Pilgrim on the Path of Super Bowl-Appropriate Food

Super Bowl Sunday was Cathy, Colin, Spot and me with a meter of fresh snow on the ground. Impossible to get to a grocery store (Barefoot Boy wasn’t plowed out until late on Monday, see http://docviper.livejournal.com/ for THAT story), but Cathy planned ahead and had food in the house.

I’ve been to Indianapolis a few times. Cathy and I passed through on our way to one of the Ecological Society of America meetings out west. We ate hardcore Italian American pasta at a quasi-chain place in a shopping mall. I was there on business once and we ate...uh...hardcore Italian American pasta at another quasi-chain place in a shopping mall. 

OK, clearly I’m gonna need more guidance regarding the indigenous culinary habits of Indianapolites. A browser search will get the deal done. So I pop onto the web. Which reports that the favorite Super Bowl foods in Indianapolis are fried chicken and take-out pizza. 

And that’s pretty much it. Apparently there are no indigenous foods in Indianapolis. We’re gonna have to go with a New Orleans theme.

No bell peppers, so characteristic of NO cookery, but I’m thinking that Cajun food, at least, probably originated in poverty and has a whatever’s-on-hand-at-the-time aspect that makes it perfect for a snow day. So I dice an onion and some celery and get it sizzling in olive oil. 

Ingredients for fake New Orleans

style cooking for Super Bowl

Sunday.

Here’s the base warming up.

And the spice mix that went into it.

Cumin, coriander, salt, black pepper,

basil, oregano, fresh thyme, garlic, and a 

scoop of aromatic Egyptian harissa

made with hot peppers and more garlic.

A can of diced tomatoes and some chicken

broth to get a start on a sauce. You can tell

it’s not ready because of the deep pools of 

liquid.

Now it’s getting close to ready. See how it’s

reduced and thickened?

Dice in some ham and chicken. Sprinkle 

the whole thing with decent-quality

commercial grade balsamic vinegar. This

adds a really flavor-pumping fillip. 

Now that I think about it, I’m not sure what a “fillip” is or why I tried to use it in that sentence. Let’s grab the reliable, if embarrassingly clunky, hard copy 1992 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Fillip: “1. A snap or light blow made by pressing a fingertip against the thumb and suddenly releasing it. 2. A slight goad or incentive; a small stimulus.” Definition number two looks like ours. Let’s rock with it. 

Here’s the final product, a nifty

ham and chicken creole, spicy

and warming for a snowy night.

And the rice to serve it on is right

out of this box.

Hopefully next year the Super Bowl will involve two teams from neighborhoods with some sort of credible indigenous food. Either that, or I gotta find a way to spice up some fried chicken and take out pizza... .