Music City Hot Chicken Festival

Judging is serious business at the annual Hot Chicken Festival. (Credit: Alan Poizner)

You never forget your first time eating hot chicken: the salty, crisp skin, the steaming, pearl-white meat beneath. Then, the alarming sensation of pain that starts on your lips, spreading quickly to every surface touched by the fiery piece of bird. The euphoria, 15 minutes later, as the burning subsides and you regain command of the English language and fine motor skills. And then, the second bite.

Hot chicken packs the kind of heat that, as Southern food writer John T. Edge says in his book Fried Chicken: An American Story, "compels you to grab a first-aid manual, thumbing wildly for a passage that differentiates between second- and third-degree burns." It's the kind of food you either love or hate, and the lovers will be out in force July 4 at the annual Music City Hot Chicken Festival, a celebration of Tennessee's signature style of fowl.

The first 500 folks at the free event will get free samples of hot chicken from Prince's Hot Chicken Shack, 400º, The Chicken Shack and Bolton's Spicy Chicken & Fish, but if you don't feel like waiting in line for well over an hour, you can buy your own grub and wash it down with a locally brewed beer in the Yazoo tent. There also will be an amateur cooking competition, kids' activities and live music.

The Music City Hot Chicken Festival takes place 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sat., July 4, at East Park, 700 Woodland St. Admission is free. www.musiccityhotchickenfestival.com