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.[1] She has been called the "grand dame of southern cooking" and counted as good friends Duncan Hines and Julia Child.[2] 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.[1][3][4]
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.[5] 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.[6][7]
Hach won the Food Arts Magazine "Silver Spoon Award" in 2009[4] and was the 2015 winner of the Ruth Fertel "Keeper of the Flame Award",[5] given yearly by the Southern Foodways Alliance to the "unsung hero or heroine who has made a great contribution to food".[8] Hach was keynote speaker at large conventions including the Culinary Institute of America.[2] Southern food writer Betty Fussell said of Phila Hach, "What the 'Grand Ole Opry' did for country music, she has done for Southern food..."[1][2][4]