Everyone had the good, the bad and
the ugly when it comes to chicken wings, but how can people butcher the
simplest of wings: the Buffalo wing?
Every
big city has something they are known for: Chicago and the deep dish pizza,
Philadelphia and the cheese steak sub and Buffalo with the chicken wings. At
some point, shouldn’t other cities be able to at least emulate what the
originator has created and take that from them?
Just
like any food, you must thoroughly know the recipe and understand what does and
does not work. Buffalonians know that the Buffalo wing has one distinct flavor
and would tell you if you’re doing it right or wrong.
Jeff
Feather is owner of the original Duff’s Famous Wings in Amherst and has high
prominence in the Buffalo-region for making a great Buffalo wing. Feather
talked about how he feels his wings compare to others in Buffalo.
“Of course, I
think my wings are the best,” Feather said, “but there are so many places in
Buffalo that make good wings. Not so much outside of Buffalo.”
The
original formula is basic. It is Frank’s RedHot sauce and butter. Seems simple
enough, but places don’t stick to what they know.
Food
critic and writer for the Buffalo News, Andrew Galarneau, believes that Buffalo
isn’t the only place that knows how to make a good wing, and he backs it up.
“I
don’t believe in the ‘only Buffalo has good wings,’ Galarneau said. “There are
places that studied up on it and do it right. You could make good wings
anywhere, but the reason why good wings may not be everywhere is because they
don’t know the basics.”
Buffalo
makes great chicken wings. The standard for a good chicken wing is different here
than for other cities. It is not just every wing joint, but it is common that
even our pizzerias have a great wing to add to their selection.
“Western
New York has a lot of places that the default is still a good chicken wing and
other places with great wings,” Galarneau said.
Donnie
Burtless and Alison Suriani are co-founders of Buffalo Eats, a blog on Buffalo
foods. Burtless said that he doesn’t eat chicken wings when he travels. “Why
would I, if we could get really good wings back here?”
“I think Buffalo has the best
consistency over any other city,” Burless said. “We don’t bread them. Everyone
knows how long it takes to properly fry them. So I think the standard here is
so much higher than everywhere else. I think we are probably the best ones in
the country.”
A good chicken wing all starts with what
you’re working with. They have to have substantial meat, good amount of sauce
per wing and as Christa Glennie Seychew the senior editor of the Buffalo Spree
said, it needs “amazing blue cheese dressing – which we don’t have enough of in
this area” on the side for every great Buffalo wing.
People love Buffalo wings; why else
would it be so big in this country? Still new restaurants are trying different
things to get a good tasting wing. Some wings work out, but a lot fail to
successfully touch the taste buds correctly.
“I’m sure there are remarkable restaurants that have
reinvented the chicken wing than more else in the world,” Seychew said. “But
since we invented them here, we are the only place that makes them properly.
Although not even all of our locations served in Buffalo are made properly.
Elsewhere in the country you will find that people, when they order ‘Buffalo
wings,’ which no Buffalonian would ever call them Buffalo wings.
“When
they order Buffalo wings, often times they are breaded, they are made with
margarine and Tabasco instead of butter and RedHot, or they’re served with
ranch dressing. And those sorts of things are considered totally inappropriate
to a real chicken wing eater.”
It is faux pas in the wing world to sway
from what has been working for so long. Some retailers start with the wrong
product and it goes downhill from there.
“Because they use precooked or cheap wings to begin with,”
Seychew believed was the reasoning behind the terrible wings in other places.
“Cause the face product, of course, has to be excellent and no body bought
chicken wings before Buffalo made them famous. What has happened is that lots
of people make different kinds of wings for retail sale to restaurants.
“There
are wings that are precooked or partially cooked, there are wings that are
pre-dipped in sauce that people just have to microwave, and there are horrible
shortcuts to wings. The only way to make really good wings is to make them the
way you’re supposed to, originally. Nobody wants to do that because it takes a
long time, it’s more expensive, but the truth is places that make wings [the
long] way are the places we talk about as being the best places in town to go
for wings.”
Whether you call Buffalonians
traditionalists or not, we stick to the formula the wing was founded on. To
know how to make a good Buffalo chicken wing, you have to know the basics
before it hits the bar.
