Long before Troy Aikman became pitchman for Wingstop, folks in Buffalo, New York, were enjoying the hot and spicy wings that most agree came into being by the hands of Teressa Bellissimo, who owned the Anchor Bar and first tossed chicken wings in cayenne pepper hot sauce and butter in 1964.
According to Calvin Trillin, hot wings might have originated with John Young, and his “mambo sauce” -- also in Buffalo. Either way, they came from Buffalo, which, by the way, doesn’t call them Buffalo wings.
If you think your kitchen table or couch-in-front-of-football represents the extreme in wing eating, think again: Every Labor Day weekend, Buffalo celebrates its great contribution to the nation’s pub grub with the Buffalo Chicken Wing Festival.
At the 2011 event, 85,000 people snarfed 37 tons of the things.