Eating with the Saints this Sunday
By Mary Brown Malouf
02/05/10 - 10:42 AM
I've written approximately nine million articles about Great Ideas for Super Bowl Food. (And every year I have to check and see if Superbowl is one word or two. It's two.) How a sports event came to be a national culinary obsession mystifies me and I basically still think it's bogus. Come on—football is about chips, it's about dips, it's about beer, more beer and too much beer.
But every year, food editors across the nation force their writers to come up with a Super Bowl menu. This year's Super Bowl food stories range from winning a Bacon Explosion delivered to your door to the NY Daily News's claim that vegetables are the most popular food served on Super Bowl Sunday. (There's always that reality gap between food served and food eaten.)
This year, for the first time ever, there actually is a culinary angle to the Big Game. Because any time Louisiana is part of anything, there's a culinary angle. This is a culture that's always going to care more about how your roux turned out than how the score turned out.
So it doesn't matter whether you're rooting for the Saints or the Colts, you'll be better off eating on the side of the Saints. (Try Googling Indiana food—you come up with breaded pork tenderloins, biscuits with apple butter and popcorn. That's pretty slim pickins.)
It's too bad Richard Collins had to miss the occasion.
The controversial author of "The New Orleans Underground Gourmet " (controversial because Collins was not a native Orleanian) died just a few weeks ago. He and his wife wrote my favorite, and I think, still the best, New Orleans Cookbook, in 1975, way before the Cajun/Creole craze. Go buy a copy and cook from it this weekend.
I suggest Chicken and Sausage Gumbo or Chicken Maquechoux. Yes, everyone will be a winner. That's what happens when you eat well.
Go Saints.
About This Blog
A lack of serious ambition, a love of cooking and a degree in Latin naturally led to a career in food writing for Mary Brown Malouf.
Her 25 years of experience has included stints as executive editor of D magazine in Dallas, Texas; executive editor at wine.com in Napa, California; and restaurant critic for The Salt Lake Tribune.
Now, she’s the dining editor for Salt Lake magazine, where she writes about the food scene in Salt Lake City and beyond. Check in regularly for the latest restaurant news, great products from local purveyors, and conversation about all things gustatory.
If you have news, tips or other information about the dining scene you'd like to share, email Mary.
Recent Posts
Archives
Feed
Subscribe to the On the Table Feed ยป
Advertisement
Email
Print
