A Few Thoughts on Football

The state where I grew up is a football powerhouse. Great high school teams, great college teams and a great professional team. People love football in Pennsylvania. It is truly the regional pastime. The state where my husband grew up is also a football powerhouse. Great high school teams, great college teams and a great professional team. People love football in Texas. It is truly the regional pastime.

In my case, I loved a football loving Texan, and I pretended to love football the way he pretended to love contemporary art. Once our courtship became a legal transaction, pretenses dropped and indifference settled. Truthfully, as someone who is T.V. free, rarely listens to the radio, and never peruses the sports pages online or in print, I would not even know that it was football season if it wasn’t for Facebook and innumerable posts about the Pittsburgh Steelers. (Many funny posts about dead Ravens and crashed Jets appeared. I wonder what they’ll prognosticate for the Packers.)

As relatives, friends and old classmates from my native state cheer on their home team, I suppose I should feign a “Go Steelers!” or “Get’em Black and Gold” as the pride of the Pittsburgh tries for their seventh Super Bowl win. But, I really can’t seem to muster the enthusiasm. As a kid, I claimed to be a Dallas Cowboys fan just to piss off my father, which was my exact logic that I used at the age of eighteen when I registered to vote as a Republican. Although both alignments helped me to land my husband, I subsequently have abandoned both the Cowboys and Republicans, making me a woman without political and football team affiliation. Is it un-American to have nether?

No, independence and jumping on the bandwagon of the winning team or political party is the American way. It is as American as finger foods, pedestrian halftime show entertainment, commentary from washed-up, retired football players and overwrought commercials. So although I will watch this year’s Super Bowl without team allegiance, I say bring on the bite-size snacks on sticks and silly beer commercials. It is an American tradition.

The Marriage of Black-Eyed Peas and Sauerkraut

“Eat it. Eat now. It is just one bite,” said the Garbageman’s Wife.

“No. The smell is killing me,” I replied.

“Now! You need it for good luck,” insisted the Garbageman.

“No. I am good with bad luck,” I said.

“Now. Your brother and sister already had theirs. You’ll sit here all day,” he said.

Three hours later, I held my nose and swallowed the sauerkraut in hopes that my newly digested good luck would come in the form of a boyfriend, front-page placement in the school newspaper and an “A” in math class. This tradition continued every year until I graduated from college and moved far enough away to not smell the annual stench of rotten cabbage that wafted across three state lines.

Living in Texas where they eat black peas and cabbage (the non-kraut, non-rotten still edible variety) on New Year’s Day, I no longer had to engage in the Pennsylvania Dutch Tradition of sauerkraut, pork, mashed potatoes (yet another food with a bizarre unappealing consistency that caused me to sit hours at the dinner table) and dumplings. Finally, I could eat pork and dumplings without them being tainted by lumps and putridity. Or, so I thought until my then boyfriend now husband decided that he wanted to go Pennsylvania Dutch for the New Year.

So for the past fifteen years, I have been stinking up my kitchen for my Texan and my half-Texan, half-Pennsylvanian children who mostly love sauerkraut. This year will be no different; I will throw two pork roasts into a pan loaded with lots of sauerkraut. Once the pork becomes tender and juicy, I will toss a Bisquick mixture over the bubbling juices to create fresh dumplings. Potatoes will be loosely mashed and mixed with butter and heavy cream on the stove-top. A small pot of black-eye peas will be warmed for the Texan by marriage. Much like the amalgamation that occurs when cornbread dressing and bread stuffing both appear on our table on Christmas Day; our New Year’s Day meal is truly a unification of cultures and childhood traditions.

After the New Year’s Day feast is complete, the family will commune at the table in a stench-filled dining room for a lucky meal. My boys will beg for more sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, and once again, I will hold my nose and digest a mouthful of stinky, rotten good luck. If sauerkraut is the taste of good luck, what is the taste of bad luck?

If You Are Pennsylvania Dutch and Can Make Fantastic Funnel Cake, Please Come Be My Neighbor

Great funnel cake is beautifully golden on the outside and is light, airy, and fully-cooked on the inside as every swivel and swirl comes together in a tight, deep fried glorious mass that is exactly the size of a paper plate and is fully smothered in powdered sugar. Enough sugar that your nose gets dusted every time you take a bite. It is the combination of gentle crunchiness, fluffy moistness and an abundance of sugary topping that is the mark of a phenomenal funnel cake.

Unfortunately, my great funnel cake drought started when I left Pennsylvania in August, 1995. Clearly, if you look at my hips and thighs, you can tell that I am not opposed to eating average, bad, and awful funnel cake if I am really hungry and jonesin’ for lard covered in powdered sugar. But, a great funnel would be a glorious Earthly delight. In fact, I am not even expecting the whole cake to be great, just one scrumptious bite. A bite that is as delicious as the funnel cakes from my childhood summers in the humid Keystone State, where the smells of funnel cakes, cow manure, and lonely smoke covered carnies with tragic eyes that made me love them all came together in a speculator potpourri at fireman’s festivals, county fairs and church bazaars. Bad funnel cake simple cannot be found in Pennsylvania. Fantastic Funnel cakes are made through natural instinct. It is our culture. It is who we are. Pennsylvanians (even the non-Pennsylvania Dutch) are the supreme funnel cake makers.

Coloradoans and Texans are not even good funnel cake makers. It is not terribly surprising in Colorado where people eat healthy and exercise by choice, not doctor’s orders. Coloradoans simple don’t have the cholesterol saturated heart to succeed. The best festival food I have experienced in the Centennial State has been roasted asparagus. If it is not fried and covered in powdered sugar or chocolate, it should not be called festival food.

Now in Texas where festival foods abound and if something stays still long enough it will get fried, I rarely found funnel cake and when I did locate it, either it had the taste and texture of coal or the center was gooey and gag inducing. Although we experienced many fantastic fried Twinkies and amazing fried Nutter Butters, funnel cakes in the Lone Star State consistently failed to please. And, so my quest for the perfect funnel cake outside of Pennsylvania continues. But since finding a glorious cake is not likely, feel free to take pity on me. If you are from Pennsylvania and know how to make great funnel cake, please come be neighbor. I’ll make the tea and my son will mow your yard. It will be a great friendship built on carbohydrates and fats, what more could be desired?