FOOD, it can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Friend, drop the “n” and you get fried. With the same word, friend, if you drop the “r” you get fiend and that is what, sadly, most fried foods are. Doctors and dieticians say you should limit the amount of fried foods you eat. This means that you cannot eat some of the greatest tasting foods ever. Funnel cakes, French fries, onion rings, and fried Oreos are, just to name a few, some of the heavenly evils that we should not consume a whole lot of. Some people do not like fried foods but I know of one fried food people do like and if they don’t like it fried then they can enjoy it either grilled or baked or cooked some other way. No one can hate this food. It’s like hating Super Man who everyone loves unless you’re Lex Luthor or some other villain. I guarantee you everyone has had this food at least once in their lives unless you are one of the few villains (a vegetarian or vegan). The food I am talking about is buffalo wings, yes, buffalo wings.
Buffalo wings are the world’s favorite appetizer. Everyone loves this Godly food so much that there are even restaurants named after it: Buffalo Wild Wings, Duff’s Famous Wings, Buffalo Wings and Rings, and many more. There is even a National Buffalo Wings Festival. Hell, even the President of the United States of America enjoys eating buffalo wings. Buffalo wings were discovered in Buffalo, New York in 1964 at Anchor Bar. Teressa Bellissimo gets credit for making the first ever batch of buffalo wings for her son and his friends. Some other things that happened that year that are almost as important as the invention of buffalo wings are: we sent the Mariner IV space probe into space to get pictures of Mars, we had the first lung transplant, and we adopted the 24th amendment which states that no person can be the denied the right to vote due to an inability to pay a tax prior to voting.
What makes this food so good? It has to be the sauce that coats the beloved buffalo wings. I went to Applebee’s recently with some friends and we got four different kinds of buffalo wings. We got the honey barbeque (my favorite), classic, hot, and sweet and spicy wings. I had never had the hot wings because I am not a fan of really spicy foods and I never tried the sweet and spicy wings. I was not man enough that night to try the hot wings. I was feeling a little ambitious though, so I decided to try the sweet and spicy wings and I almost threw up. They were repulsive. I couldn’t believe how nasty these “things” tasted they were an embarrassment to the buffalo wing community. Usually I like most things I try but I could not stand these awful buffalo wings with a sweet and spicy sauce. I knew the reason why they tasted so bad, it was not the meat or the bleu cheese dressing it had to be: the sauce. The sauce can make or break the wing. If you are making buffalo wings for a group of people this is the hardest part because not everyone likes the same thing. I prefer a less spicy version of the wing, while my Mom, Dad, and brothers prefer the classic flavored buffalo wing. Buffalo wings are like a jig saw puzzle. In order to complete it you need to have a good piece of meat on the wing, a solid sauce, and a delicious dip to dip the wing in. The dip and piece of meat are easiest all you need to do is buy it unless you plan to make the dip from scratch. The sauce even if you buy it from the store and do not make it from scratch is still the hardest part because some people may not like the sauce. Last weekend I decided to try and make the perfect buffalo wings for my family, delicious and not as many calories as the ones at Applebee’s (the ones at Applebee’s have over 600 calories, how ridiculous is that!). I grilled half of them and the other half I baked, just to see which way tasted better. I used the same brand of wings for both. I tried to combine the flavor of classic wings with barbeque flavored wings. This was the hardest part. It was difficult to combine the barbeque sauce and Tabasco sauce to make the picture perfect blend of spiciness and barbeque. I first decided to bake some wings. I sprayed the cooking pan with Pam and then I put eight Perdue chicken wings on the pan. I put them in the oven for 15 minutes and then flipped them over and put them in for another 20 minutes. I took them out and they were still uncooked. My Dad who used to work at a restaurant told me to put the sauce on the wings once they were cooked but the bag said to put the sauce on the wings while they cook. I figured that because the sauce wasn’t on that’s why they were taking an eternity to cook, so I took my sauce and painted the wings with it. I made the sauce using a cup of barbeque sauce and adding Tabasco sauce until I got the perfect blend of spiciness and barbeque. I then proceeded to put the wings in for another ten minutes. I opened it up took them out, scooped up the sauce that was on the tray with a spoon and put it on the wings, and served to my family. My family gobbled them up. They said these were the best wings they ever had. Even my brother who is the most finicky eater I know loved them. Next I decided to try my luck with grilling the wings. I grilled the wings until they were done then I put the sauce I made on them and I let my family dig in and just like the baked ones they loved them. Both ways I made the wings definitely had fewer calories then the fried buffalo wings at Applebee’s and they tasted just as good. If you are looking to enjoy some buffalo wings I suggest making them at home to your own preference because they will be better for you and just as good. Like I said before there cannot be a person out there who does not like buffalo wings. There are so many different ways to make it that there has to be at least one way that you like your BUFFALO WINGS.
Bibliography
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Buffalo Wings & Rings Expands to Brownsville, Texas." QRS Magazine 23 June 2010. Web. 2 Nov. 2010. <http://www.qsrmagazine.com/articles/news/story.phtml?id=11187>.
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"National Buffalo Wings Festival." Web log post. Ifood.tv. Web. 1 Nov. 2010. <http://www.ifood.tv/blog/national-buffalo-wings-festival>.
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