Phila Rawlings Hach, grande dame of Southern cooking, dies
Before there was elevated Southern cuisine, before we thought in terms of foodways, there was Tennessee native Phila Rawlings Hach, knuckles-deep in biscuit dough, wearing a floor-length apron and a frock with frills.
The grande dame of our culinary region died Wednesday morning at the age of 89.
In the pioneering days of television, Mrs. Hach was recruited by WSM-TV to do a cooking show. Called "Kitchen Kollege," it ran from 1950 to 1956 and was the first show in the South to try such a thing.
At the time, Mrs. Hach was balancing a career as a flight attendant for Pan American and American Airlines. Not content to just serve coffee and tea, she created one of the first cooking manuals for the aviation industry.
Through international travel, Mrs. Hach saw the opportunity to learn new cuisines and techniques. It was an early harbinger of her tenacity, where she would walk into the great kitchens of the Savoy in London or the Hotel Georges V in Paris and simply ask to cook along.
During one of those hotel stays in Paris, she met a handsome man who offered to help with her luggage. That young tobacconist, Adolf Hach Jr., lived in Clarksville and reached out to her via letter after seeing her on television. The two would marry in 1955.
After life on and in the air, Mrs. Hach and her husband turned their attention to catering, restaurants and inn-keeping. In 1964 they started the Hachland Hill Inn in Clarksville, adding Hachland Hill Vineyard in 1984 near Joelton. They sold the Clarksville property and a farm in 2005, but the vineyard and adjoining Spring Creek Inn still operate under the hand of her son Joe.
Mrs. Hach loved to tell stories in an offhand way, like, "There was that time in 1976 when I cooked for the United Nations."
A commemorative marker in Centennial Park tells the "official" story of how Gov. Ray Blanton and Mayor Richard Fulton persuaded 101 permanent members of the U.N. (plus an additional 1,600 dignitaries) to pull up stakes in New York and come to Nashville for a visit. It mentions a luncheon, but it doesn't tell how Phila Hach used state troopers to ferry Jack Daniel's whiskey from Lynchburg to Nashville, or how, in the cloak of darkness, Mrs. Hach mixed her concoction inside the Coca-Cola bottling plant. You see, those mint juleps just had to be served.
Her political connections served her well in other times of need, like when Blanton sent a helicopter to find a lost driver delivering food to the Governor's Mansion for a state dinner.
During another dinner for Tennessee's Homecoming at "Roots" author Alex Haley's home, he and Gov. Lamar Alexander remarked how the whole house smelled like fresh-baked pie. What they didn't realize was that the original pies had been forgotten and that Mrs. Hach marched into the nearest Kroger store, commandeered the kitchen and made enough pie for 300 guests.
Her tables were always legendary gathering places, and over the years, Mrs. Hach mixed and mingled with celebrities and statesmen, from Oprah Winfrey to Henry Kissinger. She also counted early food icons like Julia Child and Duncan Hines as good friends.
Local restaurateur Randy Rayburn called Mrs. Hach "the greatest Tennessee chef in my lifetime. Phila was revered by national culinary organizations and White House chefs. She epitomized old school Southern charm and cooking."
Though she had fallen out of the spotlight in recent years, it did not dim her influence. In October, the Southern Foodways Alliance bestowed her with one of its highest honors, the Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award.
"Phila Hach was among the most dynamic people I’ve ever met," said Southern Foodways Director John T. Edge. "Her long life was a showcase of the South’s better instincts."
Mrs. Hach did not like the concept of fusion cuisine, and for years labored to assert that regional differences were worth celebrating. In people, too, she championed diversity as a way to better understanding. She partnered with Nashville’s International Center for Empowerment in 2012 to teach, through food, Kurdish refugees from Iran and Iraq.
Former Tennessean food writer Jennifer Justus chronicled that meeting of cultures. "I've seen her in the kitchen with Kurdish immigrants asking questions nonstop, and I've seen her serve sushi and biscuits from the same welcome table," she said. "She had a magical openness and curiosity about people and food that I think helped her connect so authentically."
Mrs. Hach later said that the experience was "the most powerful summer I’ve ever spent in my life.”
She also found time to speak at large gatherings, whether they were conventions in Las Vegas or at the Culinary Institute of America, where she met Stephen Durfee, one of this country's most decorated pastry chefs. "Phila was a charming and gracious woman," said Durfee, who later traveled to Joelton to dine at her table. "She so understood the concept of 'hospitality' ... and not just Southern hospitality. She welcomed so many people into her home and into her heart."
Southern food writer Betty Fussell was more succinct in her appraisal of Mrs. Hach: “What the 'Grand Ole Opry' did for country music, she has done for Southern food, spreading the gospel of simple country cooking in a seductive Tennessee voice that has drawn the world to Nashville.”
In an interview in 2008, Mrs. Hach shared this philosophy: "I'm just intoxicated with life. I believe in Santa Claus. I believe in life, and goodness, and everything."
A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Joelton and will be followed by a casual celebration of her life at Hachland Hill Vineyard.
Phila Hach is survived by her son, Joseph Karl (Sally) Hach; grandchildren Joseph Karl Hach Jr., Carter Lee Hach and Elizabeth Bassett Hach; sister Clara Rawlings Davenport, brother Arthur Lee Rawlings and sister-in-law Tova Rawlings. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Southern Foodways Alliance and the Land Trust for Tennessee.
Reach Jim Myers at 615-259-8367 and on Twitter @ReadJimMyers.
A legacy in print
Phila Hach published 17 cookbooks in her lifetime, including the first books for the Cracker Barrel chain, "Kountry Kooking" for Opryland USA and the official cookbook for the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville.