Buffalo wings
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the food Buffalo wings. For the roller hockey team, see Buffalo Wings.
Buffalo wings, wings or chicken wings are chicken wing sections (called flats and drums), deep fried, and coated in sauce. Although many variations on this sauce exist, the original "Buffalo" sauce is composed of only five ingredients: cayenne pepper sauce, white vinegar, butter, salt, and garlic. When using a prepared hot sauce of vinegar and cayenne pepper, the recipe is simply a mixture of hot sauce and melted butter. Most wings are prepared without breading, although this style is not exclusive. Buffalo wings are named after the city of Buffalo, New York where they originated, and the appellation "buffalo" is now commonly applied to foodstuffs other than wings that are seasoned with the sauce or close variations on it.
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[edit] Preparation
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 (for example: "suicidal," "hot," "medium," or "mild"). In most cases, "hot," "medium," and "mild" all use the same base sauce. Hot wings are generally wings with just hot sauce on them, no butter. Medium wings have hot sauce and butter, mild has an large amount of butter and very little hot sauce. Suicidal usually have just hot sauce with red pepper or some other spice mixed with the hot sauce. In addition, wings can be served dry with the sauce on the side.
Buffalo wings are typically served with celery sticks, carrot sticks, and blue cheese dressing. Some restaurants serve their wings with ranch dressing instead of blue cheese.
[edit] History
Image:Duffs chicken wings.jpg Buffalo wings were first prepared at the Anchor Bar on Main Street, near the corner of North Street, Buffalo, on October 3, 1964. Teressa Bellissimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar with her husband Frank, had the idea of deep frying chicken wings and tossing them in Frank's Red Hot sauce<ref>Frank's Red Hot (English) (html). Frenchfoodservice.com. Retrieved on November 28, 2006.</ref> for her son Dominic and his friends. One evening, on a spur of the moment, Teressa presented her son with a deep-fried and sauced creation, and they were an instant hit. At the time the recipe was created, chicken wings were typically thrown away or reserved for making stock.
In Buffalo, the best-known places for authentic wings are the Anchor Bar and at Duff's, outside the city limit on Sheridan Drive in Amherst. Wings can also be found in most pizza restaurants and corner taverns throughout the region and in neighboring Southern Ontario. The Anchor Bar serves more than 36,000 pounds of wings per month. Locals do not call them Buffalo wings and consider such usage to be uninformed. Instead, Buffalonians call them "chicken wings" or just plain "wings."
[edit] Variations
While original Buffalo-style wings are unbreaded, a minority of restaurants and taverns use breaded wings. In properly prepared breaded wings, the breading soaks up the hot sauce, making the flavor more even and the wings slightly less messy to eat. Improperly prepared breaded wings, however, taste like regular fried chicken with sauce drizzled over them, rather than "proper" wings.
In addition, some restaurants including Chili's and Pizzeria Uno include on their menus a dish called "boneless wings." However, these are usually made of chicken breast meat and are not considered to be true wings. They are called wings because they are tossed in wing sauce like true wings, although without the sauce they bear more resemblance to chicken strips or tenders.
Some wing restaurants offer wings spiced with other styles of hot spices, such as Cajun or Caribbean-style jerk spices. Another style popular in Buffalo is "from the pit" or simply "pit". These wings are fried, tossed in BBQ sauce, the placed on the grill for a quick charring. Sometimes the BBQ sauce will have hot sauce mixed with it, but this is not needed. Lemon garlic or "Greek" wings are a non-spicy variant also offered by some restaurants. A variation local to Rochester, New York served at Country Sweet Chicken and Ribs is sweet and spicy, as opposed to the usual hot and vinegary taste of classic Buffalo-style wings. Also, these wings are breaded and fried as opposed to being just fried. Some restaurants, such as the Outback Steakhouse, bread their wings and then toss them in a mixture of seasonings, varying from hot to mild, rather than a sauce.
Restaurants that serve Buffalo-style wings also frequently serve other dishes common to taverns in the snow belt: fried cheese sticks (generally breaded with herbs, and made with mozzarella or provolone cheese), potato skins covered in cheese and bacon, jalapeño "poppers" (jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese and deep fried in batter), fried mushrooms, pepperoni balls (fried dough or bread stuffed with pepperoni), french fries, waffle towers in the northeast, and so forth.
Wings have gained such popularity and such a following that there are now even documented "best practice" eating techniques for wings, e.g., the small bone twist and smash technique.<ref>smash Cluckbucket: Chicken Wing Eating Techniques; The Smash (English) (html). Internet Hot Wing Database. Cluckbucket.com. Retrieved on November 28, 2006.</ref>
[edit] In popular culture
Buffalo wings have nothing to do with the buffalo or American bison. This misconception was played for humor on an early Bartles and Jaymes commercial ("To be honest, I didn't even know that they could fly"), and was later demonstrated for real when Jessica Simpson told a friend "I don't eat buffalo" when asked why she didn't order them on an episode of Newlyweds. During the 1990s, Pizza Hut promoted Buffalo Wings by advertising commercials featuring a winged buffalo. The logo of the American franchise restaurant Buffalo Wild Wings, which is known for its Buffalo wings, features a winged buffalo as well.
The Buffalo Wings were also a professional roller hockey team in Buffalo from 1997-1999. An amateur hockey league currently operates as the Buffalo Wings.
In the 2001 movie Osmosis Jones, Frank is excited to attend a wing festival in Buffalo, New York. In a case of life imitating art, the National Buffalo Wing Festival is held every Labor Day weekend in downtown Buffalo, NY.
In 2005, Buffalo wings earned notoriety among the sports world when rising-star athlete Sidney Crosby admitted to reporters that he "despised" Buffalo wings, while speaking before a game which matched his Pittsburgh Penguins against the home team Buffalo Sabres. Crosby's remarks sparked an intense rivalry among the teams. Ironically, western Pennsylvania has a thriving culture of Buffalo-style wings, with local interpretations of the dish served in most taverns. A number of regional chains (such as Quaker Steak and Lube) specialize in wings and their attendant cuisine.
When Buffalo wings were launched in India, there was a widespread controversy because cattle are regarded as sacred in India. The company had to rename them Chicken Wings before they were accepted.
[edit] References
<references />
- The Story of the Buffalo Wing. Pamphlet. Buffalo/Niagara Convention & Visitor Bureau.
- The Owen Sound Sun Times [citation needed]
