Food Friday: Hot Chicken Festival

Nashville is a great city. Unfortunately it gets pigeon-holed as being a country music city. I live here and I don't like country music, and the plethora of really good local bands that don't contain a fiddle, banjo or jug reaffirm that we are a MUSIC city, not just a COUNTRY MUSIC city. Hopefully the rest of the world thinks of Nashville outside of the boots and cowboy hats that are for sale downtown.

But sometimes being known for just one thing isn't all that bad. Take Nashville's signature dish, hot chicken. Basically hot chicken is exactly what it sounds like, chicken soaked in spices, battered in spices, fried and then coated in even more spices. Hot chicken walks the line of pleasure/pain food. Serve hot chicken to masses of starving and sweating Nashvillians in 100 degree heat and you get my favorite food festival: The Music City Hot Chicken Festival.

This celebration of fiery foul is held every year in East Park, making it one of the many great things about living East of the river. The festival started at 11am and we got down there around 11:45. Lucky for me some really nice friends were already in line at Prince's for us!

Prince's Hot chicken booth

Prince's is an Nashville institution. The Grandmother of Hot Chicken. The actual restaurant is located in a non-assuming strip mall on the East Side. Many food shows go to Prince's to see how its done, like Man vs. Food. Also, many visiting bands make the pilgrimage to try out our cities famous dish (Yo La Tengo did it). I've tried many of the other Nashville Hot Chicken shacks: Bolton's, Pepperfire, and Eastside Fish. None of them are as good as Prince's in my opinion.

Pepperfire Chicken Booth

Even though we got in line with friends, we still had to wait 45 minutes in the hot sun to get our mouths burnt by chicken. Waiting in line wasn't as bad as it has been in years past. We had good company, good people watching, and the occasional nice breeze. The good thing about Prince's was that as soon as we put our order in, the chicken was ready. The bad thing was we didn't have spice options (mild, medium, or hot). They only had medium (which is hot) so I went for it.

And this is what it was all about. 3 hot chicken tenders, french fries, pickles and a little bit of ranch dressing to cut the heat. The fries were crinkle cut- but not boring. They were also coated in a spicy salty mixture that sadly did not offer any relief from the hot chicken. Normally hot chicken is served with a piece of White bread under it to soak up all the hotness and cool your palate at the end. Thank goodness for lots of pickles and ranch dressing to calm down my mouth.

The first bite

This is my "my mouth burns" face

We found a tiny bit of shade on the side of East Park Community Center and proceeded to eat hot chicken. All of us ordered the same exact thing and we were all on fire. We also couldn't find tap water anywhere so we just suffered with hot tongues until we went to the beer tent. Also, I met the lovely Lauren Taylor who has a great sewing blog. You should check it out! I think a few craft nights are in our future.

Hot People, Hot Chicken

Oh, the beer tent. The only shade at the entire festival. They even had fans inside blowing at the chicken eaters. Why did we not go here first?! Once again this year the tent was sponsored by the wonderful Yazoo Brewing Company and they had Pale Ale, Dos Perros and Hefeweizen on tap.

Inside the beer tent Aaron shows off his shades

Cool dude, Cool beer

Lady A Sunglasses

Dos Dos Perros

Not only can you buy chicken from the masters, but you can also sample some amateurs that attempt to assault your digestive tract with cayenne peppers. This was the first year that I actually got to sample some of the home made goodness. Believe me, these home chefs know what they are doing.  Their stuff was decidedly hotter- because let's face it- they want to win. So a tiny bite with a slice of bread and pickles was about all I could take!

Yazoo Marketing Man Neil, Old Nashville Mayor Bill Purcell and Current Nashville Mayor Karl Dean judging the contest.

'MERICA YES

Two country gentleman waiting to set your butthole on fire.

So Nashville, are you going to come down to East Park next year to wait hours in the hot sun for food that you can pick up any day of the week at an air conditioned restaurant? Yes, yes you are. Why? It is just what we do.