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Buffalo wins spot on top 10 list of world's best food cities

WBFO

Louisville has its  Hot Brown, an open-face turkey sandwich. Cincinnati is famous for its chili. And, of course, Buffalo is the birthplace of the chicken wing.

This fact has earned the Queen City the number three spot on National Geographic's top 10 list of best food cities.

The honor comes in a new book that lauds the Anchor Bar, where  late owner Teressa Bellissimo invented the wings by accident 51 years ago. Ivano Toscani, the restaurant's long-time manager,  learned of the honor from WBFO.

"It's great," said Toscani, whose Main Street restaurant is mentioned in  the book "The World's Best Cities."

Bellissimo had no grand plan to invent a food sensation back in 1964.

"She didn't wake up one morning and say 'tonight I'm going to invent chicken wings.' It just happened by mistake," Toscani said.

Bellissimo was whipping up a snack when she decided to deep-dry some wings that had been set aside for soup, then top them with a hot sauce. The rest is history.

"Today, we sell a thousand pounds of wings a day, and we sell wings just about anywhere in the country," Toscani said.

Louisville ranked number one on the list for its Hot Brown . Chennai, India was number two, honored for India's equivalent to the Buffalo wing. Toscani noted that cooks from around the world have been toiling for a half-century to replicate a finger food that Buffalo made famous.

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