In my book Hog and Hominy, I trace the fried chicken and waffle combination to the 1940s and 1950s New York City Jazz scene and artist such as Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk. The legend goes that this northern soul food tradition began when artists in New York like Monk ordered chicken for breakfast after missing dinner the night before because they were performing, and ordered waffles as hot bread to eat with the fried chicken. That’s one part of the history, the other is that in Pennsylvania Dutch Country people had been eating a similar combination for years but made it with smothered chicken with gravy. It makes since knowing that waffles culture here in North America started with Dutch colonist in sixteenth century New York, New Jersey, and parts of Pennsylvania.
