clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Phila Hach: TV Star, Julep Smuggler, Most Interesting Woman in the South

80 years in the culinary world and many stories to tell

With a culinary career that spanned eight decades , Phila Rawlings Hach is considered Nashville’s first food celebrity. After getting her start as an international flight attendant, Hach went on to host the first Southern cooking show (called "Kitchen Kollege"), smuggle mint juleps into a United Nations dinner at Centennial Park, develop the first in-flight catered menu , and open a bed and breakfast with her husband, called Hachland Hall, in Clarkesville, Tennessee in 1957.

The above documentary from the Southern Foodways Alliance was produced in recognition of the Ruth Fertel Keeper of the Flame Award, which Hach won in 2015. She passed away soon after, in December of 2015, at the age of 89, but her legacy in the the world of Southern cooking — and her 17 cookbooks — lives on today.

To learn more about the Southern Foodways Alliance, click here.

More videos from the Southern Foodways Alliance | Subscribe to Eater on Youtube

Sign up for the Sign up for the Eater newsletter

The freshest news from the food world every day