And in 1977, the city of Buffalo declared July 29 to be National Chicken Wing Day. There’s a Wing Bowl Festival in Philadelphia, and a National Buffalo Wing Festival at Highmark Stadium in Buffalo, N.Y., that’s attended by 80,000 fans over three days. You can find Blueberry BBQ Wing Sauce, and Maple/Bacon Glaze Wing Sauce. So did Domino’s and Pizza Hut.Ĭhinese variants appeared, along with Thai, Japanese, Caribbean and Indian. and Canada, thanks to chains like Buffalo Wild Wings and Hooters. Fast-food technology made them boneless, into chicken fries, chicken nuggets, popcorn chicken and Buffalo chicken wing pizza. They were eaten by the dozens - the drumettes, the flats, even the wingtips. Thanks to Teresa and Frank Bellissimo, owners of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York, chicken wings became a cult culinary pleasure - a joy to eat with a nice cold beer, covered with cayenne- and vinegar-based hot sauce with butter, and gobbled by the basketful while watching the game o’ the moment. We loved the chicken wings, which back in the day were thought of as poor people’s food - parts of the bird not eaten by society’s upper crust. We’d cook them till they were crisp, cover them with ketchup, and gobble everything but the bones. There were, thankfully, two per bird - one for me, one for my sister.

The best of the “lost” parts were the unborn chicken eggs, which emerged like yellow grapes, and tasted so good in soup.Īnd then, there were the wings. My mother would eat the feet - even more tasteless.

My father would eat the gizzard - so chewy, and so tasteless. There was the “crown” at the top of the chicken’s head. Parts that my sister and I would compete for, believing them to be special. And then, she’d slice the bird open - and surgically remove stuff that, well, we don’t encounter anymore in our Foster Farms fowl. Once home, my mother would remove the pin feathers with a tweezer. But after they poked around, and discussed the chickens with each other, my parents would select one, it would be slaughtered at the market, the feathers would be “flicked” - and it would be wrapped and taken home, fully intact! We’d walk around the market, with straw on the floor, serenaded by the squawks and gobbles of the birds in their wooden cages, looking for one that seemed the right size, based on…well, I don’t really know what. My parents liked to buy their chickens at a live poultry market, so I didn’t grow up eating chicken purchased at supermarkets, or even at butcher shops.

Buffalo wild wings menu