Waffles and chicken: Odd combo turns out to have a long and delicious history

Fried chicken and who?

Waffles and what?

A toaster-sized restaurant recently opened in Chesapeake, and it's dishing up both.

Together.

On the same plate.

As in chicken and waffles.

Think a big, crispy Belgian waffle crowned with pockets of with butter and syrup accompanied by a quartet or more of crispy drumettes.

I'd never heard of the dish, but apparently it's been around for a long, long time.

"It's a thing," Cicely Billups assured me. "It's just that Virginia isn't onto it yet."

Billups and her fiancee, Omonte Ward, opened The Wing Spot restaurant on North Battlefield Boulevard this summer, betting that it's a taste that will quickly catch on. (Earlier this year, Ward opened Posh Dolche on Granby Street in Norfolk.)

"You might not think that the combination would be good," Billups said, "but it's amazing."

Food historians have unearthed chicken and waffles recipes in cookbooks as far back as the late 1700s, after Thomas Jefferson returned from France with a waffle iron. They traced the trend and found that eventually, the hearty, sweet/savory combination became a celebration-type supper in African American families.

There are big national names in the chicken-and-waffle circuit. Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles, a soul food restaurant chain out of Hollywood, is perhaps the country's best-known such joint. Singer Gladys Knight is partner in chicken-and-waffle restaurants in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.

My first reaction to the idea of waffles and fried chicken on the same day on the same plate was, "Ohmygosh! That sounds great!" A split second later I thought, "Ohmygosh! That sounds fattening!"

But back in the kitchen, Karl Frazier, who was cooking on a recent weekday afternoon (and who grew up in north Suffolk eating his grandmother's chicken and waffles), explained that a new oil-free cooking method has shaved calories and fat from The Wing Spot's version.

Using stainless tongs, he loaded chicken into the perforated tray of an "oven" that looked more like a stainless steel box with a drawer. Using only hot air and radiant heat, the chicken cooked to a tantalizing golden brown. The fat dripped into a pan beneath the chicken.

One bite revealed bird that was crispy enough on the outside, and moist on the inside.

In yet another twist on the traditional dish, The Wing Spot offers its sizeable homemade waffles with a variety of flavors of wings - hot, mild, honey barbecue, Caribbean jerk, Hawaiian, garlic, teriyaki, Old Bay and plain seasoned.

Beginners might want to stick with the plain seasoned, Billups suggested, before moving on to bolder combinations.

I sampled them all and found that the garlic and highly spiced varieties of chicken overpowered the sweetness of the waffle. But the plain seasoned and even the mild citrus flavor of the Hawaiian wings made for a most unexpected and decadent lunch treat.

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com