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Buffalo wings
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Buffalo wings, hot wings, chicken wings, or wings are chicken wing sections (called wings or "flats") and wing drummettes that are deep fried and then coated in sauce. Traditional Buffalo-style chicken wing sauce is composed of two ingredients: a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and margarine or butter.
Buffalo wings are named after their city of origin, Buffalo, New York. The local residents of Buffalo generally refer to them as "wings" or "chicken wings" rather than "Buffalo wings".
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Encyclopedia
Buffalo wings, hot wings, chicken wings, or wings are chicken wing sections (called wings or "flats") and wing drummettes that are deep fried and then coated in sauce. Traditional Buffalo-style chicken wing sauce is composed of two ingredients: a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and margarine or butter.
Buffalo wings are named after their city of origin, Buffalo, New York. The local residents of Buffalo generally refer to them as "wings" or "chicken wings" rather than "Buffalo wings". The appellation "Buffalo" is also now commonly applied to foods other than wings (such as chicken fingers, chicken nuggets, and popcorn chicken) that are seasoned with the Buffalo-style sauce or variations of it.
Preparation
Cayenne pepper hot sauce and melted butter or margarine are the basis of the sauce. Buffalo wing sauce can be made with a variable amount of heat/spiciness, with the names of these sauces generally corresponding to the level of heat, such as mild, medium, or hot. Typically, the wings are deep-fried, drained, placed in a bowl with the sauce, tightly covered, and shaken until the wings are evenly coated.
In most cases, each contains the same base sauce but varies in the amount of butter or margarine and hot sauce used. Wings can also be served dry with the sauce on the side. In Buffalo, wings are almost always served with cut celery and blue cheese dressing. In other regions, establishments may also serve their wings with ranch dressing.
History
There are four different legends about how the Buffalo wings came to be.
- One story is that Buffalo wings were first prepared at the Anchor Bar, located at 1047 Main Street (between North Street and Best Street) in Buffalo, New York, United States on October 3, 1964, by Teressa Belissimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar with her husband Frank. Upon the unannounced, late-night arrival of their son, Dominic, with several of his friends from college, Teressa needed a fast and easy snack to present to her hungry guests. It was then that she came up with the idea of deep frying chicken wings (normally thrown away or reserved for stock) and tossing them in cayenne hot sauce. While the wings were deep frying, Teressa decided to serve left over celery sticks with blue cheese to her son and his friends to tide them over.
- A second version, as told by Dominic Bellisimo (Frank and Teressa's son) to The New Yorker reporter Calvin Trillin in 1980, stated: "It was Friday night in the bar in Buffalo, New York 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." He stated that it was his mother, Teressa, who came up with the idea of chicken wings.
*The third version of the origin involved a mis-delivery of wings instead of backs and necks for making the bar's spaghetti sauce. Faced with this unexpected resource, Frank Bellisimo says that he asked Teressa to do something with them.
- The fourth version has nothing to do with the Bellisimos or the Anchor Bar. Calvin Trillin stated in his 1980 New Yorker article that a man named John Young also claimed credit for serving chicken wings in a special "mambo sauce". Chicken wings in mambo sauce became the specialty at his Buffalo restaurant in the mid-1960s. Young had registered the name of his restaurant, John Young's Wings 'n Things, at the county courthouse before leaving Buffalo in 1970.
Buffalo wings are used in competitive eating events, such as Philadelphia's Wing Bowl and at the National Buffalo Wing Festival.
Variants
While wings served in Buffalo are almost always unbreaded, some national restaurant chains sell breaded wings. Some wing restaurants offer wings spiced with other styles of sauces or hot spices, such as Cajun or Caribbean-style jerk spices. Another variation are wings "from the pit" or simply "pit". These wings are fried, tossed in barbecue sauce, then placed on the grill for a quick charring. Lemon garlic or Greek wings are a non-spicy variant also offered by some restaurants.
Some restaurants bread their wings and then toss them in a mixture of seasonings, varying from hot to mild, rather than a sauce. A popular New England variant is to serve the wings, sometimes breaded and sometimes not, with no spices or sauce or with the sauce on the side.
Restaurants also serve "boneless wings", which are made of breaded chicken breast strips. They are called "boneless wings" because they are tossed in wing sauce, like Buffalo wings. Morningstar Farms produces a vegetarian analogue to Buffalo wings.
External links
- from the Atlas of Popular Culture in the Northeastern United States
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