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National Wing Festival Celebrates the Chicken Wing

Buffalo's Anchor Bar
WBFO
Buffalo's Anchor Bar

By Joyce Kryszak

Buffalo, NY – Buffalo may have found the perfect recipe for promotion - and it calls for twenty tons of chicken. This Labor Day weekend, the city is hosting the first National Wing Festival.

It started as a joke in a Bill Murray movie -- "Guess what," he says, "I got tickets, I called a scalper... we're going to the National Wing Festival -- in Buffalo." Audiences across the country had a good chuckle. But local promoters said why not a National Wing Festival?

Since proposed a year ago, the idea has, well, taken off. More than 40 restaurants from as far away as Texas will put their best wing forward here in Buffalo for the festival.

Ivano Toscanni, manager of the Anchor Bar -- the home of the original Buffalo wing --says former owner Theresa Belissimo would be amazed at what a sensation her recipe became.

"I wish, just for once, that Theresa could be here today to see what she created," said Toscanni. "Because that famous night when she come out with these wings, she had no idea these Buffalo wings would become so popular all over the country, and I should say, all over the world."

Since Bellisimo created the magic formula in 1964, there have been many imitators. The Wing Festival will feature many of them. And there will, of course, be contests to award the best sauce, the champion wing eater, the cutest Baby wing, and to crown the first Miss Buffalo Wing. Mary Summer is Communications Director for the Buffalo and Erie County Convention and Visitors Bureau. She says, despite the zany gimmicks, this is serious promotion for the region.

"It's more of a package message of a destination that has something for everyone, something for the parents, something for people who love architecture, and, obviously, when people come to a community there are two things they like to do -- they like to shop and they like to eat," said Summers. "So, we're really showing people that we have everything."

Promoters hope national attention will help them build on the festival in future years. It will be hard to overlook. Bright orange posters highlight the festival's logo -- a flaming winged Buffalo. And PBS will be filming a documentary of this year's event - called, what else? - "Winging it."