Food trivia is fun. I love the surprises it holds. 

In the 1970s, German chocolate cake was popular amongst my circle of friends. Everyone thought that it originated in Germany, but the recipe apparently originated in Texas in the 1950s. The original name was German’s Sweet Chocolate cake because it was made with Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate, a brand name for a particular baking chocolate that is now produced by Kraft Foods. Baker and German were originally the names of men associated with the chocolate.

The recipe for Steak Diane has many supposed origins. It certainly became popular in the post-war period at restaurants where table-side cooking was the rage. I was served a nice rendition of it in the 1980s. For many home cooks, their first exposure to the recipe came when they purchased a Sunbeam electric frying pan in the 1950s. Using the appliance at the table, the modern housewife could quickly prepare the Sunbeam version of steak Diane, and thoroughly impress family and friends. (Today, Sunbeam’s recipe for steak Diane posted on their website, is prepared with a slow cooker.)

Another popular dish, who’s origins are sometimes confused, is buffalo wings. Officially called Buffalo chicken wings, it is generally conceded that they originated on October 30, 1964, at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York. The original recipe of chicken wings—deep fried, coated with a sauce of margarine and red-pepper sauce, and served with blue-cheese dressing—has been modified, gentrified, Anglicized, and otherwise changed to the point that the relationship to the original recipe is murky. Restaurants  refer to them with many variations of the original name. I was confused about them for many years because I always heard them referred to as buffalo wings, which didn’t match my knowledge of the animal’s anatomy.

It wasn’t until 2010 that I actually sat down and had a meal of Buffalo chicken wings. It occurred at Duff’s Famous Wings on College in Toronto. I had an order of 10 wings at the medium-hot level. Conclusion, too-much work to eat for too-little flavor (other than hot).

My less-than-great experience didn’t stop me from thinking about Buffalo chicken wings when I found myself one day with a handful of chicken wing “drums.” This is the part of the chicken wing between the shoulder and the elbow. The challenge: How to make Buffalo chicken wings that require no work, other than chewing, to eat and that maximize the flavor of the chicken. I decided that the humerus bone had to go, the coating had to be spicy without driving people to their knees in pain, and the dipping sauce had to balance the other flavors.