BUFFALO, N.Y. — Chicken wings, like it or not, are what put Buffalo on the culinary map and Wednesday evening, that history will be celebrated. Buffalo Bike Tours is partnering with the Buffalo History Museum on tonight's lecture.
The free event is called "Hot Takes: A Hidden History of Chicken WIngs" and will be held via Zoom from 6 until 7 p.m. Speakers include Cynthia Van Ness, the Director of Library and Archives at Buffalo History Museum. She will share highlights from the museum’s chicken wing collection, including menus from as early as the 1850s.
Veteran food writer and author of Buffalo Everything, Arthur Bovino will discuss the wing and its place in the culinary world. Marc Moscato, owner of Buffalo Bike Tours, will share his experience starting “The Wing Ride”, a tour of Buffalo wing history by bicycle. A native Buffalonian, Moscato will discuss developing the tour and historical recipes dating back more than 2,000 years.
But the headliner of the event has to be Lina Brown Young, daughter of John Young, the founder of Wings N’ Things, Buffalo’s first chicken wing restaurant. The eatery was a popular cornerstone in Buffalo's black community in the 1960s and was well known for its secret mumbo sauce, described as "lip smacking and liver quivering".
Moscoto says he just wants to get the full story of the Buffalo chicken wing out there and widely recognized."It's really interesting what is remembered and what is not remembered and certainly the contribution to John Young to Buffalo History is equally as important, if not more important, than The Anchor Bar and we need to remember that in our history. "
More information on the lecture can be found at the Facebook Event:
https://www.facebook.com/events/743576936195529
In conjunction with Wednesday's virtual event, Buffalo Bike Tours is also putting on a one-day-only "Hot Takes" chicken wing take-out pop-up event on Monday, at Southern Junction Restaurant on Chandler Street in Buffalo. Pre-orders are encouraged and can be placed on the Southern Junction website.