Thornton took the recipe from his scorned ex-girlfriend. locally known as ‘Girlfriend-X’, and opened his own chicken shack. Brothers John Henry, Boyd, William, Alphonzo, and sisters Fannie, Maymie, and a third sister form a strong African-American family unit. Thorton’s sharecropper father, Thornton II (far left in rocking chair) and mother, Mary, center. It was like a buffet and in addition to eggs, had other items like fried chicken, fish, fried corn, baked beans, and baked apples. James Thornton Prince, the womanizing Grandfather of Nashville Hot Chicken.Īccording to Andre Prince Jeffries, the current owner of Prince’s, the Sunday breakfast in the Nashville African-American community was something to look forward to. To get even with him, she added a ton of spices to the typical Sunday chicken breakfast, and he ended up liking it. Supposedly Thornton was a womanizer and one Saturday night returned to his apartment and his girlfriend after a long night out on the town with another woman. Its founder was James Thornton Prince, and his brothers. The supposed nativity site of Nashville Hot Chicken was started in 1945 – the Bar-B-Q Chicken Shack– although some sources say it started as early as the 1930s. And Nashville Hot Chicken is marinated in heat, breaded in heat, deep fried, and hot sauce-slathered post fryer. Heat apparently transcends racial boundaries. Nashville Hot chicken is a product of the city’s African-American community, where it has remained hidden in plain sight until the last decade. So why has it taken so long to make it out of Nashville? It has to do with racial segregation. But at such high spice level, could anyone really detect a subtle difference in flavor?Īlthough the national trend of Nashville hot chicken is only a few years old, it’s been a staple of Nashville for over 70 years. This had supposedly changed the taste a bit, and maybe improved their service a bit too. One guy said Prince’s used to fry all their chicken to order in large cast iron skillets and had recently switched to open fryers. I asked how the spice levels compared to each other and why people liked it. The next day at training I grilled my fellow trainees – Nashville locals – about hot chicken. Lockeland Table’s Nashville Hot Crispy Pig Ear appetizer. After eating it, I asked the waitress how its heat compared to Prince’s. Although I wasn’t too excited to be eating pig ears, they were sliced thin and tasted a bit like spicy, gamey bacon. When I ordered, the nose-pierced, friendly waitress cautioned me it was going to be hot. They had one Nashville hot item – crispy fried Nashville Hot Pig Ears, with slaw and pickles, served on a piece of white bread. It’s in an historically African-American neighborhood, that like our Over-the-Rhine, is coming back with renovated older homes and hip new restaurants. They won the 2013 James Beard Award for best new restaurant. I found one called Lockleand Table, in the East Nashville neighborhood of Lockeland. But, I also wanted to try one of the cool new farm-to-table restaurants. I knew that Prince’s was the original hot chicken. So, as part of my experience, I wanted to try an original Nashville Hot item. Good Morning America just had a feature this past Sunday on Nashville Hot Chicken. Columbus, Ohio, has its Hot Chicken Takeover. Wright, Kentucky, as has a local startup, aptly named Nashville Hot, across the street. A hot chicken chain Joelle’s from Louisville, Kentucky, has invaded Ft. O’Charley’s has a Nashville hot chicken sandwich and Captain D’s has a Nashville hot fish. KFC now has Nashville Hot chicken strips. Aside from being Music City, Nashville is also the birthplace of a hot trend sweeping the country – Hot Chicken. I just spent three days last week at a training session in Nashville, Tennessee.
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