BY KEVIN PURDY
Drew Cerza isn’t afraid to spice up his chicken wings, or the 5-year-old festival he started to celebrate them.
That’s why he’s more than eager to announce that this weekend’s National Buffalo Wing Festival will feature a wedding alongside the speed-eating contests, Miss Buffalo Wing pageant and other quirky fare that have become staples of what Cerza now calls the nation’s chicken wing trade show.
The event will also feature the first inductions into the Chicken Wing Hall of Fame, an idea Cerza hopes to build into a real institution in a few years.
The nuptials amidst the noshing are scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday, while the festival itself runs from noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday at Dunn Tire Park in Buffalo.
To explain how one builds a “hall of fame” around a piece of poultry, and how weddings and wings end up sharing the same space, Cerza took time last week to answer a few questions.
QUESTION: What kind of exhibits, besides maybe the original deep fat fryer at the Anchor Bar, go into a Chicken Wing Hall of Fame?
ANSWER: It’s true, there’s a lot of thinking that has to go into this. I’ve been wanting to do this for the last few years, but I want to do the right thing, I don’t want to just get it done. It’s going to be house temporarily at Pettibones Grille (at Dunn Tire Park in Buffalo). Long term, I’m looking at having a restaurant connected with it, making it a real destination for chicken wing fans.
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QUESTION: Have you gotten any interesting submissions for the hall so far at your Web site (buffalowing.com)?
ANSWER: I wouldn’t say we’ve gotten a ton of “interesting” ones, but good ones. You can tell there are a lot of people who are very proud of their neighborhood wing place, and, of course, a lot of people have sent in Frank and Teressa (Bellissimo, founders of the Anchor Bar). We’re looking for the companies, the people or the products that have taken what used to be a throw-away item in the kitchen into what I think is the premiere food item in the country.
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QUESTION: You’ve announced that an undisclosed couple plans to be married at this year’s festival. Can you give us any hint as to why a woman would forgo a church and procession for hot sauce and bleu cheese?
ANSWER: Well, it’s actually second marriages for both. It’s been a tradition for them, going to the wing festival every year, and I think their first date was the wing festival. The wife’s family makes it the festival every year ... they’re going to surprise their whole family.
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QUESTION: What are the most common questions you get from outside media when they’re doing features on wings or the Wing Festival?
ANSWER: It’s usually tied to how big chicken wings are, and the fact that they’re called Buffalo wings — “Is that why the festival is in Buffalo?” “Why did you do it?” is the other big one. I say, you’ve got asparagus festivals, you have cottage cheese festivals, the Gilroy Garlic Festival ... Nobody took ownership of the wing, and that’s what we did with the festival five years ago ... We also tried to make it the annual trade show of the chicken wing industry, which is no small business.
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QUESTION: What are some of the more unusual flavors vendors bring to the festival? Do they sell well, or do they make for odd talking points?
ANSWER: There’s a lot of hot, spicy stuff. Wingstop uses a habanero pepper on one wing. If you can eat three, you get a free T-shirt. (Laughs) You see people wandering around aimlessly after that, looking for a bottle of water ...
Garlic parmesan does well, and there was a chocolate wing one year that, believe it or not, was tasty. Guacamole took some people by surprise, as well.
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QUESTION: I just had lunch, but now I’m really hungry again. On that note, do you have any tips for people on how to pace themselves, how to enjoy the food without the deep remorse afterwards?
ANSWER: The national chicken wing festival — you need to train for it, you don’t just go. It’s not different than running a marathon. You pace yourself. You mark Aug. 1 on the calendar when you get it, and the first week of August, you eat a single serving of wings. The second week, you eat two servings ... by the fourth week, you’ve built yourself up to four, you’re ready for this ...
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QUESTION: What you’ve just said would make a nutritionist cry. Literally, I mean, cry.
ANSWER: That’s why we have a run tied into the festival. It’s a .5 K, it’s for the motivationally challenged. With any kind of training, you have to start somewhere, and so we try to get people running a bit, get them started. You can apply the same kind of motivation from chicken wing eating to exercise, if you work at it.
Contact Kevin Purdy at 693-1000, Ext. 107
