Friday, January 30, 2009

!!!Foodie Feature!!!

It's that time again!!! Another !!!Foodie Feature!!! from our very own Jolly Green Giant...

Tailgate Wars

With the Super Bowl taking place this weekend I wanted to touch on one of the great joys of my life, tailgating. Tailgating has come to mean so much to me. It is an art, it is a sport and for many it is the stuff legends are made of.

I truly discovered what tailgating was about at a Dave Matthews Concert in the summer of 2001, but our story beings in the 80s. My first ever professional sports event was probably a soccer match in Colombia, but in the States it was for a baseball contest that pitted the Mets of New York versus the Expos of Montreal. I’m pretty sure my mom’s coworker offered me the ticket since she was taking her young son. I was very excited. We were going to take the bus to Main Street and then taking the 7 train to Shea Stadium. My mother being the kind lady she is, packed me a whole arepa and off I was to the game. I point to this event as my first experience in tailgating.

Now many tailgating- orthodox members will say that this does not qualify as “tailgating”. They believe that tailgating can only occur outside of said event. Well I’m here to offer my perspective on this rule. Yes, I came to love tailgating based on the events at that DMB concert at Giants Stadium. We drove in my dad’s Honda Odyssey Mini-van and set up shop in the parking lot. We were minors with a case of beer and I’d say roughly 300 cups. The beer quickly started disappearing and our friend that was bringing a few more cases was still far away. We quickly found that many other minors were drinking but had failed to bring cups. Or some others needed them to play beer pong. Well, guess who had lots of cups to barter away. In exchange we received alcohol and several other questionable items. I was in love. Tailgating would forever be my mistress.

Since then food has become an important process (not as important as alcohol). Hamburgers and hot dogs have evolved to chili and chicken wings. We’ve done the breakfast tailgate, pancakes, scrambled eggs and a Miller Lite. Chips and pretzels you say, well how about some pepperoni, cheese and crackers (check the bottom center). And once we even had a fruit platter (yes that was from Giants vs Cowboys last year). Games can be played, whether drinking ones, tossing the football or using your friend’s golf clubs to practice your putting game (yes that also happened).

So what do I consider tailgating? Any social gathering prior to going to an event, including stadium parking lots, hotel parking lots (took a cab to the concert), hotel rooms, bars (“Take the train to the game”) (and also outside of MSG), apartments (pre-gaming is a form of tailgating) and yes even little innocent me taking the bus with arepa in hand was tailgating. I have tons of respect for the guys with an RV that has satellite television and cook a turkey for the game, but us city folk cannot be discounted just because we prefer to drink at a bar that has happy hour specials (and the best buffalo chicken wrap) and then hop on the train. No, we should all be treated equally.

As we all prepare our Super Bowl dishes, please remember there are a couple of guys that will be shot-gunning some beers in their hotel rooms and then walking over to the game. And at this time of the year, they should not be forgotten.

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