10/03/2018
Written by my friend, Jennifer Justus. Join us at Cabana, October 15 to celebrate.
In a city that sometimes feels obsessed with the flash and new, I hope we can remember the fearlessness, zest for life and wisdom from one of Nashville's finest food heroines -- Phila Hach. The first ever Phila Awards will take place Oct. 15, and I’m happy to say Dirty Pages' Supper United project, in partnership with Conexion Americas, is receiving one of the awards.
But more important, who is Phila? Here’s a glimpse I wrote for the Scene’s “In Memoriam” issue in 2015........
Phila Hach traveled the world, hosted the first cooking show in the South, wrote 17 cookbooks and entertained a cast of characters at her Hachland Hill Inn.
In 2014, when she reached 88 years, doctors gathered her with family in a hospital room to deliver the news: Stage 4 cancer.
"Fabulous," she replied.
Knowing that she had been hard of hearing for several years, her son Joe Hach recalls leaning in to ask: "Mother, did you understand?"
"Yes," she said. "It's just going to be another journey in my life."
She approached all of life in similarly optimistic spirit. During her days as a flight attendant, she invited herself during layovers into the finest hotel kitchens to learn and cook with chefs at the George V in Paris or The Savoy in London. How many times did they turn her away? "Never," she said.
She created early catering manuals for the airlines. Then, in 1950, WSM recruited her to host Kitchen Kollege, the first cooking show in the South. Her guests included Duncan Hines the man and June Carter, and it offered some madcap live moments. When she tested an electric mixer, a contraption she had never used before, she sprayed egg whites all over herself and the set. She didn't mind. She lived in Technicolor.
Through her adventures, she not only showed us how to cook but how to live. When she realized three hours from Nashville that she didn't have the pies for a large and important dinner at Roots author Alex Haley's home, she pulled over at a Kroger and politely yet boldly staged a bakery takeover to finish the job.
At her inn, which she first opened with her husband Adolf Hach in Clarksville before moving to Joelton, her table showed by example how food can bring people together. Many dishes were authentically rooted in her Southern upbringing, while others incorporated influences from around the world, reflecting her lifelong curiosity and willingness to connect.
"She enjoyed every moment," Joe remembers.
Two months before her passing, the Southern Foodways Alliance honored her with the Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award in Oxford, Miss. She was too ill to travel at the time, but Joe and grandson Carter Hach (who now runs the inn) accepted the award on her behalf. She would have loved to know, Joe says, that even from afar, she continued to entertain.
"What is time?" she asked in the film. "It's a multitude of moments, which is all we have. ... I have let my moments empower my life."
And even though she couldn't be there as the credits rolled, her guests gave her a standing ovation.
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Proceeds from the Phila Awards support Fare Nashville, a series of events designed to raise public support, political will, and funding to develop and implement improvements to Nashville's food system that will ensure equitable access to healthy, affordable food for all. I believe Phila would have loved it.
