Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Mexican Restaurant Menu Buffalo Wings


The family who ran "Paco's Tacos" came from Buffalo, New York and they had been in the restaurant business there. In Cambridge, they brought their favorite regional barroom snack to their Mexican restaurant, namely what is now called "Buffalo Wings," or fried chicken wings coated in a spicy red sauce and served with celery and blue cheese. In those days, this culinary concoction was unknown outside of Buffalo. At Paco's Tacos, the chicken wings were in big bags in the freezer and you would take an order, go directly from the freezer to the deep-fry oil well and fry'em till they were done, then coat 'em with the sauce. I didn't eat very many because I found them greasy, stringy, and in general unrewarding. I liked the blue cheese and the celery, though. I didn't have to do any food preparation anyway, I was busy at the counter, pointing to my artistic menus for the lunch and dinner specials and counting out the change.

This Dinner Special shows my use of Mexican and Mayan folk motifs, which I would use on many of the signs. Back then you could get a lot of pub grub for $4.50. I gave titles to each sign I did, and this one was called "Sundog," because of the stylized and decorated Mexican dog depicted there.

"Sundog" was markers on poster board, 21" x 13", winter 1979.

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