A Winning Combination

On Saturday night I went out for dinner at an "Asian Infusion" restaurant. If you are wondering what that means, the restaurant has food you would find at any other establishment, just with egg noodles and sweet and sour sauce as the sides instead of pasta and ranch dressing. Which is why, as often happens when you go out for Asian food, I had the traditional Southern dish of chicken and waffles. Now, I was a tad apprehensive to try this combination for the first time because while I like waffles and I like chicken I wasn't sure the two of them would be good together. After all, one good thing being combined with another good thing does not automatically equal success. If that was the case Hollywood would not be littered with films which had all-star casts and somehow the movies still stunk. It is not simply about mixing ingredients, it is about mixing them the correct way. If this merging is done incorrectly it could forever change how you feel about those ingredients on their own. (I still can't look at Morgan Freeman the same way after seeing "Wanted".) Honestly, ordering it I kind of felt like someone who is trying to clean out their refrigerator of leftovers by combining everything into one meal.

Fortunately, in this instance everything came together rather nicely, even if I never quite figured out if I should be eating one then the other or trying them at the same time. It probably helps that chicken goes with just about everything. Since it isn't as flavorful as beef or pork it doesn't overpower the other things on the plate. It really may be the best meat to go with you if are thinking about creating some wacky combinations. (There must be a reason everyone tells you exotic meats all taste like chicken, right?) Chicken may not make something which is good be great, but it also never ruins a recipe, which I think is all you are looking for in a situation like this. For example, one of the best sandwiches I ever had was the "Mother and Child Reunion", which is fried chicken and eggs. Was it as good as steak and eggs? No, but I'm fairly confident fish and eggs would make me throw up. Since new recipes are all about potential consumers not dismissing the idea before it has even started, that sounds like a losing idea. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure you could combine chicken and most other substances and I would give it a try.

I also think the combination of food which is traditionally eaten at dinner and food which is almost exclusively eaten for breakfast add to the mystery and thus the appeal of such an item on a menu. If, like me, you have never had chicken and waffles before the series of thoughts when seeing it on a menu go a little something like, "Well, I never would have put those together. I wonder how that tastes. I think I'll try it." That is exclusively a breakfast-to-dinner equation, because it certainly doesn't work the other way. No one ever thinks to have ribs for breakfast (it probably has to do with all the work which goes in to them), but I have had cereal for dinner before. Also, you need to choose your breakfast material carefully, because not everything can be eaten any time of day. An English Muffin sounds fine before 10 AM, but any time after 1 in the afternoon and people are going to assume you ran of out regular bread. That makes waffles an inspired choice because it is almost never about the waffles themselves, but what you choose to use as toppings. So, in thinking about it, I have concluded that combining chicken and waffles was a marriage of two pretty safe bets.

Still, I'm trying to figure out why this concoction was first attempted because it couldn't just be the thought of having food at a different time than you normally would. I assume the inspiration came in a moment of drug-induced munchies. I have never tried weed myself, but on more than one occasion in college I had someone knocking on my door, desperate to eat any food I was willing to spare and when that food was gone they wanted to eat the packaging. So, the idea that two potheads were sitting around when one of them decided they wanted chicken, the other decided they wanted waffles and after the order was placed they just started eating off one another's plates is not particularly far-fetched. (I'm pretty sure this is how many of the world's greatest inventions came to be.) After that it may have made it onto a menu as a goof but had to remain because of some kind of printer's deadline and only became a hit due to the previously-discussed curiosity factor. Either way, it appears to have worked out well for everyone involved. Well, at least a hell of a lot better than "All The King's Men."