Phila Hach

Phila Hach — pronounced "File-ah Hah" (née Rawlings, June 13, 1926 – December 2, 2015) was an American chef, restaurant owner, innkeeper, and caterer who authored 17 cookbooks, including recipe collections for the 1982 World's Fair, Opryland USA and Cracker Barrel restaurants. She has been called the "grand dame of southern cooking" and counted as good friends Duncan Hines and Julia Child. Hach catered functions for the United Nations, U.S. mayors and governors, military personnel and celebrities, and was one of the pastry chefs at the wedding of Princess Diana.

As a young flight attendant on international routes, she talked her way into the kitchens of top hotels in Europe on flight layovers, and was convincing enough to gain access to established chefs, in order to learn how haute cuisine kitchens operated. She hosted the first televised cooking show in the southern U.S., which ran on WSM-TV in Nashville from 1950 to 1956, and which won her a Zenith television award.

Hach won the Food Arts Magazine "Silver Spoon Award" in 2009 Hach was keynote speaker at large conventions including the Culinary Institute of America. Her job was to provide hot lunches to local schools. As a teen, Hach spent the summers of 1942-44 learning from a Hungarian chef at a summer resort, the former Lookout Mountain Hotel in Chattanooga. Hach stated, "He taught me not to waste anything, and to start with fabulous ingredients. Nothing is better than what it starts out to be". The airlines depended on them and treated them well. On her flight layovers she was able to stay at fine hotels in Europe.

Television show When television arrived in Nashville in 1950, the newly created WSM Television Channel 4 needed programming. Within their first few months on the air, the station hired Hach to create a culinary show—making her the first woman to host a television show in the southern U.S. The program Hach headed was called "Kitchen Kollege".

In planning the 30-minute program, she chose as her assistant Martha Mormon, who she called "Miss Martha". Mormon was an African-American woman from Detroit who had previously worked as a maid at the television station and was the first black woman to appear on television in the southern U.S.

Hach described her husband as a "darling, fabulous man who spoke five languages". Soon after opening, they added lunch and dinner service and it became an inn in 1963.

The Hachs later added Hachland Hill Vineyard on a 90-acre site in nearby Joelton, Tennessee for corporate retreats. They also developed the Spring Creek Inn, which adjoined the vineyard. In 2005 they sold the original Hachland Hall in Clarksville, and created a new version, "Hachland Hill" on the Joelton site, creating a venue which could, as of 2009, serve 1,500 guests. She developed relationships with political leaders and celebrities, and her tables began to include the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Henry Kissinger. Hach said, "We get more business people for security reasons...small inns and bed and breakfasts are where people get back to earth, where they have a home experience". A commemorative marker of the event now stands at the site. Tennessee Senator Howard Baker chose Hach to cater the affair, and she decided that mint juleps should be served; however, alcohol was prohibited at the site of the festivities, Nashville's Centennial Park. Hach arranged for Tennessee State Troopers to transport disguised cases of Jack Daniel's whiskey from Lynchburg and, under the cloak of darkness, made the juleps at a nearby Coca-Cola bottling plant. During the visit, Hach gave her cookbooks to each of the delegates. In return, she asked them to send her their favorite local recipes. They responded with letters and recipes from around the world, which Hach later incorporated into "Phila Hach's United Nations Cookbook".

Phila Hach cookbooks

From Phila with Love, Hachland Hill Recipes: Nashville's Famous Caterer Shares her Secrets (1973) Kountry Cooking (1974) Kitchen Kollege Recipes (1975) Phila Hach's United Nations Cookbook (1976) Hachland Hill Recipes: From Phila with Love (1980) The Official Knoxville, Tennessee World's Fair Cookbook, 1982 (1981) Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Vol I (1983) Plantation Recipes and Kountry Kooking: The Official Cookbook of Opryland U.S.A. (1983) Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores: Old Fashion Intentions (1983) Old Timey Recipes and Proverbs to Live By (1984) Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Celebrates American Holidays Vol. II (1985) Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores: Recipes Specially Selected, Compiles, & Edited for Cracker Barrel, Vol II (1985) Tennessee Cooks for Company (1986) Homecoming Cookbook: Famous Parties, People, Places (1986) Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Recipes and Health Secrets to Make You Live Longer Vol. III (1990) Global Feasting Tennessee Style (1996) Red Gold Simply Delicious Recipes (1999)