Yesterday, as you may have heard, was Superbowl Sunday. In years past, we’ve used Superbowl Sunday as an excuse to try out some insane food: In 2006, we made The Hamdog. In 2007, it was La Caja China. Last year, we decided to give our hearts (and our wives) a rest, and just went the traditional typical Doritos/Chili/Drunken Husband route.
This year, we knew we needed a comeback. And a week ago, the neccessary inspiration arrived, in the form of Holy Taco’s “Greatest Snack Food Stadium Ever Built.” Most people would look at that, chuckle, and click on by. But Nate and I recognized the implicit challenge in that statement. “Ever?” we wondered. “We’ll see about that.”
You see, Holy Taco’s stadium has some critical flaws, the first of which is that Twinkie’s are disgusting. They make a good building material because no one wants to eat them - structural integrity is guaranteed. Secondly, the whole microwave bacon barrier they have going is gross. Even Wendy’s has better bacon. And what’s with all the pre-pack dips? If you’re making a food stadium, MAKE the food stadium.
We set to work Sunday morning, assembling the neccessary ingredients. 5 loaves of bread for the stadium walls. 2 kinds of tortilla chips. 2 kinds of crackers. 7 avacados, 3 tomatoes and 2 jalapenos for the guacamole. 2 aluminum pans. Pepperoni sticks. Toothpicks, lots and lots of toothpicks.
Another flaw in Holy Taco’s plan: it was built in situ. We needed to get our creation to a party later in the afternoon, so portability was critical. We found a large piece of plywood, and seamed the aluminum pans together on top, tacking them in place. We then covered the whole thing in tinfoil.
We substituted bread slices for the Twinkies, ringing them around in a shape somewhere between an oval and a rectangle. We used toothpicks to secure each slice to its mates, stabbing it down through four layers of bread once the wall was complete.
The inner wall proved a little more challenging. We ended up taking the Wasa crackers, high in fiber and thus structure, and wedged them between toothpicks that we embedded into the plywood with the help of a DeWalt drill. The result was surprisingly stable - more than strong enough to restrain the throngs of Chex mix and tortilla chips we were expecting.
Things started moving pretty quickly once the basic structure was established. I filled the stands with chips and homemade Chex mix (Store-bought party mix? Are you kidding?), while Nate laid the sausage and cheese sidelines and Sarah made guacamole.
The sidelines established, we moved onto the field, cementing a Club cracker border with Easy Cheese, a surprisingly (eerily) good adhesive. Nate laid in the homemade Spinach dip, kept separate from the guacamole with another row of crackers.
Sarah then field the alternating rows with homemade guacamole, completing the playing/eating surface. Nate began work on the players. Black olives for the Steelers, and white mini-mozarella balls for the Cardinals. Giddy laughter nearly brought us to tears by this point, as the enormity of our accomplishment drew closer.
We made goalposts out of the Tillamook Beef Sticks, and called it good. Our masterpiece completed in under 2 hours, we celebrated with a bottle of Unibroue’s Raftman, “brewed to commemorate the legendary courage of the forest workers.” Not sure if we count as forest workers, but our courage was legendary. Hell, Nate made the Hungarian sausage used for the players’ bodies.
It was breathtaking, from the heights of its sausage flags to its guacamole/spinach dip playing surface. (If you want a closer look, here’s a desktop-background-sized version.)
The verdict? I’ll let the picture tell the story.
