Question 1

What does “chicken and waffles” mean?

Accepted Answer

Fried chicken served with waffles, a pairing popularized as a Black soul-food dish and tied to Harlem nightlife from the late 1930s.

Question 2

Where does “chicken and waffles” come from?

Accepted Answer

The origin is contested. Writers at Ebony and PBS Food trace the Black fried-chicken-and-waffles pairing to the Wells Supper Club in Harlem, which opened in 1938 and fed musicians and nightclub crowds after hours; Ebony cites the founder as James T. Wells, while Wikipedia links a different Wells, so the founder's identity needs more checking. Earlier, chicken with waffles and gravy was a documented Pennsylvania Dutch dish by the 1860s, and an 1840s tavern in Springfield, Massachusetts, served it, but that version is stewed or creamed chicken and not the fried-chicken pairing Black Harlem made famous; Black Southern cookbooks of 1871 and 1881 do not list the dish. Los Angeles had fried chicken with waffles by 1931 at the Maryland restaurant, which sold it as a Southern specialty, and Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, founded by Harlem native Herb Hudson, spread its popularity there from the 1970s. Mainstream accounts that treat it as only a Pennsylvania Dutch dish are corrected here by the Harlem record; accounts that call Harlem the sole origin overstate the evidence.