Dailey Bailey: The Most Important Food Innovation From Each State

I grew up right here in Cookeville, born at Cookeville General in 1973 and graduated from CHS class of ’92! (woot woot) I’ve been to Nashville many times in life and not once have I ever heard of Nashville Hot Chicken!! Okay… so I did move away for 20 years so maybe I missed it somehow. When did Hot Chicken become a thing?

Thrillist did a list of the most important food innovation from each state, and yes Nashville Hot Chicken was the food they picked as the most important from Tennessee.

Here are some highlights.

1. Colorado’s most important innovation was Chipotle . . . the restaurant chain, not the spice. They also say Georgia’s most important innovation was Waffle House . . . Massachusetts’s is Dunkin’ Donuts . . . and Washington’s is Starbucks.

2. Iowa’s is sliced bread. Yep, Iowa literally invented sliced bread. It was invented and patented in Davenport, Iowa.

3. Louisiana’s is hot sauce.

4. Kentucky’s is bourbon.

5. And North Dakota’s is . . . unknown. The writers just said it’s definitely not lutefisk, but they couldn’t find anything else.

I did find this write up on Nashville Hot Chicken that’s pretty interesting.