Flying back from Rhode Island last week, I had a three-and-a-half-hour layover in Nashville. I had never been to that city or its airport, but it quickly became clear that the town, aside from its history of country music and whiskey, was now also known for something else.
Hot chicken.
I was not aware that hot chicken had become such a thing until I strolled by seven — yes, seven — different restaurants in the terminal with those two words in their names.
I went over to one of the seven and asked if they served any not-so-hot chicken. The hostess told me they did offer a mild variety, but it’s been my experience that when people who like things really spicy describe something as mild, they don’t define that word the same way I do. They actually enjoy it when it’s high on the Scoville Scale. Consequently, when they consume something half as hot as they like, they consider it mild. But for people like me, it’s still hole-in-my-stomach-lining spicy.
I had an experience with this a couple of months ago on my trip to Badlands National Park. The only restaurant was in the lodge, and the only non-red-meat options were a wilted salad or vegetarian chili served on Navajo fry bread. I asked the cashier if the chili was spicy and she replied, “Not very, no.” Inside my head, the robot from “Lost In Space” began saying, “Warning! Warning, Will Robinson!”
But I was in a food desert, so I pressed on, asking her if she would ask the chef to please make the chili as mild as possible for me. There was no one else in line, so she did as I asked, then returned with the chef. He tried to reassure me that, although his chili used to be really spicy because he added cayenne pepper, a few people complained, so he no longer used it, and the result was a much milder recipe.
I told him that I needed it to be milder than mild. The full gringo. Maybe even bland. He reassured me I wouldn’t have a problem, then went in the kitchen to prepare it. While I waited, I knew he wasn’t customizing the chili for me. He probably had a batch in a plastic container which he ladled onto the fry bread, then microwaved the whole thing for a minute or two. When the cashier/waitress served it to me, it looked just as I thought it would, including some nearly-melted shredded cheese on top.
As soon as I put a forkful of the chili in my mouth, I knew I had been right about its spiciness. I felt like Conan O’Brien on “Hot Ones.”
Having been through that disappointment recently, I was wary of all the so-called hot chicken places at the Nashville airport with flames on all their signs and menus. I thought about it for a few seconds, then decided not to risk it. Instead, I found another restaurant where I got a chicken Caesar wrap. It was mediocre but contained no chili peppers, so at least it wouldn’t require a visit to my gastroenterologist.
One other quick story from Nashville’s airport. In the hours I was there, I heard a lot of PA announcements urging people who had left items at the TSA screening checkpoint to please go back and get them: luggage, phones, even an insulin pump!
However, in two of the announcements the items in question were shoes. They must have been pairs that were taken off and put on the x-ray conveyor belt before the owners went through the metal detector. But then to walk away without putting them back on? Who does that?
Probably someone too excited about getting some hot chicken.