You Have Now Entered Into Uncle E's Chicken Wing Paradise
History Of The Chicken Wing
Buffalo wings have been so ingrained in our national food culture that it is hard to remember life before wings. But like "One Man, One Vote," Buffalo wings have been around for a lot shorter time than most people think. From the origin in 1964 to today, however, wings are a prime example of a food that incorporates so many of the traits our culture is known for. Thrift - wings, after all, come from the part of the chicken most people threw away or used only for soups and stocks. Ingenuity - the combination of simple, at-hand materials to make a new item. Eating with your hands - while most of us are quite familiar with our principal utensils of fork and knife, there is that childlike satisfaction in eating with fingers, especially when there is a flavorful sauce to lick off. There is something for most people to like about Buffalo wings and for those many reasons the food has spread rapidly from its origin in Buffalo, New York, and is now part of our national food culture, no longer something you can find only in the Northeastern United States.
ORIGINS AND DIFFUSION
Perhaps the simplest way to discuss the origin and diffusion of Buffalo wings is to stick to a chronology.
There are four legends about the origins of the first Buffalo wings:
1964
• Most people who have even thought about the origin have heard and believe the first version of the legend . Teressa and Frank Bellisimo owned the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, NY. In this version, she invented Buffalo chicken wings in 1964 when her son Dominic and his friends came to the bar looking for a quick late night snack. "Mother Teressa" (Buffalonians take their wings very seriously) was preparing to make chicken stock with a bunch of wings and, improvising, stuck them under the broiler (later they switched to deep frying), sprinkled them with a hot sauce she concocted from a commercially available base (Frank's), took some celery sticks off the antipasto dishes, put some blue cheese dressing (the house dressing) in a small bowl and served them.
• All the principals are now deceased, but Dominic, who took over the bar from his parents, told the story differently to Calvin Trillin (1980) of the New Yorker magazine. According to Dominic, it was Friday night in the bar and since people were buying a lot of drinks he wanted to do something nice for them at midnight when the mostly Catholic patrons would be able to eat meat again. So, according to this version, Dom did not stop by with his friends, he was trying to be the good host at the bar. It was still Terressa who came up with the idea.
• Frank told a third story. It involved a mis-delivery of wings instead backs and necks for making the bar's spaghetti sauce. Faced with this unexpected resource, he says he asked Teressa to do something with them.
Although the details are a little different, none of the tellers ever seemed too upset about the other versions. After all, the bar was a family affair and so were the wings it has become famous for. It was Frank who was memorialized in the 1977 City of Buffalo proclamation of July 29 as Chicken Wing Day, though.
• A fourth version of the legend was reported by Calvin Trillin of the New Yorker magazine in 1980 but it appears nowhere else in the published references to Buffalo wings. Trillin reported on an African-American named John Young who said he developed a special "mambo sauce." Chicken wings in mambo sauce became the specialty at his Buffalo restaurant in the mid-sixties. He registered the name of his restaurant, John Young's Wings 'n Things, at the county courthouse before leaving Buffalo in 1970. "If the Anchor Bar was selling chicken wings nobody in Buffalo knew about it then," according to Young. Trillin checked with a local poultry distributor and found that both John Young and Frank Bellissimo were buying a lot of chicken wings in the middle sixties but no sales receipts were saved. The wings Young sold, however, were prepared a little differently. They were not cut in half (the tip is removed first usually in Buffalo wings) and were served breaded with the sauce covering them rather than being tossed in the sauce. In 1980 they were still being served that way in John Young's Wings 'n Things (he had returned to Buffalo by then) and in a restaurant owned by his brother, Bird Land. No telephone listings for either restaurant could be found in 1997.
Nobody seems bothered about the variations in the stories of how things happened, though. What is clear that is was the early to mid-1960s (1964 according to the Bellissimos) and it was in Buffalo, New York.
Source: www.geography.ccsu.edu
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Uncle E's Wings, Baton Rouge, LA
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Gary Glen, Chicago,IL
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Gary Glen's Chicken Wing Dry Rub
•3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
•3 tablespoons non-iodized salt
•1 tablespoon chipotle chili pepper
•1 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
•1 tablespoon smoked or Hungarian paprika
•1 teaspoon garlic powder
•1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
•1/2 teaspoon onion powder
In a small bowl, mix all ingredients using a small whisk. Brush the meat with olive oil and liberally sprinkle with the rub. Allow the wings to rest for about a half hour before cooking. Get ready to enjoy!
CHICKEN WINGS
(Chicken Wings Come w/Fries)
4 Piece....................................................... $5.64
8 Piece....................................................... $7.74
13 Piece ...................................................$10.64
18 Piece .................................................. $13.99
23 Piece .................................................. $16.79
36 Piece .................................................. $26.28
46 Piece .................................................. $34.35
56 Piece .................................................. $41.63
Flavors: Battered, Plain, Noney BBQ, Hot Honey BBQ, Hot, Fire, Lemon Pepper, Ranch
