“Prince’s is the ground zero for hot chicken,” says Timothy Davis, author of The Hot Chicken Cookbook — the Fiery History and Red Hot Recipes of Nashville’s Beloved Bird.
The Prince family has been selling hot chicken for more than 70 years and is thought to have conceived the dish. Davis has brought me here to share a plate of Prince’s “medium” spiced bird, which he says is the equivalent of “hot” anywhere else.
“Don’t touch anything important afterwards,” he says, tearing into a juicy chicken breast with his fingers.
It’s a no-frills lunch: white bread, dill pickle chips and a breast quarter, freshly fried and slathered with Prince’s hot sauce.
This is how Debbie Elliot of NPR describes her trip to a Middle Tennessee staple and what some consider the Home Of Nashville Hot Chicken, Prince’s. According to the article, it all started with a cheating man.
The Nashville Hot Chicken Story
According to Prince’s owner Andre Prince, it all started with her great uncle Thornton Prince. According to Elliot:
“In fact, hot chicken was originally conceived as a punishment for her great-uncle Thornton Prince, known for his womanizing back in the 1930s. (“He being so tall, handsome and good-looking,” Prince says.)
The story goes that he stepped out on his lady one Saturday night. So on Sunday morning, she doused his fried chicken with a heap of hot pepper.
“I’m sure when he bit into that — mmm! That brought him back around,” Prince says.
But there was a snag: “He liked his punishment, evidently,” says Prince.
He shared it with friends and word spread. It was so popular, he opened a chicken shack.
Back then it was mainly a late-night joint, and these days Prince honors that tradition, frying up hot chicken until 4 a.m. on weekends.”
Nashville Hot Chicken: The Craze Sweeping The Country
Elliot Continues:
“Her customers come from all walks of life. It’s always been that way, she says — even when segregation was the law, though it came with a twist in the black-owned restaurant: “Blacks came in the front. Whites came in the back,” Prince says, recalling when Grand Ole Opry entertainers used to come in the side door after the show.
Longtime customer Bobby Meadows remembers those days — and the old wooden booths, which are still used in the restaurant today.
“I’m 64 and I been eating it since I was 12,” says Meadows, who now travels from Mt. Juliet, Tenn., about a half-hour away, to get his fix.
Meadows’ truck is always steered toward Prince’s. “Everybody’s starting to copy it,” he says. “But there ain’t but one original.”
To read the whole article , including a look at how Hattie B’s does their hot chicken, click here.
