"There's going to be 20 tons of wings."
This is the promise that Drew Cerza hopes will prompt thousands of hungry individuals to flood Dunn Tire Park this weekend. Destined to widen the waistlines and ruin the diets of all who attend, the First Annual National Buffalo Wing Festival will take place from noon to 9 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Buffalo's most famous export now has its own nationally-recognized event dedicated to the deep-fried guilty pleasure that has graced football games and parties for almost forty years.
Cerza, the organizer and creator of the festival, has high expectations. Since the inception of the idea last year, he's worked to schedule events and gather sponsors and restaurants to support the festival.
"It's a double-edged sword," Cerza said of all the attention. "The biggest challenge is that we don't know whether we're going to have 20,000 or a 100,000 people. So we're going to set up a Plan A, B and C and just react based on the number of people that come. I would say 30 to 40,000 people over two days is the ideal number."
For a four dollar entrance fee, the public will have the opportunity to sample chicken wings from over forty vendors. As implied in the name, national restaurants from as far west as Denver will join the ranks of local favorites like the Anchor Bar and Bocce Club Pizza.
Besides the food, the festival will feature local music from Lance Diamond, The Trolls and Hit N Run. Cerza has also worked to establish various competitions, including a Ms. Buffalo Wing Contest and a Best Sauce challenge. Of particular interest to local gluttons is the Chicken Wing Eating Contest, officially sponsored by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. According to Cerza, the current world record holder is Bill "El Wingador" Simmons for 137 wings in half an hour.
Osmosis Jones and an Idea
Osmosis Jones, the Farrelly brothers live action/animated journey through Bill Murray's unhygienic body, is a movie that is currently being played 24 hours a day this week in UB's residence halls. In the film, Murray buys tickets to the Annual Chicken Wing Festival in Buffalo, raving to his less than excited daughter,
"Ninety-nine kinds of wings! One hundred and twenty-eight dipping sauces! You love math! Crunch the numbers on that and tell me the possibilities aren't infinite!" he exclaims.
Cerza has his own answer to the question:
"I think it's like how people in Niagara take Niagara Falls for granted. We live here in Buffalo, we take chicken wings for granted," he said.
Of course, historically, the home of the true originator of the festival has resided at 1047 Main Street for the past sixty-five years. The story of Teressa Bellissimo's creation of the first Buffalo wings at the Anchor Bar is a well-known local tale. However, Ivanno Toscani, the current manager, sheds a little light on the origins of the bleu cheese dip.
"When Teressa came up with this recipe of the wings, she wanted to put some kind of sauce out there. American people like sauces, so she comes up with this bleu cheese idea," he said. "Believe it or not, the combination of bleu cheese went very well with the wings. And the celery was added because she figured you could chew on a stick to cool down."
Despite the Anchor Bar's reputation, Toscani simply plans to set up a tent with the rest of the vendors at the festival and judge some of the sauces. Although the restaurant proudly promotes its status as "home of the original Buffalo wings," it has maintained a successful, low-key existence. While imitators have capitalized on the restaurant's recipe nationwide, the Anchor Bar has never franchised itself.
"If somebody would come and approach me to do that, we'd consider," he said. "Remember, this is a lot of work. We export our sauce as far as Japan and Italy and England. It's quite an operation. People call me every two minutes."
Nonetheless, a series of independent Buffalo wing restaurants have set up shop across the country and plan to debut their own recipes at the festival. This includes places like Atlanta's "Mo-Joe's Wings," Houston's "Buffalo Joe's," and Denver's "Wingman." Although each venue has their own secret sauce, they share the following similarity: they were all founded by Buffalo expatriates.
For instance, Mark Thrun, co-manager of Buffalo Joe's, moved from the Depew-Lancaster area 25 years ago. Besides wings, his restaurant regularly features other Buffalo-born creations, such as Sahlen's hot dogs and beef on weck. His motivation was simple: a dearth of worthy wings in Houston.
"People talk about Buffalo wings, but they don't see the true wings in many places like Florida and Texas. It's not a good representation. Papa John's - they are the worst. If those were my first Buffalo wings, I'd never have another one," said Thrun.
And then there's Wingman. The chain was originally founded by the Mineo family after they left Buffalo and found that Denver had no place that sold their beloved wings. Director of Franchising Mark Wolfe explains the appeal of his company's wings.
"It's the flavor of the sauce. Everybody believes the more fiery, the better. This is just a good-tasting sauce. It doesn't burn your tongue," he said.
Wolfe isn't intimidated with presenting his Denver brand of wings this weekend to the scrutiny of the city that invented them.
"We're going to find out when we get there, but I think we go through more wings than the Anchor Bar
