Quest for Fire: Nashville’s Hot Chicken

It all started last spring. I read an essay about a little place in Nashville called Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack.

The writer went to great lengths to describe the experience of eating hot chicken at Prince’s. Supposedly this stuff was real, REAL dang hot. To paraphrase what I remember: the mild is what most people call ‘hot’ and the medium is ‘unreasonable’. The hot, well, that’s supposed to be a near religious experience. Then there is extra-hot; for maniacs only. Hmmm..I thought.. I’ll be the judge of that.

I just couldn’t stop thinking about this hot chicken. Sure, I’ve had spicy fried chicken, extremely spicy barbequed chicken and brutally hot chicken wings, but this Nashville specialty is truly a bird of a different feather. They fry it up to order in heavy iron skillets and serve it on a piece of white bread with a couple pickle slices. I knew my travel schedule wouldn’t take me near Nashville until the fall. A plan formed in my head. I vowed that I would make a pilgrimage to Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack!

In the meantime, I couldn’t get the hot chicken out of my head. I decided to try to make some myself.

I searched around the internet to get some ideas. I purchased about 5 ounces of habanero powder and 5 ounces of chipotle powder to use in the breading. I also planned to use a lot of cayenne, which seems to be the main spice they use at Prince’s. I marinated the chicken overnight in buttermilk and DAVE’S TOTAL INSANITY SAUCE.

When the chile-covered chicken hit that hot oil in my iron skillet the air became impregnated with capsaicin ‘tear gas’. Anyone who passed through the kitchen became stricken with coughing fits. A good part of the house was soon rendered uninhabitable. Of course I was having a party at the time. This resulted in much mayhem and scolding from my wife.

Well, it’s the end results that count. Was it hot? Oh yeah, it was real hot…but edible. I’m not too experienced at frying chicken so some of it was a bit underdone. I enjoyed it but it wasn’t the sublime culinary experience of pain/pleasure that I was looking for. To taste the real deal I would have to wait until October.

Hot Chicken has been a culinary phenomenon in Nashville going back at least 60 years, if not more. There are several places that specialize in this fiery fowl but the most authentic seems to be Prince’s, run by Andre Prince. They trace their lineage back to Thornton Prince, who is said to have ‘discovered’ hot chicken when an angry girlfriend poured hot pepper all over his fried chicken to punish him for alleged philandering. Instead of punishment he decided he liked it and so did a lot of other folks. The rest, they say, is history.

I was lucky enough to have a contact in Nashville who agreed to host me. Tom is someone I met on an internet message board. He was really gracious to put me up and take me to Prince’s to boot. Tom, if you read this, thanks man!

Well, after I got to Tom’s house we headed out to Prince’s. It was hell trying to find the place. Ever try to find a place using Mapquest? Then you know what we went through about an hour of driving around but getting nowhere. Finally we ended up at some sketchy truck stop where the security guard, who was decked out in full SWAT tactical gear (a security guard at a truck stop?!) knew exactly where Prince’s was and told us how to get there.

There’s nothing like the real thing baby!

We finally got to Prince’s at about 8:30. The place is pretty non-descript, in a little strip mall. The joint was busy but not jam-packed. We only had to wait about 10 minutes to place our order. Tom ordered the medium. I had been debating whether to get the ‘HOT’ or the ‘EXTRA-HOT’ for quite some time. I had been training over the course of the summer, ordering ‘atomic’ chicken wings at the local wing shop, eating tons of hot sauce and my own little hot chicken misadventure. What the hell; I decided to go for it. “Extra hot” I told the lady. “I had you pegged when you walked in the door” she said, like she could some how tell I was a chilehead. Maybe it was the way I dress? I don’t know.

After we placed our order we sat down for about a 20-minute wait. Tom got his order a little before I got mine. Finally they called my number. The nice lady held the hellishly deep orange-red colored, piping hot piece of chicken out to me and with a devilish grin said “enjoy.” That look really said it all.

The aroma was delightful. The chicken, as you can see, was just thick with crispy, greasy spices. The cayenne was very strong but I also detected celery pretty up front. It seems safe to assume this is pretty similar to cajun-style seasoning with an assload of cayenne.

I have to mention the fries. Yeah, fries. Usually not something to write home about but they were so hot and crispy and they sprinkled them with that spice mixture. Incredible! Some of the best fries I’ve ever had.

Now the big question. How hot was it? It was hot. Real dang hot but never so hot it was hard to eat. In fact I would say it was perfect. While eating it I had that sublime experience that chileheads are always trying to achieve. There was a little bit of sweat running down the sides of my head. The endorphins kicked in and it was hot chicken nirvana. It was fantastic!

I had to tell the cook (Andre herself, I think) how much I loved the chicken. I told her I came all the way from Texas to try their hot chicken and she seemed pretty happy about that.

My only regret is that I don’t know when I will make it back to Nashville. I’ve got to have some more of that hot chicken!

Some links to follow for chicken-y goodness:

Here’s some of the fine artwork that adorns the walls of PRINCE’s HOT
CHICKEN SHACK:

http://static.flickr.com/26/60304321_fac816c00f.jpg

Here’s my friend Tom and his order of MEDIUM hot chicken:

http://static.flickr.com/33/60304232_73d81c414a.jpg

Here’s another shot of my order:

http://static.flickr.com/26/60304271_2f86ca0fe6.jpg

K, here’s a few links with more information on Nashville’s Hot Chicken:

http://www.tennessean.com/entertainment/restaurants/archives/05/03/
67655588.shtml

http://www.hotchickens.com/history.html