![]() When the black people who have the decades’ long expertise in making hot chicken don’t grow rich off it, but the white kid who got to go to culinary school does, it’s not because his hot chicken tastes better. When you have a chicken dish that a quarter of the city has loved for almost a century and the rest of the city comes to love when they learn about it, it’s racism that kept most white people from knowing about hot chicken, because white people didn’t go into black neighborhoods. National chains like KFC and O’Charley’s developed versions for their menus. Hattie B’s “located themselves where a lot of people could easily find them they take credit cards they have a kid’s menu and they serve beer.” Hattie B’s isn’t the only restaurant to co-opt Nashville Hot Chicken. Betsy Phillips of the Nashville Scene recently called out George Embiricos at Food Republic for giving credit “for the popularity of the dish to the white guys who took a piece of black culinary culture and made it cool.” White restaurateur and culinary school graduate John Lasater opened Hattie B’s Hot Chicken in 2012 which he expanded to a second upscale Nashville neighborhood and a new location in Birmingham. Hot Chicken, well known to black people living in Nashville for the last century, only recently became popular among white people when former Mayor Bill Purcell organized the first Hot Chicken Festival in 2007. I came back eight years later to a new Nashville that eats new food. Martin, writing for the Bitter Southerner, admitted:Īlthough I’m a second-generation Middle Tennessean, the daughter of a Nashville native, I had never eaten hot chicken - or even heard of it - before I moved away for graduate school in 2005. Reading about Nashville Hot Chicken’s explosion in popularity revealed a deep history of food and racial politics in the city. White author Rachel L. ![]() ![]() Thornton Prince loved the chicken and perfected the recipe which led to opening his restaurant. In the 1930s, a lady friend of Prince Jeffries’ uncle planned to punish him with super-hot fried chicken at breakfast following a long night of womanizing. A few google searches revealed that the African American community of Nashville is responsible for this culinary tradition enriched by a mythology all its own as told by André Prince Jeffries, current owner of Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack and niece of Thornton Prince. When the concept of Nashville Hot Chicken began entering my consciousness, I suspected that the rival city was again trying to outdo Memphis. ![]() In West Tennessee, we know and love Gus’s World Famous Hot and Spicy Fried Chicken with deep origins in the town of Mason in Tipton County (a short drive up Highway 70 from Memphis). The tangy and creamy potato salad is a great side to balance the heat of the chicken. I dare not order the XHOT or XXXHOT versions for fear of maiming myself. The HOT version of the chicken is intensely peppery and addictive. Diners must exercise care when eating the chicken without rubbing their fingers around their watering eyes or other sensitive areas of the body before thoroughly washing their hands. Prince’s serves the chicken straight from the fryer covered in a cayenne pepper paste on sliced white bread with pickle slices on waxed paper. I received my plate wrapped in a brown paper bag and sat down at a table to eat. Ten minutes later, the cashier called my order number. Irene who was stationed just in front of the kitchen window. I paid cash for my order of half-chicken (wing, breast, thigh and drumstick) at HOT strength with some potato salad and a slice of strawberry cake from Ms. Earlier versions of the restaurant with different names moved several times until settling here. The restaurant occupies space in an unassuming strip mall on the Northern edge of East Nashville. During a recent trip to Nashville, I paid a visit to the source of hot chicken in the city: Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack.
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