1950s Creamed Chicken and Corn Meal Waffles recipe

✯ Day 320 of Vintage 365 ✯

 

As, to anyone outside of the Canadian border, Vancouver does not count as "the South", it's fair to say that I've not lived very close to the equator - let alone somewhere as deep down into America as like Georgia, Texas, or New Orleans.

I have no family ties (be they past or present) to the Southern US, and yet there are certainly elements of the culture from that part of the world that has long appealed to me.

From old-fashioned classics like cotillion classes to timeless joys such as sporting a pair of cowboy boots, there's no denying that is a certain hard-to-pin down allure to life below the Mason Dixon line.

Often seen as a place where time moves a little slower and food tastes a little better - or in some cases (johnnycakes, biscuits and gravy, mint juleps, pulled pork, sweat tea, sweet potato pie, pralines, jambalaya, apple dumplings, country ham - the list goes on and delicious on!) a whole heap better -Southern cuisine is a scrumptious world unto itself.

Though I've not yet had the pleasure of sampling the many delightful culinary offering of the South while actually in that part of the States, I've long enjoyed both down home and upscale Southern recipes alike, which I've culled from many different vintage and modern cookbooks over the years.

Today's vintage Creamed Chicken on Corn Meal Waffles recipe, for example, leans heavily towards ingredients from the south including corn meal and cream sauce smothered meat.

{Creamy, hearty, very tasty looking 1950s Creamed Chicken on Corn Meal Waffles recipe by way of vintage.kitten on Flickr. For a larger version of this great vintage recipe, please click here.}

 

While many of us tend to think of waffles as food typically reserved for breakfast, brunch or perhaps dessert, the act of eating waffles with savoury foods is anything but new (I've seen savoury waffle recipes from the 20s and would venture to guess they go considerably further back still).

During the 30, 40s and 50s, it was relatively common to serve waffles paired with meat, cheese, seafood or vegetables for lunch or dinner. They were treated much like bread at the time and thus enjoyed potential appearances at any meal of the day.

It's the inclusion of corn meal here that really helps give this particular savoury waffle dish it's Southern charm. Yet as mentioned above, the rich, silky cream gravy and chunks of chicken certainly don't hurt either.

This filling, almost decadent dinner channels both the world of Southern cuisine and the wonderful realm of 1950s cooking (for a slightly exotic flare, one finds the suggest to add 1/4 of a cup of stuffed olives amongst this recipe's ingredients), making for a meal that begs to be served with some sweet tea and followed up by pecan pie for dessert.

For a dinner that will be, I assure you, so very yummy, y’all!