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The Origin of Buffalo Wings

Flame on

There's no debate about the origin of Buffalo wings, except for one tiny detail. Everyone agrees they were invented in 1964 at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y., where the son of the owners arrived one night with a pack of famished friends in tow.

The boy's mother deep-fried a batch of chicken wings, soaking them in a “secret” ingredient. The secret? Depends on whom you ask.

Frank's Red Hot Sauce , said the New Jersey manufacturer and Roberts, who appears on radio and TV as RedHot's celebrity spokes-chef.

The Anchor Bar doesn't explicitly reject this claim, but ads for its Anchor Bar Sauce raise doubt. “The Original Sauce that made Buffalo chicken wings famous,” the ad maintains. “Accept no imitations!”

Cayenne pepper, the spicy backbone of both sauces, was once considered a real tongue scorcher. In recent years, though, there has been an explosion of hot, hotter and hottest sauces: Dave's Original Insanity Hot Sauce , Mad Dog 357 , Wanza's Wicked Temptation, Caldera, Blair's 16 Million Reserve.

That last sauce's name hints at the science behind this culinary madness. Heat – specifically, the amount of the chemical capsaicin within a particular pepper – is measured on scale created by a pharmacist, Wilbur Scoville, in 1912. Bell peppers have zero Scoville Units; Frank's Original RedHot contains 450 Scovilles; Dave's Insanity, about 80,000.

Blair's 16 Million Reserve is pure powdered capsaicin, with a blistering 16 million Scovilles. The company recommends diluting one crystal in a large vat of otherwise-mild sauce.

These gates-of-hell sauces tend to be bought by diners less interested in flavor than in sheer, out-of-control, China Syndrome nuclear power. In other words, men.

“This is something that guys get into with each other,” noted Roberts, whose tavern stocks some of the hotter sauces for unchecked testosterone outbreaks. These showdowns are entertaining, but Roberts doesn't recommend them for guys eager to impress a date.

“You're sweating, your colon is on fire – that's not exactly a great look for the ladies,” he said.

Chili heads

San Diego County is a hot sauce hot spot. Scorpion Bay, a hot sauce maker, is headquartered in Encinitas and owned by the aptly named Rob Burns. Horton Plaza and Seaport Village are home to the Hot Licks hot sauce emporiums. In Normal Heights, the California-Antilles Trading Co. offers several shelfs of imported Caribbean hot sauces.

“Hot sauces have really taken off,” said California-Antilles' owner, Richard Gardner, a retired anthropology professor whose research trips exposed him to a wide range of chile sauces. Most “chile heads,” as Gardner calls his customers, experience a mild sense of euphoria from the capsaicin, which stimulates the body's endorphin production.

Pure capsaicin, though, can cause the opposite of euphoria: “If you did ingest it, it would definitely do damage to you,” Gardner said. “It could actually burn your innards.”

In Roberts' kitchen, the goal is to make not the hottest wings, just the most flavorful. His standard Buffalo chicken wings have a kick, but with a smooth tartness; the spices do not overpower the grilled chicken flavors. His simple recipe relies on Frank's RedHot and melted butter, and the wings come out of the kitchen with the traditional accompaniments, celery sticks and blue cheese dressing.

Nicknamed “The Food Dude,” Roberts learned cooking from his mother and grandmother. “I started hanging out in the kitchen at the age of 5,” he said, “but didn't really start to cook until I was 8.”

In college, Roberts noted that his fellow students loved to eat – but their cooking skills were limited to microwaving leftover pizza. He devised a series of simple, tasty menus that later became the basis of 2004's “ Munchies: Cook what you want, eat what you like. ” The book was a hit on campuses, where Roberts remains a popular speaker, and led to last year's “ Kissing in the Kitchen: Cooking With Passion”

Roberts' talent has opened more than restaurant doors. Two years ago, he left Los Angeles and moved to San Diego, where he established his tavern-cum-bowling alley on Market Street last year. He's now expanding, from six lanes to 12.

He's often on the road. Several times a month, Roberts flies to New York City for appearances on Fox's “The Morning Show With Mike and Juliet” and to develop a “food reality show” for cable.

“I can't talk about it yet,” he said. “But there should be an announcement soon.”

He hopes that the show will be hot and flavorful.

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