Chicken wings

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Chicken wings

Chicken Wings , in the US Buffalo Wings or Buffalo Chicken Wings (German: chicken wings , Swiss: chicken wings), are a poultry Court of Cuisine of the United States . In German-speaking countries today it is mostly a fast food and is industrially prefabricated.

In traditional preparation, the wings are shortened around the unused tip and halved at the joint, the two resulting parts are called “drumstick” or “drummette” (upper arm) and “flat” (forearm). In the classic method, the chicken wings are fried and then coated with a slightly spicy oil-based sauce. They are served with a classic blue cheese -DIP and celery .

Depending on the recipe, the chicken wings are breaded or patted dry before preparation . Typically they are fried in hot oil or lard and consumed individually as finger food or served with side dishes such as French fries and coleslaw. Different flavors are common.

Origins and Distribution

Buffalo Wings were first served on October 30, 1964 in the Anchor Bar in Buffalo , New York , by Teresa Bellisimo.

Bellissimo cooked the chicken wings for some time before they were fried. Today the chicken wings are fried raw in almost all forms of distribution. As side dishes, Bellissimo improvised a dip made from blue cheese - the bar's normal salad dressing - and celery from the Anchor Bar's antipasti range . Originally served as a free snack side dish, the chicken wings quickly became an integral part of the menu. The dish spread to Buffalo within a few weeks. The second classic place that made Chicken Wings famous in Buffalo is Duffs , where the dish was also included very early on the menu. In the 1970s, the Buffalo Wings gained popularity, but remained largely limited to Upstate New York in their distribution. In his 1980 New York article, Trillin wrote of the "local specialty" of a chicken part that someone in Houston or San Francisco would probably throw away. "

The real inventor of the chicken wings is the African American John Young, who served chicken wings in Buffalo in his restaurant John Young's Wings' n Things , which were inspired by the classic cuisine of the African American. Young serves this with “Mambo Sauce”. In contrast to the classic wings, the wings here were breaded, but not divided.

Distribution in New York State and Florida

After Buffalo, the chicken wings took hold in Florida. In the 1980s, numerous residents of Buffalo retired there, taking away their fondness for chicken wings. The first chain of restaurants to include chicken wings as a staple on the menu was Wings N'Curls , founded in 1975 in South Florida by an emigrant from Buffalo . In total, the chain opened 18 restaurants in Florida, Indiana and California by the early 1990s, but ceased operations in the 1990s. In the Buffalo of the late 1970s, the idea was widespread that one could get rich by introducing chicken wings in parts of the United States where they were still unknown. In Florida, the fast-food chain Hooters , founded there in 1983, included the dish as the main offering on its menu. With the nationwide expansion of the fast food chain, the Chicken Wings became known throughout the United States.

US-wide distribution and the Super Bowl

Chicken wings first gained broader national recognition in 1980 through an article by Calvin Trillin in The New Yorker magazine . In 1981 the New York Times Magazine published a full-page article of recipes for chicken wings, the first searchable press article about food from specialized media. Articles in lifestyle magazines like Ebony , Esquire and Family Circle followed in the 1980s , with articles from the late 1980s mentioning that the dish had quickly become popular across the United States.In 1991 the New York Times wrote that the wings are common in "hundreds of restaurants in western New York and across the nation." The worldwide expansion with tens of thousands of sales outlets took place in the 1990s. In the 1990s, US-wide chains Pizza Hut and Domino’s added the wings to their menus. In 1992 Domino's put the wings on the menu in restaurants in the Buffalo area, and for the American football season 1994 they introduced the Buffalo wings nationwide. The companies advertised chicken wings as an ideal snack to accompany television programs in US-wide television commercials, particularly during major sporting events. In 1994, for example, Domino's spent $ 32 million on commercials announcing that the chain was now running Buffalo Wings. Due to the close connection between major sporting events and the chicken wing as finger food propagated in advertising, they became particularly popular on these occasions. Pizza Hut followed in 1995 with Buffalo Wings on offer. As early as the summer of 1995, Domino's announced that a third of all customers were ordering Buffalo Wings. The product was so successful that Yum! Brands , the mother of Pizza Hut, founded their own Wings chain in 2003: WingStreet , which by 2013 had a total of 1,600 outlets, mainly in Pizza Hut restaurants.

Even sports bars contributed since the 1990s to spread the court in - restaurants with large screens on the walls, on which sporting events are shown, and with a food offer of typical snacks and finger food. For many of the bars, chicken wings are a key part of the menu. According to the American lobby organization for chicken producers, the National Chicken Council , the two strongest competitors in this setting are ribs and pizza , whereby ribs are usually much more expensive and pizza does not survive the often long sports broadcasts and is also difficult to reheat. As a typical snack food, chicken wings are therefore eaten together from a plate in larger groups and families, so that they are particularly suitable for joint leisure activities such as watching sports broadcasts.

In particular, they are closely linked to the Super Bowl . For example, the price of chicken wings in retail stores increases significantly at the end of January every year. Since 2010, the National Chicken Council has published a semi-serious, widely received “Wing Report” every year before the Super Bowl, in which it provides information on the market situation, demand and the history of the wings. Every year, the Wing Report shows how many chicken wings were eaten on the Super Bowl weekend. In 2013 the number was 1.23 billion.

Meaning of buffalo

Buffalo itself is located in rural upstate New York and is one of the cities of the Rust Belt . The name Buffalos became known in the USA not only through some sports teams in the American major leagues, but also through Buffalo Wings, and the city even uses it for city marketing. As early as 1977, Buffalo declared July 29th to be "Chicken Wing Day", which is now celebrated all over the USA. The Anchor Bar has become one of the city's more important tourist attractions and is visited by tourists from all over the world.

Variants and brands

Buffalo wings with dipping sauce and celery
Hot wings as part of a table setting

The spread and popularity of the chicken wings are closely related to system catering and fast food. They were spread and made famous in the USA by Hooters, Pizza Hut and Domino's. The further spread took place in particular through expanding fast food chains from the USA. The Buffalo Wild Wings chain is now represented all over the world. In the German-speaking region, Kentucky Fried Chicken is particularly important, as it is the most popular in this region among the wings-serving chains. Since chicken wings are often offered by system catering and as a ready-made meal in Europe , there are numerous variants and brands .

Buffalo wings

A spicy variant of the dish are hot chicken wings, also known as buffalo wings . For marinating use Tabasco or other chilli sauces ; they are not breaded before deep-frying. The name is said to be derived from the place of origin Buffalo , where the owner Theresa Bellisimo is said to have prepared the leftover grand pianos for the first time in this way in 1964 in the Anchor Bar .

Hot wings

Hot Wings is a trademark of the Kentucky Fried Chicken company. The English term hot stands for the sharp taste of the marinade. Before deep-frying, they are coated with a coarse-grained breading, which is also known as “crispy breading”. This variant is also called "extra crispy" in the USA.

Buffalo sauce

The classic buffalo sauce is based on vinegar, enriched with butter and cayenne pepper, and is offered in different degrees of spiciness. While the buffalo sauce initially belonged to the chicken wings and spread with them, numerous dishes from “chicken fingers” to pizza to snack pretzels and potato chips are now offered in the “Buffalo” flavor.

Importance for the chicken market

Until the post-war decades, chickens were mostly bought and eaten whole. With increasing industrialization of the food industry, the chicken breast, which can be prepared quickly and easily without waste, gained in importance. Chickens were mainly produced to sell chicken breasts, so that the producers had a surplus of all other chicken parts such as legs and wings and these parts were accordingly cheap to buy. In 1982 the New York Times described chicken wings as "cheap and in abundance." Meanwhile, the popularity of the Buffalo Wings means that the chicken wing - once mainly used for broth and other products for leftover products - is now the most expensive part of chicken on the market is. The strong demand for chicken wings tends to lead to an oversupply of other parts of the chicken. For example, the wing tips that are not required are exported to Asia and especially to China.

Web links

Commons : Chicken Wings  - Collection of Images
Commons : Buffalo Wings  - Collection of Images

literature

  • Calvin Trillin: Third Helpings. Boston: Ticknur and Fields, 1983

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Joseph Stromberg: A Brief History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing. In: Smithsonian. February 1, 2013, accessed March 18, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b c d Mark H. Zanger: Buffalo Chicken Wings . In: Andrew F. Smith (Ed.): The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink . Oxford University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-530796-2 , pp. 74 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Calvin Trillin: An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing . In: The New Yorker . August 25, 1980, ISSN  0028-792X ( newyorker.com [accessed March 19, 2016]).
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Peirce Lewis: Buffalo Wings. In: Atlas of Popular Culture in the Northeastern US. 1998, accessed March 19, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Ap: DG Bellissimo, 68; Inspired Buffalo Wings . In: The New York Times . March 26, 1991, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 19, 2016]).
  6. ^ A b Andrew F. Smith: Food and Drink in American History: A "Full Course" Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO ,, 2013, ISBN 978-1-61069-233-5 , p. 113 ( google.de ).
  7. ^ A b c d Dan Charles: Why Chicken Wings Dominate Super Bowl Snack Time. In: NPR.org. January 29, 2013, accessed March 19, 2016 .
  8. ↑ a b Alex Abad-Santos: Chickens have wings. Americans will eat 1.3 billion of them this weekend. In: Vox. February 7, 2016, accessed March 19, 2016 .
  9. ↑ Rose Eveleth: Americans Buy So Many Wings, They're Now the Most Expensive Part of the Chicken. In: Smithsonian. January 31, 2013, accessed March 18, 2016 .
  10. ↑ German Patent and Trademark Office, registration number: 2057406, "Hot Wings"
  11. ↑ Product description at das-ist-drin.de
  12. ↑ Style description at KFC.com
  13. ^ Craig Claiborne With Pierre Franey: Versatile Chicken Wings . In: The New York Times . August 8, 1982, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 19, 2016]).