Chicken & waffles=huh?

This is what I do. I pull of a piece of chicken and then a piece of waffle and wrap the waffle around the chicken and then dip it into the syrup.

If you’re not a fan of sweet and savory together then you’re not going to like it but if you are and haven’t tried I would suggest you do as I think you’ll like it.

I’ve never had the version that came with gravy instead of syrup so i’d like to try that sometime.

Ditto. I’m something of a fried chicken fanatic, raised in NC and Georgia, and I first thought it was invented by Roscoe’s.

It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to eat this dish with wild abandon, but usually, the waffles were under the pieces of fried chicken on the plate. We’d sprinkle a little hot sauce on the whole mess (Louisiana or Tapatio’s tast best for this) then drizzle the syrup on. Tear a little chicken off, wrap a little bit of the waffle around it and proceed to munch away. Lather, rinse, repeat until the plate of deliciousness is all gone. Add more hot sauce and / or syrup as needed.

Here’s what Google Ngram says about the phrase “chicken and waffles”:

It’s sometimes a little hard to interpret these diagrams. The magazine citations are listed by the date of the first issue of the magazine, not by the date of the issue that it appears in. It appears that chicken and waffles was known in the 1910’s. The appearances of the phrase dropped off then and only rose again in the 1990’s. If you want to do some real reseach, click on the link that says 1800 - 1914 and see if you can find the earliest appearance in print. My guess is that the dish was known as early as the late nineteenth century but became less popular through most of the twentieth century. After 1990 it became hip again.

Me mum used to sometimes give us waffles for dinner, with creamed chipped canned tuna on top.

My daughter just watched me type this and asked me if it was “good.”

Come to think of it, I’m not sure. I was just a human vacuum cleaner at the time, so down the hatch it went…

I knew about this combination growing up in Virginia in the 60s/70s, but it was something you heard about more than you saw. I’m trying to think of an analogue but obviously it’d be highly personal. I’d compare it to liver and onions. Most people knew about that dish where I grew up and it even was on some restaurant menus. However it was mostly a “family dish” made in the home and only by some specific families.

So chicken and waffles was kind of like that, something people knew about but wasn’t served at a lot of restaurants so if your family didn’t make it you probably never tried it.

I’ve had Roscoe’s and didn’t find it great or bad, just food. I don’t understand why it seems “weird”, it’s just a combination of sweet and savory which is basically an extremely common taste combination. Even in the breakfast world at major chains like IHOP, Cracker Barrel, Denny’s and regional chains like Bob Evans etc that specialize in breakfast food common menu items are pancakes paired with sausage and eggs or etc.

All of the “slam” menu items from Denny’s that have been around for years are basically pancakes or french toast paired with some savory items like eggs and another protein like sausage links/patty/bacon.

I got a bottle of this for Christmas from my pastry chef SIL…still looking for a reason to use it.

http://www.torani.com/products/chicken-n-waffles-syrup