I spoke with Ivano Toscani, owner of the Anchor Bar, a few weeks ago, when we were filming in Buffalo. I asked him something that always puzzled me about the Buffalo wing's founding legend (Italian woman, Theresa Bellissimo, goes into kitchen to cook snack for son, finds wings, blue-cheese dressing, and cayenne-pepper sauce on hand...et voila).
"What was cayenne-pepper sauce doing in an Italian kicthen?" I said.
Ivano was silent.
"Sicilians," he said, finally. "They were from Sicily. Sicilians like spicy food. That's why they had hot sauce in their kitchen."
If Theresa Bellissimo had been from northern Italy, upstate New Yorkers might eat wings with marinara sauce (you can see me saying this in our trailer. And see Ivano talking about Sicilian traditions: "a little bit a wine...a little spicy...")
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