History

In most cases, each contains the same base sauce but varies in the amount of butter or margarine and hot sauce used. Wings can also be served dry with the sauce on the side. In Buffalo, wings are almost always served with cut celery and blue cheese dressing. In other regions, establishments may also serve their wings with ranch dressing.There are four different legends about how the Buffalo wings came to be.

One story is that Buffalo wings were first prepared at the Anchor Bar, located at 1047 Main Street (between North Street and Best Street) in Buffalo, New York, United States on October 3, 1964, by Teressa Belissimo, co-owner of the Anchor Bar with her husband Frank. Upon the unannounced, late-night arrival of their son, Dominic, with several of his friends from college, Teressa needed a fast and easy snack to present to her hungry guests. It was then that she came up with the idea of deep frying chicken wings (normally thrown away or reserved for stock) and tossing them in cayenne hot sauce. While the wings were deep frying, Teressa decided to serve left over celery sticks with blue cheese to her son and his friends to tide them over.

A second version, as told by Dominic Bellisimo (Frank and Teressa's son) to The New Yorker reporter Calvin Trillin in 1980, stated: "It was Friday night in the bar and since people were buying a lot of drinks he wanted to do something nice for them at midnight when the mostly Catholic patrons would be able to eat meat again." He stated that it was his mother, Teressa, who came up with the idea of chicken wings.