It's Wing Time!

Why is the buffalo wing the unofficial food of the Super Bowl? What is it about that messy little bugger that will have Americans eat an estimated 1.23 billion wings this weekend?

The generally accepted “inventor” of the chicken wing as we know is Teressa Bellissimo at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. Apparently she had a hungry son and his friends hanging around the bar late one night, so she dropped the wings in a fryer, then rolled them in hot sauce. This was in 1964, making hot wings only a few years older than the Super Bowl.

Word of the wings spread, and other bars and restaurants started serving the disjointed wings smothered in hot sauce. By 1975, the first wing chain, Wings N’ Curls, had opened in Florida. Buffalo Wild Wings opened its doors in 1982 and Hooters opened in 1983. Unlike the original Buffalo wings, these establishments offer mild, sweet, garlicky and all other varieties of wing sauce. True wing aficionados will tell you they’re not authentic, but we all know how protective New Yorkers are of their culinary traditions. Buffalo wings really hit the American radar in the early 1990s when Domino’s and McDonald’s both added wings to their menus.

So how did we come to associate the wing with the game, and vice versa? The solution is probably as simple as the fact that the Buffalo Bills got on a hot streak and went to four Super Bowls in the early 90s. If you’ve ever watched the pre-game shows, you know that the stations devote a lot of time to “getting to know” the cities the teams came from. Four years of media coverage of Buffalo and the producers were bound to come across this local specialty sooner or later. Domino’s probably also had something to do with it. You can figure that it was really easy to add an order of wings to the pizza football fans were already ordering.

I won’t be eating hot wings for this year’s Super Bowl, or any other one. My tastebuds can’t handle the heat. I really like BWW honey bbq or parmesan garlic sauce.

Recommendations from locals for the real stuff: Duff’s Wings in Amherst, NY

Make your own: Deep fry 2.5 lbs chicken wings for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with 1 tbs salt and 1 tsp pepper. Toss with 3/4 cups Frank’s REDHOT Buffalo Wings Sauce.

(from http://www.franksredhot.com/recipes/kickin-bbq-chicken-wings-RE1889)

Television's Adoption Problem

Last night on 30 Rock we saw newlywed Liz Lemon determine she was willing to adopt an older child instead of waiting for a baby (and curiously, we saw her discuss this with everyone except her husband). Earlier this season, we saw the forceful Julia Braverman and husband Joel come to the decision that they were willing to adopt an older boy after the newborn they invested in fell through last season. Are we seeing a trend that will call attention to older child adoption?

According to the 2007 National Study of Adoptive Parents, 94% of all adopted children were adopted before the child was 11 years old. That includes private and international adoptions. The number is still a staggering 90% for children adopted out of the foster system. And 70% of children adopted out of the foster system were 5 or younger. The Administration for Children and Families (AFCAR) estimates that there were 132,000 children in the foster system waiting to be adopted in 2007 and 52,000 adoptions. Granted, 70% percent of the children waiting to be adopted are 5 years or younger, but 20,000 teenagers still age out of the foster system each year.

There are numerous and valid reasons why someone would choose not to adopt an older child, and that is not something I want to dwell on. I watch Julia and Victor on Parenthood and think “Wow, that would be really hard. And why doesn’t overprotective, overreacting, overstressed Julia have that whole family meeting with some sort of counselor during the transition? Come on writers, know your characters better!” Growing up, at least in my experience on television, babies were adopted and older kids without parents caused trouble. I’d see young adults on my mother’s soap operas that find out they were adopted in some over the top crisis moment. I’d see the young couple on Judging Amy be in the delivery room for the birth of their child. But as for kids that could walk and talk, they were just sort of stuck in a group home (unless they could miraculously help Danny Glover’s Angels win the pennant). Sure, you’d see the storyline where someone stumbles upon a high school student living in a car, and some young adult takes him or her in, à la Brooke Davis on One Tree Hill. You’ll note though, that when it came time to actually adopt children for her family, she chose to go the newborn route.

Anyone that chooses to adopt a child and give that child a nurturing, loving home is a saint. Let me just say that. However, I am glad to see that Hollywood is turning to a less cliché adoption story and will maybe encourage people to think about adopting older children. I know that 30 Rock only has four episodes left, so whatever they do with that storyline will in no way resemble an actual adoption process, but I’m glad they’re going to tackle it. Maybe in a few years we’ll have television characters adopting special needs kids too.

Monopoly

I read on the Washington Post today that Hasbro is hosting an online vote to determine which classic token will be discontinued in the game and what lucky token will replace it. It looks like voters have to log-in to Facebook to actually vote. The campaign has taken over the Monopoly Facebook page, with propaganda and debates covering the timeline.

I don't think I like this marketing gimmick. Maybe I'm still burned out from the eternal 2012 election season and this is too reminiscent. Maybe I just don't have fond memories of playing Monopoly. It's true; I don't know if I've ever finished a game of Monopoly. I remember that we had Star Wars Monopoly, but like most old board games, my brothers and I had more fun creating imaginary worlds using the tokens. We could play the same sorts of games as with Barbie dolls, only without the stigma. In truth, I couldn't have told you what the Monopoly tokens were until today. Glancing over the Facebook page, however, I see that people are strongly attached to "their" token.

These irrational attachments have become a basis for countless marketing campaigns, mainly to direct traffic online. I've seen it in other areas too, such as the Capital One Mascot Challenge. These are advertising campaigns that seem more intent on driving online traffic than actually selling something. Anything that gets your name out there is good (in advertising), but I do wonder why they do them. Does Hasbro think that someone will become so distraught that the Iron is discontinued that they will go out and buy multiple games? Board games have the unusual disadvantage that the biggest fans will probably still only buy the game once. A family of five only needs one Monopoly in the house, unless they manage to lose all the pieces.  So I guess this campaign is a strike to keep Monopoly relevant.

And maybe that's what bothers me about this form of marketing campaign. It doesn't seem relevant. There is no room for nostalgia in this day and age, because nothing ever disappears. People that like Monopoly can always find Monopoly online. I guess it seems like Hasbro (not even Parker Brothers) is trying to force nostalgia.