The Hill Street Blahg

I must be down in the dumps for one reason or another. Whenever I experience the blues, I most always soothe myself with naughty food. I pretty much abstain from fatty foods and bad carbohydrates due to an ongoing cholesterol problem but when I’m bad…I’m good. I am craving chicken wings and I need to know who has the best wings so I can buy myself a bucket. My favorites are Garlic, Buffalo, and Old Bay wings. Can someone please help me get my wing fix?

Before there were Buffalo wings there was Aunt Max’s Wings. When I was a kid, my Aunt Max would go to the neighborhood market and purchase a few pounds of chicken wings. Back then only the poor people ate chicken wings because they were dirt cheap and considered one level above chicken’s feet. Dear old Aunt Max would melt down a few sticks of butter, singe off the hair and coat those wings in the butter, sprinkle some garlic powder on them, and in the oven they would go. We kids couldn’t get enough of those terrific wings.

Fast forward a few years to Buffalo, New York. While in Buffalo for my pre-induction physical in the fall of 1966, by chance I stopped at the Anchor Bar for a few beers with my buddies before the bus trip home. While there, I tasted for the first time those famous wings which would soon become popular in Erie. I must admit, whoever discovered the potential of the lowly chicken wing and came up with the idea of wing sauce and blue cheese dip was a genius. Too bad I didn’t have the foresight to see the potential of Aunt Max’s chicken wings like The Anchor Bar did.

Here’s a random thought. How many chickens are slaughtered each year to harvest those delicious money making wings? After all, a chicken only has two wings. It must take an incredible amount of chickens to produce the amount of chicken wings consumed in this country each year. I’ve never heard of a chicken wing shortage either…which makes me wonder about the lowly pigeons we use to see in the parks. You don’t think……..?