Cooking the "Big Game" right

This could quite easily only be sequestered to writing about party food for that forty-year plus famous secular day where Americans gather and watch two teams that have reached the pinnacle of the mountaintop for the National Football League Super Bowl. If you are not from America, or still enjoy sport but would rather skip this day, millions join you in a chorus of “what about Rubgy? Soccer? Baseball? Cricket?” Naw, screw cricket – all the time I spent living overseas and still not one foreigner could explain this elderly version of what became a superior family descendant in baseball. Pitchers and catchers report in less than a month and I imagine this year, though my Chicago Cubs and the White Sox will have rebuilding years (aka – free ticket to laugh at us) I will still write about the great American pastime. For now, off to the gridiron game that dominates the airwaves in-between gluttonous capitalism in thirty second flashes of egotistical commercial exposure. I heard there was a Ferris Bueller commercial this year? Is it only me or do you also feel that since John Hughes died, that none of his former 80’s creations (Ferris) should not be touched? The 80’s is not a sentimental time for me – John Hughes and his make-believe kids in the Northbrook by another name Shermerville is for me as for millions of other kids raised in that ‘me decade.’

What consists of “Big Game” food? Over the years I have traveled to see at least a handful of college football tailgate parties to schools where the fans would fight and die for the school like for a Lord or Duke of the Medieval era. The average food critic has come to pass off tailgates as parades comprised of fat-asses with a desire only for piss beer and whatever they can shove into their gullet. As the years have gone by and portable cookers and smokers have become cheaper, tailgates and Super Bowl parties have been taken a notch or two up. A few years back in at University of Illinois football game I was privy, with a friend of mine at that time, to being handed a bowl of savory white bean chili from a man who dressed like Chief Illiniwek. In Madison a few years before that, a friend of a friend with the red and white war paint of the Badgers shared with me a kick-ass venison sausage along with beer brats soaked in Wisconsin only New Glarus ale, topped with his homemade pickled onions and a house made spicy brown mustard. The key, like these examples, for any tailgate or super bowl party is what I have learned from any Italian cook, professional or Amateur – ingredients, ingredients, ingredients!

So let’s say you’re one of those people that say “I’m not going to put that much time into something that so small and trivial.” See, if you simply buy fresh, well prepared ingredients and you put a little effort into your dish, you’ll even notice the difference in quality. True, I am not a fan of the over-sized zip lock bags of re-heated Velveeta cheese that in my mind more resembles the bags of fat Tyler Durden snatches from the liposuction clinic in Fight Club. Why not replace the yellow lava with a few shredded cheeses (Aged cheddar, Gouda, mozzarella) that when mixed in a pan with milk, flour and a little salt until they congeal? You could also take time (like a friend of mine does at these get-togethers) to slow roast pulled pork in a crock pot for God’s sake, silently cheering yourself with a bit of your creation while others scream at the television on Super Sunday. The motto forever in cooking is to be imaginative for you are gracing yourself with an art form that so many, like in music and film, are simply hacking apart for brief gross satisfaction and revenues that make us shake our heads.

This morning I am about to make a Cajun corn hash. Odd choice for the game party, sure – I could have just made my standby guacamole with a roasted bulb of smashed garlic and chopped Serrano chilies. I had recently seen an episode of No Reservations where Anthony Bourdain journeys to Cajun country around Louisiana. When he wasn’t sweating to death, shooting a pig for the feast or dining on what he called “one of the best meals of my life with this crawfish bowl” he and his crew let us take a peek into the back country creations. One meal was the Cajun corn hash. You’re going to need the following.

-Corn (either in kernels, unfrozen or sliced off of the cob).

-Chopped bell peppers (toss in a variety of color to counter the yellow corn)

-Serrano peppers or dashes of cayenne pepper. (I went with only the cayenne since I don’t want to smoke out the people sampling).

-Tasso ham or cooked and chopped bacon.

-Salt, pepper and butter up as you cook in a crock or heavy pot, stirring up the cooked, sticky bits from the bottom. Repeat again and again – that’s the Cajun way. 

Though the dish may not be remarkable, the Cajun corn hash is a food that is representative of wonderful microcosm of American cultural flavors. If you prefer chips and dip, or a simple warm-your-belly chili on game day, at least take a few extra minutes to be that creative person, making sure those flavors marry up in the pan or grill to complement each other. Enjoy the game.  I gotta go with the NY Giants 27-23 over New England.