Hattie B's with Carl Tart (LIVE)

"Hattie B's with Carl Tart (LIVE)" is Episode 204 of *Doughboys*, hosted by Mike Mitchell and Nick Wiger. "Hattie B's with Carl Tart (LIVE)" was released on May 23, 2019.

## Synopsis

On our second stop in the south, we're joined by Carl Tart (*Comedy Bang! Bang!*, *Brooklyn Nine-Nine*) to review Hattie B's, a chain specializing in a Nashville-native dish, hot chicken. Plus, special guest appearance and a live edition of The Wiger Challenge.

Recorded live on April 11th, 2019 at Zanies in Nashville, TN.

## Nick's intro

"*This Nicholas immediately let fly a fart / As great as if it had been a thunder-bolt / So that with the stroke he was almost blinded /  And he was ready with his hot iron /  And he smote Nicholas in the middle of the ass.*"

This passage, translated from Middle English, is excerpted from Geoffrey Chaucer's *The Canterbury Tales*, the 14th-century anthology that became a staple of high-school English classes despite being lewd and horny. The verse describes the character Nicholas gloating about having cuckolded his rival Absolon, who retaliates by jamming a hot poker into Nicholas' rump region.

And 500 years later, it was another searing act of retribution for infidelity that purportedly led to the creation of Nashville's signature dish, hot chicken.

In the 1930s, Thornton Prince, a man known as much for his womanizing as his prowess in the kitchen, was creatively punished by his then-girlfriend for cheating: she covered his fried chicken with hot pepper. However, Prince not only loved the dish, but was inspired to turn his spurned lover's creation into a business and in 1945, he opened his eponymous Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville.

Over the decades, Prince's and similar restaurants like Bolton's Spicy Chicken & Fish became local institutions, and in 2012, almost sixty years after a spicy punishment for stepping out led to the dish's conception, the father-and-son team of Nick Bishop, Sr. and Jr. collaborated on a hot-chicken outlet of their own, named after three female members of their own family. The restaurant's high-quality fare and accessible-to-Caucasians branding led to rapid growth across Nashville into neighboring states and in Las Vegas, becoming a well-regarded small chain in just a few years.

Though it should be noted that the media success of restaurants like Hattie B's, and the introduction of hot chicken in mainstream chains like KFC, has led to charges of cultural appropriation and criticism for erasure of the dish's African-American origins. Still, hot chicken is clearly a major current trend in American food.

So is this dish, and the ever-expanding chain based around it, here to stay?

Or is it destined to burn out like a rectal hot-poker wound inflicted on an adulterous wife's lover?

This week on *Doughboys*: Hattie B's.

## Fork rating

* Lg Dark Plate
	+ 2 leg and thigh quarters
	+ Damn Hot!!
	+ Southern Greens
	+ Red Skin Potato Salad
 Mike Mitchell
* Lemonade
* Lg White Plate
	+ 2 breast and wing quarters
	+ Hot!
	+ Pimento Mac & Cheese
	+ Baked Beans
	+ Crinkle Cut Fries
 Carl Tart
* Wings Plate
	+ 3 whole wings
	+ Hot!
	+ Pimento Mac & Cheese
	+ Red Skin Potato Salad
 shared
	+ Shut The Cluck Up!!!
* Peach Cobbler
* Banana Pudding

With these scores, Hattie B's makes the Golden Plate Club!

## Carl's Heat Levels

Carl Tart renames Hattie B's heat levels since Nick was offended by the top level being called "Shut The Cluck Up!!!"

 Mild
 Medium
 Hot!
 Damn Hot!!
 Shut The Cluck Up!!!

## The Wiger Challenge

In the Wiger Challenge, Nick presents Mitch and the guest a mystery beverage, and they try to guess what it is. The closest guess is declared the winner and receives the remainder of the drink.

Writer Jesse Farrar joins them for this segment.

For this episode, the mystery drink was Cotton Candy Faygo.

 Jesse Farrar

## Quotes

**Mitch**: You can say it because I forget most of it.
**Nick**: Mitch said that he is the star of *Doughboys*.

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