I've decided that the coolest name for any
food ever has to be deviled bones which are the 19th century equivalent of buffalo wings. So thank you to Bright Cellars for sponsoring this video as we look at the history of hot wings as I devil these bones this time on Tasting History. If you Google 'when were hot wings invented?' the answer you'll probably get is 1964 in Buffalo, New York. And that's why you can't always trust Google because that just ain't true. Our great, great, great, great grandparents were enjoying
hot wings way back in the 19th century, it's just that they were a little different and they weren't always wings but really any bone with some extra meat on it, it was a great way to use up leftovers. And it was typically a food for the poor which is why the recipe that we're making today comes from Alexis Soyer's 1854 'Shilling Cookery for the People'. "Devilled Bones. Take the bones of any remaining joint or poultry, which has still some meat on it, which cut across slightly, and then make a mixture of mustard, salt, cayenne and pepper, and one teaspoon of mushroom ketchup to two of mustard; rub the bones well with this, and broil rather brownish." So definitely different from buffalo wings but it's the same idea and they are both spiced with cayenne pepper, and that's actually why these are called deviled. Back in the episode that I did on deviled eggs I
talked about how in the 18th and 19th century any dish would be called deviled that was "...highly
seasoned with condiments. They are not considered wholesome as a regular diet, but may be partaken of, on occasion, with advantage as well as pleasure." There are old recipes for deviled ham, deviled lobster,
crab, oysters, deviled scallops, deviled tomatoes, and even deviled chestnuts and deviled almonds and of
course many different versions of deviled bones. And frankly I think that is a term that we need to
bring back because how much cooler would it be if when you went to a bar you didn't order a basket of
hot wings and a beer, but a plate of deviled bones in your finest claret. And you got to do it in that voice too which is how I order when I go out to eat which is probably why I'm not welcome in many of the restaurants in my neighborhood. Anyway, while I was trying to recreate this recipe I had
some questions like first why does Alexis Soyer mention mustard twice? My first thought was oh well maybe it was a mistake and that kind of thing did happen in a lot of old recipes. Never would happen in the Tasting History cookbook of course, though maybe don't go looking for mistakes. Also, if you need a signed copy of the Tasting History cookbook I'll put a link down in the description. Now I do not think that that was a mistake though on Alexis Soyer's part because he didn't really make mistakes... No I think it's because he's talking about two different types of mustard. There was powdered mustard which is back there. That big thing of Colman's, that's the type of powdered mustard that they would have been using, and that's because it's mentioned along with
salt and pepper and other powders in the recipe. Then there was made mustard which is what they
often called it and that is mustard that has been made into a sauce. Also Colman's which would have
been available in England at the time, and I think it's this because it is named alongside mushroom ketchup which brings me to mushroom ketchup. Now I have made white ketchup here on the channel so
anyone who watched that episode on the history of ketchup knows that many ketchups throughout history were not made out of tomatoes, and the wonderful channel Townsends has actually done not one but two episodes making mushroom ketchup, but essentially all these different types of sauces
that were called ketchup could be made from walnut ketchup and white ketchup and of course
mushroom ketchup. And this is from 1830 so this would have been available at the time that our deviled bones were being made. Now you'll notice it's much more liquidy than tomato ketchup so you can't just substitute tomato ketchup for this. In fact, if you don't have this, though you can get this online, if you don't have this then you can use Worcestershire sauce. I think that would probably be a closer approximation. Now the last thing about this recipe that if you didn't
know what deviled bones were you might not get from just reading the recipe is that the meat is already cooked. Deviled bones were a way of using up leftovers or pieces of meat that nobody really wanted on the table but it was always precooked, and then the next day you could devil it. And he says that it could be pretty much any joint or piece of meat but in 1896 Fannie Farmer has a recipe for deviled bones that specifically calls for "Drumsticks, second joints, and wings of a cooked chicken." Second joints by the way are another word for chicken thighs because it was often considered indecorous for a lady especially to speak of the thighs and breasts of a chicken so instead they would say second joints and just white meat. So for my deviled bones I am starting with about 2 pounds of chicken wings which I'm going to pat dry so they'll get a crispier skin when baking. Then I'm going to just season with a little salt and pepper because remember these would have been leftovers so they would have been seasoned the day before, and then I'm setting the baking sheet into the oven at 425° F that's 220° C for about 20 minutes, just long enough to enjoy a glass of wine from today's sponsor Bright Cellars. And I know what you're saying, wine with hot wings Max?
You bore. And to that I say fie. If I want wine with hot wings then I will have wine with hot wings. You should never let somebody tell you you must have red with this, or you should only drink white with this. The best wine to drink is the wine that you most enjoy. Then with Bright Cellars I have enjoyed pretty much every wine that they've ever sent me and that is because when you start with Bright Cellars they give you this simple 7 question quiz that lets them know your taste preferences so they can curate boxes specifically for you. Like let's try this Orlán Cellars Garnacha from Spain. This is probably not going to be a sipping anytime wine but something that would really work with food but let's give it taste. Actually I would just sip that, it is a little dry but it like really hits you in the mouth, that's nice. So to give Bright Cellars a try either for yourself or as a wonderful Valentine's Day gift for the wine lover in your life just click my link in the description and you'll get your first 6 bottle subscription box usually $150 plus for just $55. Just click the link in the description, take the
quiz and get started today. Now while we have our wine paired for our chicken wings we should get back to actually making them. So you want to make sure that the wings get baked to 165° temperature inside of the meat, and then take them out and let them cool completely. Again, these are supposed to be leftovers so you can you can put them in the fridge for the day and take them out tomorrow. Either way while they cool down we need to prep the devil of these deviled bones and for that I'm going to use 1 teaspoon of salt a 1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard, 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne, 1 teaspoon of pepper, 1 teaspoon of mushroom ketchup, and 2 teaspoons of mustard. Now he actually doesn't give quantities
for anything except for the mustard and the ketchup though without other quantities like how
much meat you're using those are are pretty useless, so you can play with those however you want, if you want more spice add a little more cayenne in there. 1/4 teaspoon is actually going to do quite a bit so I wouldn't go more than a half. Then whisk together the dry ingredients in a bowl, add in the mushroom ketchup, and the mustard and mix everything together until well combined. Then you're going to take out your cooked chicken, make a couple slices into the meat, then toss them in a bowl and add in the sauce, tossing them around until well coated. Then set these on a clean baking sheet preferably with a rack to hold them up and make sure that they are evenly laid out. Then set them on the upper middle rack of your oven with the broiler on high and broil for 2 to 3 minutes keeping a close eye on them, you don't want them to burn. Now this process is quite a bit different from most modern buffalo or hot wings, and so I ask how did we get from this? To this? So the invention of the hot wing has been hotly contested and I think it all comes down to what do you consider a hot wing because by most definitions these deviled bones
they are hot wings but they are not anything like what you'd get if you went to a Buffalo Wild Wings and ordered hot wings, but what they do have in common is not only are they spicy but also they were created as a way to use up leftovers or pieces of meat that nobody else really wanted. For most of history the chicken wing has been considered one of the least choice pieces from the bird, and that's partly because there isn't much meat on them, they're mostly just bones with a little bit of meat and so not perfect for eating but perfect for making stock, and in a time when soup was a part of nearly every meal every day a lot of chicken wings got used up. And should there be extra chicken wings hanging around after the making of stock well those would be sold off to less fortunate households. It's why today's recipe comes from a book specifically written for those looking to save their pennies or shillings. Of course this is a blanket statement and there
were absolutely times that you would find chicken wings on the tables of even the most well heeled,
even in Buffalo New York. Going all the way back to 1857 there is a menu from the Clarendon Hotel
in Buffalo and establishment of the first class showing that among macaroni and cheese, and lamb
chops guests could expect chicken wings fried. Now there's no reason to think that these wings
were deviled or spiced in any way but at least we can see that going all the way back to the mid 19th century Buffalo New York had a relationship with chicken wings. But it was over a century later that we see an evolution in the life of the chicken wing and that started with John Young. Now Young grew up in Stockton Alabama and there he recalled never seeing chicken breast
or thigh on his plate because he came from a poor family, so it was a good day when they could even afford some chicken wings and when they did they usually fried them so it's no wonder that when he finally moved to Buffalo New York and opened a restaurant in 1961 these fried chicken wings were on the menu. And they were so popular that a few years later he opened a second restaurant in 1966 called Wings and Things, and "The day we opened, people fell out of the sky. I was selling ten wings, whole, for a $1 then, and people were lined up around the corner like they were going to a rummage sale." And what made these wings so popular was his Mumbo sauce, or Mambo sauce, there are different spellings. Now he did not create the original Mumbo sauce, that was created back in 1950 when Argia B. Collins invented the the sauce for his barbecue restaurant on Chicago South Side. And that likely inspired a Mambo sauce at a restaurant in DC in the early 60s also called Wings and Things and you could find by the early 60s Mambo or Mumbo sauce at at markets all over especially in the American South but when it comes to Buffalo New York it seems John Young was the first to sauce his wings. What's cool is that you can actually still get the sauce today. The restaurant has been closed since 1967 when John left during or right after the race riots in Buffalo but they still make the sauce and I'm going to taste it. It's delicious, it is a tomato based sauce. This
is exactly what I like on chicken because it's not super spicy. There is a hint of spice at the end but it's really more of a sweet sauce. It's closer to a barbecue than than say a modern buffalo sauce. Also, I'll put a link in the description to where you can actually get this online if you like kind of a sweet and tangy sauce, it's definitely worth trying. And it earned John Young the nickname the King of Wings. But if John Young's wings weren't all that spicy then when did the spiciness come to the buffalo chicken wing? Well by most accounts it was 1964 at Anchor Bar. Now last month I covered the history of potato chips and in it I talk about the supposed invention of potato chips in a
place in Upstate New York, and the story had a lot of holes in it, this is not too dissimilar. See the Anchor Bar was owned by Frank and Teressa Bellisimo, and they are credited with creating
the the buffalo wing as it is known today. The only problem is that there are three different stories:
there's Frank's story, there's Teressa's story, and there's son Dominic's story and they're all kind of different. In Teressa's story it took place specifically on March 4th 1964. Her son Dominic was tending bar and all of his friends came in late one night. Well he's like hey ma make
us something to eat and she was preparing stock using chicken wings for the soup the next day so
she was like well I got these out so how about I just deep fry them and then top them with with some Frank's Red Hot mixed with melted butter and that was the first buffalo sauce according to the story. But her son Dominic had an entirely different story because he said that it took place on a Friday, and March 4th was a Wednesday in 1964 so there's your first discrepancy but he says that it was because they catered to a largely Catholic clientele and in 1964 Catholics did not eat meat on Fridays especially it would have been Lent, especially during Lent no meat on Fridays, but as the clock neared midnight they were gearing up to have some meat, and so his mom went back and made these wings as kind of a reward for staying away from meat all that Friday. The third story comes from Teressa's husband Frank who says that the whole thing happened because of a wrong delivery of chicken. He had ordered breasts and thighs for their usual menu but when they got delivered it was a box of chicken wings. Maybe they were chicken wings meant for John Young's Restaurant which was pretty much just down the street. Could it be sabotage?! No, there's no reason to think that it could but he did get a bunch of wings and so he had his wife Teressa make those instead and that's how she created the buffalo wing. Again, three totally different versions of this story though the restaurant Anchor Bar today does go with Teressa's version
which seems only fitting seeing as in all three versions she is credited with actually creating the wing. Though with with all three stories they didn't start telling them until the 1970s or even 1980 in Frank's case but they all say that the wings were a huge hit right off the bat in 1964. Though in 1969 when there was a write up on the restaurant they didn't mention chicken wings whatsoever. And when someone did finally write about the wings they said that they were baked in an oven and not fried, so again a lot of holes. What is pretty clear is that even though Anchor
Bar was not the first place to serve hot wings or wings with sauce or anything like that they are the ones who popularize the buffalo flavor and the method that they are typically served as today and that is instead of a whole wing they are cut up into the wingette, the drumette and then the tip is just tossed away, maybe used to make some more stock. And they're typically served with celery and blue cheese, that's how they were served at the original restaurant. And that's how you'll find them served today at pretty much any place that serves them like Buffalo Wild Wings which wasn't actually founded in Buffalo but in Cleveland Ohio. It was 1982 and the restaurant was originally called Buffalo Wild Wings and Weck, sometimes BW3. Weck was a sandwich also popular in Buffalo called a beef on weck. Weck is short for kummelweck which is a take on a kaiser roll topped with salt and caraway seeds. Today chicken wings are associated with the buffalo sauce that was first made at Anchor Bar, and in 1977 when the mayor of Buffalo Stan Makowski proclaimed July 29th National Chicken Wing Day there's seems to be the only contribution that he mentioned even though only a decade before in his city the king of wings John Young was selling chicken wings up the wazoo. So the fact that he didn't mention John Young makes it no big surprise that to the best of my knowledge he also didn't mention deviled bones so that's why most people today think that they were invented in 1964. Even Google thinks that but now that you know that it all started with deviled bones, or maybe something even before that in all likelihood, we can get back to making our deviled bones. So once your chicken is nice and brown take it out and they are ready to eat. Now this is exactly how they would be eaten according to Alexis Soyer's recipe but Fannie Farmer did have some melted butter that she put on top on top to give them a nice sheen so if you want a nice sheen just a little melted butter will go a long way. And here we are, deviled bones the hot wings of the 19th century. Here we go. So I- you know I left the wing as a whole. If you if you wanted to chop it up you would do it before baking, but it would be chopped here and chopped here you
toss the the little wing tip and then you've got the drumette and the wingette but I left them whole and I'm going to taste it. Here we go. Hmm. Hm okay there's a bit of heat there. Not bad, good heat. So I'm not a huge spicy fan, this one actually the the spice isn't there at the beginning, it comes later on and now it is there in the back of my throat but that's the cayenne. Now I was worried that these were going to be way overpowered with mustard flavored because there is a lot of mustard in t but it's not. I mean you can you can taste the mustard and you can really smell the mustard but the flavor is is much more complex than that and you do get that Cayenne in there and then you get- I don't know some other flavors.
The thing is- the mushroom ketchup the flavor that it's going to impart is just kind of this
complex salty, umami flavor that you can't pick out when it's mixed with other things and cooked. Wow! There is- okay there is heat. Stick with a 1/4 teaspoon [of cayenne], but it's there and it and it adds a layer of complexity to the flavor. So maybe they'll add this flavor to the Buffalo Wild Wings menu, probably not, but it is a good flavor and you could put this on anything and it's super easy to make and you should make it. Anyway if I'm ever on that wonderful show Hot Ones I'm going to bring these and see if this is probably like the one on the list, I don't think I could make it past like two or three, but I'm going to bring it and and add some add some history to that show. So deviled bones, start ordering deviled bones
and when the server says what's that, look at them like like you should know what
deviled bones are, cus obviously they dont watch the show. All right I'm going to finish these, and I'll see you next time on Tasting History.
