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The Buffalo Wing Festival, an annual celebration thrown by The City of Good Neighbors, is held to honor the dish that anchors the appetizer section of bar menus across the United States. To be one of the estimated 80,000 attendees allowed to pass beneath an inflated archway awash in red, orange and yellow flames and onto the warning track of Coca-Cola Field is to take part in the biggest celebration of food in Buffalo, NY, a city that at times feels like its best days are behind it. Buffalo is a city in transition, in the throes of reinventing itself, and civic pride was on full display as this unique American festival entered its second decade.
Organizers packed 24 purveyors of chicken wings onto the first and third base lines of the city’s minor league baseball stadium (at left), leaving the diamond and outfield open for visitors to wander about, absorb the sounds of one of the many bands playing on the main stage and snack away on “jumbo” wings, purchased for a dollar apiece.
Many vendors hailed from western New York, like the legendary Anchor Bar, Bocce Club Pizza, and La Nova. Sadly, missing were longtime local standout and personal favorite Duff’s Famous Wings, who consistently serve up some of the best wings in Buffalo. Interspersed among the locals were regional and national chains like Jack Astors, Hard Rock Cafe, Quaker Steak and Lube, and out of town favorites Fire on the Mountain Buffalo Wings from Oregon and Legend Larry’s of Wisconsin. All told, wing slingers dished out over 100 varieties and variations on the theme, serving them tossed, sauced, grilled, and fried.
The Anchor Bar - widely credited with the invention of the chicken wing - has consistently long lines at its Buffalo location thanks to a mix of nostalgia and tourism, but familiarity seemed to breed contempt at the festival, where lines tended to be short with limited crowd demand for their arguably average wings.
Where the Anchor Bar failed to live up to the hype, Quaker Steak and Lube lived up to the national attention it has received. Two of its wings stood out: one with medium heat (at right), dressed in a coating of fat (almost all buffalo wings start with a base of either butter or margarine) and hot sauce, and a firecracker of a wing coated with sweet mango and spicy habanero, packing enough capsicum to satiate festival goers unwilling or unable to sign the release required to take on the chain’s famous “triple atomic” version.
If one uses line length to gauge the popularity of wings at such an event, Fire On The Mountain Buffalo Wings from Portland, Oregon proved to be the crowd favorite, with queues that consistently numbered into the hundreds, each clutching tickets to partake of delectably sauced wings from the Pacific Northwest with flavors that appealed to traditionalists -- Buffalo Nam (at left) was by far the best example of that style at the event - to the adventurous (a thickly sauced, spicy peanut and refreshing lime with cilantro).
Drew Cerza - the self proclaimed “Wing King” - kept things moving throughout the 2 day event, offering attendees (some in drummie and blue cheese hats, see right) a break from festival inspired mastication to take in an array of culinary competitions, the spectacle of bobbing for wings in Marie’s blue cheese, and amateur, semi-pro and professional eating contests, headlined by a matchup between top ranked competitive eater Joey “Jaws” Chestnut and Sonya “Black Widow” Thomas for honors in the United States National Chicken Wing Eating Championship.
In a flurry of swallowing (and a surprising absence of mastication), Chestnut consumed a world record 191 wings - over 7.5 pounds - in 12 minutes, alternating between ripping meat from bone and jamming it into his constantly undulating maw, and stripping down chicken in a violent, bone-cleaning sucking motion accompanied by an athletic jerk of the head to one side before tossing them to the side and reaching for another. After setting the wing-eating record, in a short interview Chestnut praised the awesomeness of Buffalo but quickly added something to the effect of: "I'm tired now. Time to go and take a nap."
Postscript:
In January of this year, I made the case - partly serious, partly in jest - for St. Louis to organize a Provel cheese festival and celebrate our contribution to the tapestry of uniquely American foods. I kept this idea in mind as I visited Buffalo for this event, as the parallels between our two cities are numerous. A final thought is to suggest you re-read the story above, replacing “Buffalo” with “St. Louis” and “wings” with “provel” to see just what an inspired and yet unrealized idea a Provel Festival could be.
