I've always liked chicken wings. The tiny amount of meat harvested from all
the work you have to do to each one makes it more satisfying I guess. It's the
old "nothing worth while is easy" adage.
The buffalo wing as you probably know, was started in Buffalo, New York when
a college boy brought his college buddies into
his parent's bar late one night and demanded food. At the time
wings were generally discarded or made very little use of in homes or
restaurants.
The most popular way the story is told is that the mother of the hungry boy,
Teressa Bellissimo, was either short on other mainstay foods, short on time or
short on patience with her sons' loud group of friends. Since she had a large
quantity of wings that were delivered by mistake instead of the backs and necks
they use for their stock, she decided to throw the wings in the deep fryer.
While they were cooking she made a sauce. My feeling is that she used cayenne
pepper as the main ingredient as a trick to fire up the mouths of the boys that
were going to eat it. She mixed the cayenne pepper, vinegar and butter in a pan
and warmed it. When the wings were done, she rolled them in the sauce and served
the hungry boys. I'm guessing she was the most surprised person there when they
tore into the wings and raved about how delicious they were. That's basically
how Buffalo Wings started, or at least that's the most accepted version.
Buffalo style wings began to show up in restaurants and bars all over the
country shortly after. My family's favorite place to enjoy buffalo wings is a
chain restaurant that tries to double as a sports bar. They have a
hot-wing challenge I don't promote attempting for liability reasons. Being who I
am, I couldn't resist the challenge. I love spicy-hot foods. Even with my well
advertised low pain tolerance, the hotter the better, is my motto. I guess I
should have thought it through a little more after they made me sign a wavier
not to sue them for injuries caused by the insanely hot sauce and
required me to wear surgical grade latex gloves during the challenge.
Heat from peppers are measured by Scoville Heat Units. Jalapenos and Tabasco
sauce are 2500-5000 units on average. The sauce for this challenge is nearly
100,000 units. That's 20 to 40 times hotter than Tabasco or a jalapeno. If
you eat 12 wings in the allotted time, you win a T-shirt that does the boasting
for you because trust me, you can't talk for a few hours
afterwards. After I did the challenge, my wife became a little jealous of the
attention and she refused to wear my shirt when I offered. She wanted to earn
her own shirt! Her need for self-punishment has never been nearly
as high as mine, but by golly she was going to give it a try. Try isn't the right word because try means there is a chance of failing and that wasn't an
option for her.
After the formalities were complete and the wings were brought to the table,
the server said the time would start when she took her first bite. Most of our
family and several friends were there to cheer her on and give expert advise.
Ever try to give advise to a hard-headed German girl
under severe duress? Just don't.
She grabbed the first wing and bit into it like a trained professional. You
could immediately tell the taste was not what she expected. To best describe it
would be like biting into a hot charcoal you fished out of the grill. No flavor
really, just intense, painful heat. She finished the first one and quickly
learned to quit breathing through her mouth. During the second and third wing,
her face turned red and little beads of sweat began to appear above her brow. My
older son suggested to quit breathing all together and just bite, chew and swallow, for which he received a
venomous look from his otherwise smiling and generally sweet-natured mother.
Wings number four, five and six went down nearly as fast as the previous
three and well under the time pace for success. However, her face had turned from red to more of a purple
and now sweat was beading up on her cheeks.
Now halfway through the challenge, her hands started to shake as she lifted
wing number seven to her mouth. Tears began to flow and her nose started to run,
by the time she had finished number eight and nine. No napkins are allowed to be
used during the challenge, nor can you stop to take a drink of anything. The
entire table got quiet as we sat there and watched a human we all love in more
pain than we could imagine suffer through the last three wings. Her hands were
shaking so bad they were now useless, so she just leaned forward to the plate,
pinned the wings down with her forearms and finished them with noises and moans
never before heard by man.
When she was done, she sat up and became still. She whispered, "I think I'm
done" in a stoic manner. You must whisper because you do not want any air coming
in or going out of your mouth at this point. Her hair was a mess. Her face was
glow-in-the-dark red and covered in tears, snot, drool and 100,000 heat-unit
sauce. I couldn't have been more proud of her.
