |last=Perry |date=March 2, 2005 |title='Mildred Pierce' still one hot plate |access-date=March 25, 2014 |archive-date=March 26, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140326003127/http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/02/food/fo-mildredpierce2 |url-status=live }} James M. Cain's 1941 novel Mildred Pierce concerns a woman who finds success serving "chicken-and-waffle dinner" at her Glendale restaurant.

In New York City, the dish was served in the African-American community in Harlem as early as the 1930s in such locations as Tillie's Chicken Shack, Richard Wells' jazz nightclub, and particularly the Wells Supper Club.{{cite news |title = Breakfast or Dinner |work = East Bay Express |date = August 4, 2004 |url = https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/breakfast-or-dinner/Content?oid=1074885 |access-date = March 19, 2018 |archive-date = March 19, 2018 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180319084853/https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/breakfast-or-dinner/Content?oid=1074885 |url-status = live }} In 1935, the trumpeter Bunny Berigan composed a jazz instrumental titled "Chicken and Waffles".{{cite news |url=https://kenhagel.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/chicken-and-waffles-bunny-berigan-and-his-blue-boys-1935/ |title="Chicken And Waffles " – Bunny Berigan And His Blue Boys (1935) |date=November 28, 2014 |last=Hagel |first=Ken |work=Jazz Between the Wars |access-date=December 1, 2016 |archive-date=August 13, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200813200711/https://kenhagel.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/chicken-and-waffles-bunny-berigan-and-his-blue-boys-1935/ |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=https://www.discogs.com/Bunny-Berigan-And-His-Blue-Boys-You-Took-Advantage-Of-Me-Chicken-And-Waffles-/release/8355013 |title=Bunny Berigan And His Blue Boys – You Took Advantage Of Me / Chicken And Waffles |work=Discogs |publisher=Zink Media, Inc. |access-date=2016-12-01 |archive-date=2016-12-02 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202124409/https://www.discogs.com/Bunny-Berigan-And-His-Blue-Boys-You-Took-Advantage-Of-Me-Chicken-And-Waffles-/release/8355013 |url-status=live }}

Since the 1970s, chicken and waffles have gained popularity in Los Angeles due to the fame of former Harlem resident Herb Hudson's restaurant Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, which has become known as a favorite of some Hollywood celebrities, referenced in several movies, and spun off several more into a small chain.

On June 12th, 1967, National Chicken and Waffles Day was established in the city of Sandefjord, Norway. Some attribute this to the influx of American offshore oil workers employed by Conoco Phillips.

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Category:American chicken dishes

Category:American cuisine

Category:Waffles

Category:Soul food

Category:Food combinations

Category:Cuisine of the Pennsylvania Dutch

Category:Cuisine of the Southern United States

Category:African-American cuisine