Comfort Food Served Here

     Hal M. Holden-Bache isn't from Nashville.  He grew up in West Virginia and received a culinary arts degree from Shepherd  University there.  But on a visit to the Lockeland Springs neighborhood of Tennessee's capital he came to appreciate the community feel and decided to put down roots.

     The old H. G. Hills dry goods store was up for sale.  Dating back to the 1930s it was the perfect site for him to apply his talents.  He rehabbed the storefront building and in so doing created what has been described as a "warm and lovely culinary experience" using locally sourced ingredients.  With his knowledge and creativity he serves up comfort foods like duck drizzled in a smoked peach BBQ sauce and Nashville Hot crispy pig ears.

     Our tour group arrived before Lockeland Table opened for the day and enjoyed listening to his stories as we sampled some delicious octopus salad with smoked white beans.  It was memorable in a good way!

Business as Unusual

     While in Nashville I had the opportunity to go on several (actually 4) walking food tours, each in a different section of the city.  In doing so I was able to see and taste the wonders of The Gulch, East Nashville, Midtown and Germantown.  And I can report that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in the capital of Tennessee.  In the next few posts I will highlight some of the more unique stops along the way.

     Yes, there was a Hard Rock Cafe in town.  But it was refreshing to find that for the most part there were very few, if any, franchise places around.  What I found instead were a lot of hard working, creative folks who have found their niche serving up a style of food that represents the independent nature of the Volunteer State.

     One example is the owner of Peg Leg Porker, Carey Bringle, who lost a leg to osteogenic sarcoma.  He turned his misfortune into a successful business, as the name implies.  Look carefully at the pig on the neon sign out front.  The left hind leg is a prosthesis.  Carey's restaurant in The Gulch draws quite a crowd each night as he serves up one of the best pulled pork & slaw sandwiches in town, in addition to some mighty fine ribs and chicken.

     And who couldn't resist stopping in to the tiny Walker Creek Confections candy store with this sign out front?

Vegetables 101

As promised, here is the chart that the lifestyle blog Fix has prepared to help us understand which vegetables are best eaten raw and which to cook first:

To Cook or not To Cook

     Recently I came across an interesting article on the HellaWella website.  It began by asking the question "What's the best way to eat vegetables?" Are they more nutritious when consumed raw or when cooked?  The premise being that vegetables boiled, steamed or roasted lose most, if not all, of their nutrients.  It turns out that not all vegetables are created equal, and raw isn't always better.

     Some vegetables offer certain health benefits when consumed raw and others when cooked.  Take broccoli, for example.  Recent studies have found that eating the cruciferous vegetable can help protect you against liver cancer.  The enzyme myrosinase, credited with cleansing the liver of carcinogens, is destroyed when broccoli is cooked.  So it makes sense to enjoy it raw.  But say you want to lower your bad cholesterol.  Some compounds in broccoli will help you accomplish this health goal, but only if you steam it first.

     The take away from all this is balance.  To keep your body healthy and in top form you need to include a smart mix of both raw and cooked veggies.  There are some foods that should never be eaten raw and others that do have a better nutritional profile when cooked.

     Tomorrow, a handy dandy chart prepared by the lifestyle blog Fix that will make it all perfectly clear and palatable.   

How It All Began

     The origins of Nashville's Hot Chicken could just be an urban legend or local mythology.  But Rachel Martin, a second generation Tennessean, swears that it is all true.  And as with many stories, this one is about a man and a woman.  Well, actually a man and several women.


     By all accounts Thornton Prince was "tall, handsome and good looking with beautiful wavy hair."  He was also known to have been a bit of a womanizer, a real ladies' man.  Ms. Martin goes on to say that  "...women handle cheating partners in all sorts of ways.  Some look the other way.  Others walk out.  A few get even."


     Thornton's wife chose the last option, or so she thought.  After staying out all night he came home just before dawn and climbed into bed for a few winks, expecting his wife to cook him breakfast when he arose.  She was in the kitchen preparing his morning meal and it wasn't dry toast or gruel.  In fact, she made him his favorite meal, fried chicken.  That was when she emptied her spice cabinet into the breading.  There's no official record of all the ingredients she employed for that first hot chicken.  But she was sure that she had spiced it beyond edibility.


     As he took his first bite she braced herself for his reaction and to her amazement he didn't curse, or whimper or get angry.  Her plan backfired.  He loved it!  And when he took the rest of the fried chicken to his brothers to taste, they loved it, too.


     The marriage didn't survive, but the hot chicken concept did.  The Prince Brothers turned her retribution into a highly successful business venture - Prince's Hot Chicken, the originators of what is now a Nashville standard.

It's a matter of Degree

     Eager to begin my culinary research in Nashville it wasn't long before I had loaded up my Garmin GPS device with the address for Pepperfire.  It's small store front eatery that first opened its doors in 2010 by founder and owner Isaac Beard.  The place is known for the consistent and unique flavor of their hot chicken.

     While seemingly understated at the end of a small strip mall, Pepperfire has been the recipient of much acclaim.  They are locally ranked by Nashville Scene's "Best of Nashville" and were featured on Travel Channel's Chowdown Countdown.  Food Network's "Top 5 Restaurants" show hosted by Geoffrey Zakarian & Sunny Anderson also awarded their Tender Royale menu item as the #1 hot & spicy dish in America.  And they have been sanctioned by none other than the Hot Chicken Coalition.

     Brightly lit the walls are festooned with poster size prints depicting their famous and notorious varieties of Nashville's iconic meal.  Right beside the giant menu board hanging overhead was a listing of their degrees of heat.  From top to bottom it read:

Southernfied (no heat)

Light mild

Mild (noticeable heat)

Medium

Hot (painful for most)

X Hot!

XX Hot!

     
     I confessed to the counter person that I was a neophyte to all of this and inquired about the gradation of heat and where should I begin.  She candidly commented that their degrees of heat are about 2 levels above everyone else in the city, then offered to place some of the mild sauce on a slice of white bread for me to sample.  That sounded fair enough.  I asked for a smattering of the mild sauce which she kindly provided.  It was indeed warm, but not punishing.  That was until I had ordered a mild Tender Royale and sat down to wait for my meal number to be called.  The heat continued to grow inside my mouth until I needed a second drink, even prior to picking up my meal.

     Dinners are served with 2 sides of your choice with white bread and pickle slices.  That is, unless you order the Tender Royale.  In exchange for the white bread you receive a deep fried grilled pepperjack cheese sandwich beneath 3 huge chicken tenders.

     In addition to the 2 sides (baked beans and crinkle fries) I dug into the chicken tenders but was only able to down two of them.  Their heat warmed both my body and my spirit.  They were magnificent, juicy & moist with just the right amount of spices.  At the counter I returned after I had eaten my fill to pick up a take-out styrofoam container and loaded it up with the grilled cheese and the remaining tender.  They made a memorable midnight snack and vivid, virtually hallucinogenic dreams.

     

Nashville's Hot!

     What comes to mind when you think of Nashville?  Country Music?  Vanderbilt University?  Andrew Jackson's Hermitage?  The Grand Ole Opry?  Yes, all of those things and lots, lots more.

     To be sure, Nashville is known for it's music.  But's it's also a center for healthcare, publishing, banking, and brews.  Nicknamed the Music City, it is also the home of the Country Music Hall of Fame.  But that's not why it received that familiar moniker.  The term was first used in reference to Nashville way back in 1873 when the Fisk Jubilee Singers were performing before Queen Victoria as part of a world tour.  She was so impressed with their singing that she stated that they must be from "...the Music City of America."  and the nickname stuck.

     Settled by the Overmountain Men in 1779, Nashville is located in what is termed Middle Tennesee, along the meandering Cumberland River and was named for Francis Nash, a Revolutionary War hero.  Today Nashville continues to grow at an amazing rate.  With a concerted urban renewal effort that began in the 1990s property values continue to soar.  Once blighted neighborhoods like The Gulch, Germantown and Lockeland Springs are seeing a resurgence as 100 people a day are moving in.  Nashville is indeed hot!

     Nashville is also quite a popular destination from a culinary perspective, too.  It is a town where the tea is sweet, the chicken is hot and the biscuits are plentiful.  Perhaps nowhere else can you find Goo Goo Clusters and Meat & Three.  Places like Hattie B's and Martin's routinely have lines out the door as folks patiently wait for a local favorite.  It may be simple or ornate, but one thing for sure, it will be delicious!