Chicken and dumplings
A pot of chicken, broth and rolled dough, in American cookbooks since 1839.
- Region
- United States and Canada
- First record
- 1879 · Empires & migration
- Fold
- Ball
- Cooked
- Simmered
Field notes
Story
Biscuit-dough drops or rolled "slicks" simmered in chicken broth. Lettice Bryan's Kentucky Housewife (1839) layers chicken with rolled-paste "dumplings"; Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) gives the stewed dish itself.
- How to eat it
- In a deep bowl, with plenty of pepper.
- When
- Sunday supper.
History
Bryan's Kentucky Housewife (1839) layers chicken with rolled-paste "dumplings". Tyree's Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879) gives the stewed dish (D). The British-German lineage rests on popular press only.
Did you know Southerners argue over "fluffy" drop dumplings versus flat rolled ones.
Where
From US South & Midwest.
Evidence
Fairly sure. A dated text records it by 1879.
We list 4 sources: 3 dated texts, 1 secondary. How grading works.
First record Tyree, Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), 'Stewed Chicken' with rolled biscuit dumplings (D, opened). Precursor: Bryan, Kentucky Housewife (1839), chicken pot-pie with paste squares (D, opened), same era.
Sources
- D
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (Louisville: John P. Morton, 1879)
'Stewed Chicken': cut-up chicken boiled with slices of middling 'till nearly done. Then put in the dumplings, made like biscuit but rolled thin, and let them boil till done', with gravy thickened by butter, flour and…
'Stewed Chicken': cut-up chicken boiled with slices of middling 'till nearly done. Then put in the dumplings, made like biscuit but rolled thin, and let them boil till done', with gravy thickened by butter, flour and cream. Also 'Chicken Soup ... Some dumplings made like biscuits are very nice in it.' This is the rolled 'slick' style in a dated Southern cookbook. - D
Small flour-and-butter or suet dumplings simmered in meat stews and soups (pepper pot, clam soup, soups with dumplings) and 'Paste for meat dumplins'. The technique was established in Anglo-American cookery, but these recipes do not use chicken.
- D
The Kentucky Housewife (Cincinnati: Shepard & Stearns, 1839)
'A Chicken Pot-Pie': fowls cut into joints, layered in a lard-and-flour-rubbed porridge-pot or oven with thin-rolled squares of paste, ham, eggs, water or veal gravy and floured butter, under a crust. 'People who are…
'A Chicken Pot-Pie': fowls cut into joints, layered in a lard-and-flour-rubbed porridge-pot or oven with thin-rolled squares of paste, ham, eggs, water or veal gravy and floured butter, under a crust. 'People who are fond of pot-pies universally prefer a good deal of gravy.' 'A Chicken Pie' layers 'the chickens and dumplings' (paste squares) the same way. Kentucky; a precursor of rolled dumplings with chicken. - S
Popular histories say Tyree 1879 is the first printed recipe for chicken and dumplings as known today. They say German immigration from the 1820s shaped it, and they reject the 'born in the Depression' story because 19th-c. chicken was a special-occasion meat.
Found by research and reviewed, October 2026.
The tagline and story are editorial; facts trace to the atlas research.
Family F
