Chicken wings

[EIM]

I apologise in advance to the vegetarians, whose cause is one I admire and am working towards since embracing the chickpea. But this is a thread about chicken wings, my current favourite food.

It's weird because just the other week I was sat in Wetherspoons (don't judge, I was with some antifa anti-capitalist types, and if it's gravy for them, I'll lift my boycott) and two lads were waxing lyrical about wings. "They're better than pizza." said one. "They're better than.... chicken wraps even!"

How I patronised him with his frame of references. But do you know what? They ARE better than chicken wraps. Better than pizza? Well let's not get ahead of ourselves.

"And if you get tired of the hot sauce..." added his mate, "You can dip in the cooling mayo."

Options, people. Never underestimate the power of options. Hot sauce AND mayo. Maybe blue cheese dip if you're feeling a little lotto millionaire Mike Carroll.

So, people, add your chicken wing stories or poems here.

Kind regards

EIM.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Chicken wings

Chicken wings are perfectly alright.

I did get talked into chicken feet recently, by a Chinese-Canadian bloke I know. Which are also fine, but a lot of effort for not a lot of meat.

[ursus arctos]

Chicken wings

Origins of Buffalo Wings

We were by there on our recent trip to Buffalo.

They've cleaned it up a bit since this photo was taken

[EIM]

Chicken wings

I made a buffalo wing sauce the other day from a web recipe (webcipe). Butter, Franks sauce, cayenne pepper. It was alright, but lacked heat, I thought.

[hobbes]

Chicken wings

Chicken wings are pointless. I'm a leg man, myself.

[EIM]

Chicken wings

Wings are a warm up, man.

[Third rate Leszno]

Chicken wings

There's nothing worse than ordering wings and finding out that most of them are, in fact, legs. There's more meat on the leg, but they're not so pleasing to eat - there's no little slivers of meat between the wing bones to coax out with your tongue and the skins are never as crispy.

What's an acceptable number of wings to eat at a sitting? 20?

[Calvert]

Chicken wings

Boooooooooooooooo!

Come on, EIM, it's easy once you get the idea into your head that eating animals is absurd.
Get with the chickpeas, dude.

[San Bernardhinault]

Chicken wings

The problem with wings is that you never really know if you're going to get lovely, crunchy fried ones you can dip in ranch or hot sauce; or you're going to get the non-fried, non-breaded kind that come already swimming in whatever sauce. As well as being less deliciously crunchy and unhealthy, you lose the ability to vary your sauce choice as you dine.

[San Bernardhinault]

Chicken wings

As an aside, for a brief period, when I saw "buffalo wings" on the menu I thought they were going to be bison or buffalo meat, from the flank of the animal where wings would have grown had buffalo not been flightless.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Chicken wings

One of my best mates was (well, still is, but he lives in Australia now) a lad of Caribbean origin from that Saf Landan. He would order a KFC bucket (or the Tooting equivalent of KFC) with wings, thighs, the lot, and eat EVERYTHING. I mean everything not in the sense of he had a big appetite, he would eat the whole damned lot, bones, the beak bits, everything. Apparently the chicken bones are "the best bit", and that was how Jamaicans ate their chicken.

Not for me, that.

[EIM]

Chicken wings

Calvert wrote: Boooooooooooooooo!

Come on, EIM, it's easy once you get the idea into your head that eating animals is absurd.
Get with the chickpeas, dude.

They make me fart and aren't bacon. But I'm cutting down on meat. Baby animal steps.

[Calvert]

Chicken wings

Good man.

I did get talked into chicken feet recently

There's a blinding gag in there somewhere.

[ursus arctos]

Chicken wings

For San Bernardhinault

[Amor de Cosmos]

Chicken wings

Origins of Buffalo Wings

We were by there on our recent trip to Buffalo.

You went to Buffalo!

By choice?

[slackster]

Chicken wings

Do M&S (uk) still do the chinese chicken wings. They were flipping lovely.

[ursus arctos]

Chicken wings

Amor, yes, we did.

As part of a swing through Western New York related to ursus minor's consideration of various universities.

I had very low expectations, but was positively surprised by Buffalo. They've done a nice job with the downtown area near the canal and hockey arena, have an outstanding Frank Lloyd Wright house, an amazing Art Deco city hall, and a lovely Olmsted park that includes a serious art museum. We also went on an architectural history boat tour of the grain elevator districts that was fascinating.

We also had some good meals. I would definitely go back (likely not in the dead of winter).

Rochester, on the other hand, had less going for it apart from the High Falls of the Genesee (which are striking) and their immediate area

.

And Syracuse is rather depressing, apart from a very fine Erie Canal Museum.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Chicken wings

I knew about the Art Gallery — it's been excellent for many years. It's good to know the downtown has improved generally though.

Sadly, my abiding memory of Buffalo will always be influenced by the two hours I spent in the Greyhound station at 1:00am on a cold night in March 1973. It was a different place back then.

[ursus arctos]

Chicken wings

I can definitely imagine that.

There are still significant tracts of the city that are essentially abandoned. The population is less than half what is was in 1960 (and it was even bigger in the 40s and 50s).

This is the Common Council Chamber in the City Hall



and this is the area by the Canal where we stayed



On the other hand, the railway station has gone from this



to this

[Incandenza]

Chicken wings

Mayo with buffalo wings? I'm a blue cheese with wings man myself, but don't you have ranch dressing, or is that just a US thing?

I saw Buffalo on a house hunters type show recently and was pleasantly surprised (it must have been filmed during the spring or summer). They mentioned the parks system designed by Olmsted, I never knew that.

[Snake Plissken]

Chicken wings

Wow, they really have tidied that up.

Mrs Plissken studied at SUNY in Buffalo for a year on an exchange trip - 25 year reunion in 2017. She has nothing but fond memories of the place.

[MsD]

Chicken wings

EIM, you know not to give chicken bones to your cat, don't you? Whatever the cat may say.

Same applies to dogs, and probably foxes, although the latter would happily take their chances.

It's the cooked bones that are the problem.

[EIM]

Chicken wings

Yeah. I just give him the meat.

[Bruno]

Chicken wings

A great way to liven up any social gathering.

On the fromage bleu v. ranch question, why choose.

[WOM]

Chicken wings

We're in Buffalo a half-dozen times a year for various reasons. On clear, sunny days, it's a nice place. But for some reason, 9 out of 10 days seem to be overcast, cold and gloomy.

I think I once mentioned coming back from Florida, through Buffalo, at around 6 am on a November Monday. It was the grimmest place I'd ever seen, and I've been to Hamilton.