That's a fantastic question, Mark, and I'm happy you asked. The "Pizza Parlor Conundrum" aside, I would at the outset like to take a moment to discuss the tasty treat that is the chicken wing. First off, it took me a long time to dive into the chicken-wing pool. This was because I was horrified to think of all the little genetically-engineered midget-chickens that were being held in a midget-chicken gulag someplace in Minnesota, awaiting their turn at the chopping block. After all, how else could chicken-science have ever possibly come up with something as perfect as the little drummette that made up the meaty portion of the plate? It had to be mini-chickens and I imagined them to be the veal of the dark-meat side of the chicken-world, chained up in little mini-chicken coops, eating bits of a scientifically-manufactured super-grain to fatten up their tiny chicken drummettes. Or maybe the drummettes were taken from the feckless Cornish Hen, which I always considered to be the fragile and meek "little people" of the chicken world. I didn't know and I didn't care - all I knew was that it was horrific and it was more than my young, fragile, compassionate mind could handle.
The mysterious makeup of the chicken wing: The Wingette and the Drummette
Eventually, however, the allure of the tangy, spicy sauce inevitably trumped my indignant horror over the mistreatment of the genetically-engineered mini-chickens or Cornish Hens and I dipped my first drummette into the ramekin of bleu-cheese dressing and savored the deliciousness of the dish. It was only much later that I learned that the drummette, of which I was particularly fond, was not harvested from the carcass of midget-chickens, or the Cornish Hen but was actually the meaty part of the wing closest to the full-sized chicken's body and it hinged on the flimsier, two-boned portion of the wing which has always proven to be more problematic and messy when under consumption. Since the full-sized chickens have always been butchered en-masse to appease the planet's taste for fowl, I no longer felt any particular sadness or guilt when it came to the wing. I was now free to dive in, fingers-first with a new-found abandon which somehow liberated me in a tasty way to enjoy the magnificent appetizer.
All that said, there is a reason for my digression and many thanks for hanging in there. It is my belief that it is not necessarily the wings that have infiltrated our pizza parlors, but rather the tangy, zesty sauce which has been concocted for their deep-fried tossing. A combination of hot-sauce, vinegar (or Italian dressing) and butter, it is the perfect storm of taste-sensation and the ideal candidate for infiltrating not only our pizza parlors, but every sector of dining imaginable. I challenge you to find a food-choice that has not been touched by the red-stained finger of wing-sauce. Aside from breakfast cereal and ice cream (and just wait, it will soon be there as well), I am hard-pressed to find an example. Buffalo Chicken Salad, Buffalo Chicken Sandwich, Buffalo Chicken Fingers and sides of Buffalo Sauce are readily available in nearly every eatery in the country - nay, the world. And I am not entirely convinced that this is a bad thing.
As for the days of yore, when one could stroll into a pizza parlor and order a thin-crust pepperoni and an ice cold glass of draft beer and little else, I believe those times have gone the way of silent film, the Polaroid Land Camera and the rotary telephone. If a restaurant - be it a pizza parlor or a take out Chinese joint - is not diverse in its offering, the spoiled, entitled, self-absorbed restaurant diners that make up our populace will move to the next bistro that will be able to satisfy their culinary wanderlust. We have become a nation of instant-gratification junkies and this applies to our taste in food as equally as it applies to our need for music, movies and information on the fly. That, my friend, is how Buffalo Wings infiltrated our pizza parlors. As to the exact when, I point to the moment that Teressa Bellissimo, owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York created the sauce to toss her deep-fried chicken castoffs into back in 1964. From that moment forward, it was only a matter of time before the recipe would snake its insidious way into our restaurants and our hearts.
Good day, Sir.
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