The Spicy Story Behind Hot Chicken (Draft)
When I think of hot chicken, as a frequent friend of Nashville,Tennessee, the first thing that comes to mind is Nashville’s famous hot chicken. I don’t remember hot chicken being a huge thing in Nashville until more recent years, and after doing some research among family, friends, and the public library it seems that sometime in 2008 is when the hot chicken craze started in the majority of Nashville. As it turns out, for almost 70 years hot chicken was being sold in the primarily black neighborhoods of Nashville.

The local myth of hot chicken starts with a classic ladies man: Thornton Prince. One morning one of Thornton’s women decided to get back at him for his unfaithful ways, and instead of pouring arsenic in his coffee she made him his favorite, fried chicken. She added the spiciest items in her kitchen, and to her surprise Thornton loved it. He took the chicken to his brothers and they loved it too, and after the woman disappeared from his life her chicken lived on and the brothers took the idea and made it into the BBQ Chicken Shack. That shack is now the infamous Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, a restaurant founded eight decades ago that started the hot chicken frenzy.
Body 1: About Nashville during the civil war and that many African Americans stayed there and that’s what created predominantly black neighborhoods there.

Body 2: About the African American history of Nashville.
Body 3: At Princes the whites used to sit in the back and the blacks in the front, and now they all sit together and the current owner thinks that is symbolic of something. Also the restaurant gets called a hole in the wall despite being a piece of history.
Body 4: About the humble inside and how the hot chicken is cooked.

Body 5: Interview where the owner is sassy and says that women can handle the heat better usually.
Body 6: About why people like or dislike spicy food.

Body 7: About Prince’s hours and Mayor Purcell declaring that Prince’s is the best restaurant in Tennessee.
Body 8: About Purcell’s love for Prince’s Hot Chicken and the Hot Chicken Festival starting.

Body 9: About the new hot chicken places and even chains appearing.
Body 10: Even with all the new hot chicken around, Princes remains the original and still one of the most popular in town. It was recognized in Gourmet Magazine.
Conclusion: The history of hot chicken has a lot to say about how Nashville has changed over the years.
