By Jim Nolan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wbfo/local-wbfo-730718.mp3
New York City, NY – Today barbequing has become a game of one-upmanship. You can spend thousands of dollars for some stainless steel behemoth with acres of grilling surface and built-in bun warmers. Sorry folks, our parents had us beat, with a grill that went for about $75 bucks in 1959. Because the barbeque they had was made in Buffalo by Buffalo Forge, and it had a one-of-a-kind hand-cranked blower built right into it.
As described to me by an expert, "air would move from the blower as you turned the handle, down a tube, through a venturi, and under the coals, providing a small version of a Bethlehem Steel blast furnace."
So I took out a classified ad in search of one of these classic grills for myself, and found something even better a Buffalo Forge grill aficionado, Matt Georger. Matt owns the coolest grill in Buffalo, and thus, the world. Because Matt, and he will freely admit this, garbage-picked the 34-pound object of our admiration on Meadow Avenue this February, and then completely refurbished it
"We got rid of the carbon steel pan which would only last for a few years and replaced it with stainless steel, with a Type 304 stainless with a finish on it so that when it was all said and done we would have a nice shiny Buffalo Forge Grill," Georger said. "We painted it the original colors, sort of a lime or Olive green, kind of matches your lawn on a sunny day."
The only downside to Matt's upgrade is that, refurbished, it's going to lose a lot of its value on "The Antiques Roadshow," while the untouched original I locate will fund my great-grandchildren's hydrogen-powered Ferraris.
"Buffalo Forge actually had produced the blowers for years and years before they applied it in their charcoal grills," Georger said. "Those blowers were used in high rise construction for cooking rivets. Then they took it, this blower, and said well if we can use this for making small fires on the top of 30- and 40-story buildings we can certainly use this for starting fires for charcoal grills. They didn't make em with the idea that they were going to be a successful product for retail. They actually started making these grills so that they could take them out as sales incentives to some of their industrial accounts. And they would send the salesman out with a Buffalo Forge grill tucked under his arm, let the buyer take that home, and that usually was a deal-clincher."
Matt told me that the grills started out as a project to keep people employed in their factory after the war, and they were cranked out by the thousands. They stoked the fires of our barbeques and our economy. Today they stoke a lot of happy memories--and for Matt, with his souped-up, stainless steel, frame-off restoration a lot of medium-rare steaks.
Listener-Commentator Jim Nolan is a New York City advertising executive who listens to us online.
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