Are Buffalo Wings Rooted in Soul Food?
As it turns out, they may be a derivative of mambo wings
This is an excerpt from “American Food: A Not-So-Serious History,” by Rachel Wharton and illustrated by Kimberly Ellen Hall, released this month and on sale now.
“Tourists Eat Wings. Buffalonians Eat Subs.” So proclaimed a recent headline in a national food magazine.
Which can’t possibly be true, unless literally everyone I saw on a recent trip to the western New York city was a tourist, including tables of high school students, old Irish American ladies at an old Irish American pub, people getting takeout at 2 a.m., and young professionals in their Bills jerseys mingling at a gastropub after a game.
Buffalonians may be the creators of much more than wings — they have their own pizza (somewhere between Chicago and Detroit style), plus stuffed banana peppers and beef on weck, to name but a few. But like Americans around the country at restaurants high and low, they love wings. They eat Buffalo-style hot wings, yes, but also wings grilled, smoked, suicidally hot, slathered with Cajun spice, and covered with various sauces. They eat them at the multiple locations of Duff’s and line up at Gabriel’s Gate and Gene McCarthy’s Old First Ward Brewing Company and at La Nova pizzeria, which even has a national frozen…
