Chicken Wings
November 10th, 2008 by Bill ColleySince arriving on Delmarva almost 15 months ago I’ve often been reminded of regional differences. For instance where I come from we speak English and you only think you do. Back in the highlands people live in homes and here people live in humes. You drive cars and we drive kurrs. You drink wawder and we drink wodder.
Some drunken wife beaters refer to me as a New Yorker and this is technically correct. I was born in the southwestern part of the state, which is the northern spine of the Appalachian range. The Alleghenies, if you will. New York City was an 8 hour drive. Cleveland, Toronto and Pittsburgh were just 3 hours at a steady clip. The closest city of any consequence was Buffalo, an hour or so to the north. Why of any consequence when it’s known for just three things? Snow, disappointing sports franchises and chicken wings. Snow can’t be exported unless on the back of an Alberta Clipper. The Bills can be exported to Toronto but we aren’t sure it’s going to be successful transplant surgery. The history of chicken wings is unique. Birthed at The Anchor Bar in 1964 this snack has conquered much of the world. With the exception, it appears, of Delmarva. You lack for any consistent efforts at pizza but we’ll leave that for another day.
This is just as much a restaurant review as it’s a chicken wing review.
Let me say that the folks at Uncle Willie’s make great fried chicken. I didn’t expect this as I thought of it only as a place for gassing up and buying a newspaper. The staff at Uncle Willie’s uses the same method for wings, however. It’s fried chicken in the shape of a chicken wing. If you want them hot you get a packet of deli hot sauce to tear open and barely cover your wings. Nothing special about prepackaged hot sauce and while I’m saying this I should note traditional chicken wings aren’t breaded. If I want breaded chicken I’ll buy Banquet at Food Lion and heat it in my oven at hume.
A good chicken wing isn’t breaded and while it requires more than a thumbnail measurement of hot sauce the wings shouldn’t be swimming in sauce soup. Sauce soup is my experience at Grotto. On Sundays Grotto offers a wing special during football games. Last year it was 5 dollars per order. While you can’t beat the price and the atmosphere of the joint is friendly let me argue good wings aren’t pulled from chicks. Good wings come from grown animals and while eating require the use of both hands. An order of wings is also one dozen and not ten or less. It isn’t a special if the wings are downsized. It’s also not a special if I can’t order it at a table while watching the Bills. Philadelphia fans have their own special foods. For Buffalo fans there are just two choices, wings or beef-on-weck. Recently I discovered you can’t order the wing special unless you’re at the bar. The restaurant has a dozen or so TVs but at the bar you get Eagles, Redskins or Ravens. At least those are the limits at the Long Neck location. So the offer should read wings on special only if you like Philly, Washington or Baltimore.
Good wings are meaty. When you bite into them the meat is white. Pink meat is meat somebody hasn’t fully cooked. Good chicken wings are crispy and the sauce is thick but adheres to the skin of the chicken. Wings may be barbecued but this is just an option for children. Many years ago I went into a restaurant and ordered some wings while watching a baseball game. I asked for them hot. The owner came out and explained he had his own recipe for garlic wings. Henry Ford once said you could get a Model T in any color as long as it was black. Buick countered with blue and green and yellow and Henry learned quickly about customer service. I ate the garlic wings. Then the owner wanted to know what I thought about his artistic creation. “If you’re planning on reinventing the wheel best to keep it round”, I replied. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t alone.
A fellow telephoned my show a couple of weeks ago and told me I could watch the Bills at a bar at Peddler’s Village. So on Sunday I dropped in. The specials include chili and some tiny cheeseburgers. An order of wings will set you back 9 bucks. I counted 7 in my bowl. Then I had to ask for blue cheese. You don’t have blue cheese and you don’t have a chicken wing eating experience. The wings came plain but I was given a bottle of sauce I could sprinkle across them. Aw, Shucks, J.D., I’m not coming back.
Lately you’ve seen these chain restaurants opening in various neighborhoods and claiming to specialize in wings. The wings are meaty, well-cooked and the sauce clings to the skin. A few years ago I read where some restaurant chain bought wings at The Anchor Bar and spirited the order off to a lab for analysis, then copied the sauce. The Chinese do this with manufacturing technology. Some folks call it patent infringement. Others simply call it theft. I don’t like thieves.
Old Dom’ at The Anchor Bar intended wings to be finger food. Like popcorn or peanuts or even as I once found at a bar in Auburn, New York, smelt. In the beginning of the wing era there was no extra charge. The wings brought in the working men who then bought drinks. Some folks in these parts don’t have a clue.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Those of us in these part don’t need blue cheese with our wings. We can make due without the cheese and you Bill. I heard that they have tons fo Blue Cheese and snow up North where you come from. We can help pay your way if you take a few of your kind with you. We did not need the outlets or four lanes each way on Route 1 before you an all your kind moved in. Life was simpler then and no amount of transfer taxes cover the cost to our change of lifestyle. Crime used to be super low in Sussex County and now I’m not sure if I am reading the Philadelphia news or the Cape Gazette. We may not have a clue but YOU moved here so you must be even dumber than you think we are.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Bill, I have to agree with you on this 110% Coming from Philly, I have not found a good cheese steak that could rival anything from Pats or Genos, forget about the pizza, as an Italian I take offense to putting sugar in any sauce, be it for pizza or spaghetti.
We have tried the Wings to Go on Long Neck and I say dont waste your gas money to get there. They were horrible and they must have been left over from the night before because they were dry when they were supposed to be hot, they were pink when they should have been tan. With all the new restaurants and such popping up on Long Neck you would think someone would have thought to put a Slacks Hoagie Shop in there. If you have never had a bucket of wings from there, you are not living. This may only be a place unique to Philly, but I am sure there are others in the tri state area. We have been all over Sussex and Kent County and can not find a slice of Pizza worthy of Philly or New York, so we do without.
I implore you, if you ever find yourself in Philly, please make it a point to stop at Slacks to have some wings and let us know what you think.
“Some folks in these parts don’t have a clue.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Good Day Sir.
November 12th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Have to agree about the wings at the new place in Long Neck. Maybe in time they will improve but everything Potnetgal said (and more!) is true. I know someone who actually complained about the wings, the service etc. and was fiven a free meal. Eventually, she and we took advantage of it one night and, sadly, was no better.
But I do disagree that we have to have Philly or NY style foods here. How come we can’t get a good Delaware version and then appreciate it? Sort of gets back to the same ol’, same ol’….we who transplanted ourselves here did so for any number of reasons so it’s incumbent upon us to adapt to the lifestyles, tastes, customs of where we now are, not for everyone else to accomodate our wants. I’m honestly not being a smart-a** but a genuine suggestion…if we want things we have left behind somewhere, best thing we can do is start that business ourselves.
I’m not into chain pizzeria’s, can’t stand Grotto foods but do like Louie’s pizza in RB. For my money, though, best pizza I’ve had (outside of Italy…even though pizza isn’t necessarily considered an origial Italian concoction) is the Putanesca at Mr. P’s.
Wings…got fed up trying to find one to please my palate (not to mention cooked thoroughly) it’s better doing my own.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Forget good wings or pizza or cheese steaks just like you had at home. This is your home now so eat your scrapple samwish and shetup.
Heh heh….
Seriously, I know a bunch of Philly breds who live here now and their biggest complaint is finding a good Italian sub roll. Go figure.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Aside from the Scrapple, what is considered local? Boiled ham? It’s like asking folks if they’ve ever heard about great Irish cooking. There is French and Italian and Greek but you hear so little about German, English, Scottish (sorry, Nancy) and Irish cooking. Scrapple and I guess dumplings? And they don’t make very good dumplings elsewhere? You can’t get good hot dogs here. You can’t get many choices of bread here. Or cheese. Sometimes trucks deliver these things. Maybe none come here?
November 13th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
PS…English cooking???
November 14th, 2008 at 4:54 am
Yep, scrapple is about it for local original cuisine unless you like those American subs they sell on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Though come to think of it, there is a thriving culture of eating slick dumplings with beef or chicken. I don’t care too much for the drop dumplings; there like eating soggy biscuits whereas slick dumplings are more like eating slimy pizza crust, which I enjoy more.
The rest is just plain home cookin’, ie., Diner Food.
Bon appetit!
November 14th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
It’s perpetually amusing to hear the high-pitched whining sounds of those who bless us poor deprived natives by migrating to the cultural wasteland of Sussex County from their far away magical, mythical lands, from whence they fled… for some reason. Perhaps to retire and to take advantage of our low taxes, or to suck the life out of our social services like our visitors from the south, or to find a job they couldn’t quite land in their former Utopia.
Welcome to Southern Delaware. Deal with it.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Wow Bill, didnt realize the hornets nest you unleashed with your take on Chicken Wings and those of us who have “migrated to the cultural wasteland of Sussex County” from my “far away magical, mythical land” of Philadelphia. Sorry Realist but if you describe the magical place that you live in as a wasteland, perhaps you should be migrating further South or further up North. My family moved here and are not taking advantage of your wasteland, instead we are putting back into the economy by opening our business here in Sussex County. So, I for one take issue with your description of those of us WHO STILL CANT FIND A DECENT CHICKEN WING OR A CHEESESTEAK OR A SLICE OF PIZZA which rivals Philadelphia or New York.
Perhaps instead of insulting the place you call home, you could do the gentlemanly thing and point those of us who seem clueless to this hunt as to the best places to get what we crave.
I to Bill would like to get your take on “English Cooking” Not sure I have ever come across that unless you count Fish and Chips. But thats only if your referring to England, I suppose.
November 15th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
You poor abused slower lowers. Yet you sure want me to spend my money here!
November 15th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Not really, Bill. Neither you nor your money would be missed if you went back to the wonderland you came from. So why don’t you?
November 16th, 2008 at 2:02 am
I’m sure what little money you make astounding us with your wit and intellect, hawking pulled pork sandwiches, financial services, reverse mortgages, and other snake oil at WGMD, is rather negligible. But since you now live here, you have little choice but to spend it here. Please, make yourself at home, and thank you for your meager contributions to the community.
Amused, but not abused.
November 16th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Bill, we have good local tomatoes, corn, cantaloupe, watermelon, squash, sweet potatoes, etc. If you had the opportunity to visit one of our local farmers that have a produce stand on their property, you would appreciate it. I have had the produce from neighboring states, and I believe they do not live up to our home grown stuff. Your big stores advertise “local” produce, but I do not believe it and never have.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I might also point out some folks are learning what the Nanticokes experienced a few hundred years ago. Amazing, one goes looking for good chicken wings and a xenophobe takes a break from wife beating to demand the newcomers go home and allow destruction of the local economy to commence, forthrightly.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Why don’t you take my comment out of moderation before you start the denigration? Or are you that much of a pathetic coward?
November 19th, 2008 at 8:57 am
According to the QUEEN of the conservative movement, Mrs Palin states: An elitist is anybody who thinks they are better then anybody else”.
Congratulations. MR. COLLEY,YOU ARE AN ELITIST!