Chicken and waffles

Chicken and Waffles

Soul food style chicken and waffles, with butter and syrup
Origin
Place of origin	United States
Details
Serving temperature	Hot
Main ingredient(s)	Chicken, waffles
Variations	Fried chicken with butter and syrup Stewed chicken with gravy

Chicken and waffles refers to either of two American dishes that combine chicken with waffles. It is served in certain specialty restaurants in the United States.

Description

Soul food version

The best known chicken and waffle pairing comes from the American soul food tradition and uses fried chicken.^{[citation needed]} The waffle is served much as it would be at breakfast time, with condiments like butter and syrup. This unusual combination of foods is beloved by many people who are influenced by traditions of soul food passed down from past generations of their families.

Pennsylvania Dutch version

The traditional Pennsylvania Dutch version consists of a plain waffle with pulled, stewed chicken on top, covered in gravy. It is generally found in the Northeastern United States.

History

The exact origins of this dish are unknown, although several theories about its origin exist. One such theory is that waffles entered American cuisine in the 1790s after Thomas Jefferson’s purchase of a waffle iron from France. Recipes for waffles and chicken soon appeared in cookbooks. 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.”

Other historians place the origin later, after the post-Civil War migration of African Americans to the North. Fried chicken was a common breakfast meat, and serving “a breakfast bread with whatever meat [was available] comes out of the rural tradition.” 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. 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, although it is also possible that the two foods were simply traditionally served together and were not considered a single dish.^{[citation needed]}