Super Bowl Seafood

Philly Ultra Fan

A few weeks ago, a friend invited us to his Super Bowl party.  It seemed awfully early to announce one;  however, he'd planned last year's in early January 2025 in anticipation of the Philadelphia Eagles making it to the Big Game.  As that resulted in an Eagles' championship victory, how could he possibly break tradition?  Unfortunately, it didn't work 😬, but he decided to move forward with the party anyway.  If you know anything about the City of Brotherly Love, you know we take our sports very seriously.  "Go Birds" becomes the local version of "aloha," denoting "hello," "goodbye," "cheers," "thanks," and any other pleasantry you can think of.  I've got buddies, all grown-ass men, who literally cried with joy when the Eagles won back in 2018.  A lot of emotion is tied to the Eagles, to say the least. What else would you expect from a city that booed Santa Claus at a Birds' game?  I'm far from a die-hard Eagles fan, but admittedly have my own Philly sports obsessions.  I almost called out of work when the Phillies lost the NLDS last year.  However, this invitation got me focused on one thing: Super Bowl party snacks of the seafood persuasion.  Chickie's & Pete's crab fries are great, but let's air it out with a few Hail Marys.     

Buddy Ryan

Now, I've got a real mixed history with American football and the NFL that I need to get out of the way.  Apologies in advance for the non-seafood-related rant.  Feel free to Ctrl+F for "football is delightful" at any time to skip.  

As a kid, I lived and breathed all things football.  Trading cards, jerseys, posters, Starter jackets.  You name it, I had it.  I used to create my own I-Formation plays on index cards, and the neighborhood kids and I had weekly backyard football games.  I even dressed up as Buddy Ryan for Halloween in 2nd grade.  This continued into my teenage years.  RedZone every Sunday, Madden on N64 or PlayStation daily, fantasy draft leagues.  I idolized Brian Dawkins and Brian Westbrook, and absolutely loved playing under the Friday night lights for my high school team.  However, once I got to college, things started to change.  There was no single event.  Rather it was a combination of things that saw me gradually lose interest in football, eventually leading to an outright disdain for the NFL in particular: 

1. The game itself changed.  I loved the 90's and early 2000's smash mouth, run-first game built around guts, defense, and physicality.  Hard-nosed teams grinding out wins with big hits and tough tailbacks.  Brian Urlacher and LaDanian Tomlinson going head-to-head in a 16-13 nail-biter.  Now, it's a pass-heavy spectacle focused on highlight reels and fantasy-friendly stats, not strategy, balance, or depth.  There was a Chiefs vs. Rams game that ended 54-51 a few years ago.  That's a college basketball score, not a football game.    
   
   
2. The constant rule changes (a major contributing factor to the first point).  Every new NFL season I find myself questioning "Wait, they moved the extra point back?  You can't wedge block anymore?"  Defensive players so much as sneeze on a quarterback or receiver and they're flagged for unnecessary roughness or pass interference.  It feels like perpetual beta testing at this point - "NFL 2.7.1 - patch update - defense rate-limited."  I understand the reasoning behind these changes, which leads to my next point.   
   
   
3. The NFL's oversight of player safety.  Everyone knows football is dangerous.  However, the NFL knew the true nature of that danger and conspired to hide it.  Big Tobacco style, they denied and downplayed the severity of concussions while attacking independent research that said otherwise.  Meanwhile, CTE was literally ruining lives.  It took years of investigative journalism, lawsuits, and irrefutable medical evidence for the league to start prioritizing player safety.  And this prioritization wasn't from actual player welfare concerns; it was damage control for their brand.  They got caught, made some bullshit apologies, then started making superficial changes.  Forgive me despising a league that committed decades of criminal collusion and neglect. 
   
   
4. Disparate treatment across the league.  Discrimination is rampant in the NFL, particularly in player assessments and leadership opportunities.  Colin Kaepernick peacefully protested for racial injustice awareness.  As a result, he was blackballed from the league.  He questioned the establishment, so his career was destroyed.  At the same time, Ray Rice viciously assaulted his girlfriend and the league suppressed video evidence in attempts to avoid his lengthy suspension.  Same with Deshaun Watson and Ben Roethlisberger.  Ray Lewis literally got away with murder.  Team medical staffs were handing out Vicodin like TicTacs while Ricky Williams was ostracized for marijuana offenses.  The Patriots' slap on the wrist and the Chiefs' favorable officiating.  Why all this hypocritical disparity?  One word: money.  This leads right into the final point.   
   
   
5. The NFL is a billionaire boys' club.  "We're concerned about player safety, but let's expand the season to 17 games."  "Breaking news -- NFL player gambling scandal -- brought to you by DraftKings."  Subscription streaming services.  Duplicitous revenue tactics.  Tax-payer funded stadiums.  TV blackouts while it's $100 for a nosebleed seat.  Every single point previously made is a result of NFL owner greed.  Outwardly, they preach safety and integrity.  "We support the troops" and #unity campaigns.  They greenwash, pinkwash, even redwashed for years to hold onto a racist mascot.  The real priority is preserving their robber baron cartel where accountability is optional, but the money never misses a snap.  These practices are not unique to the NFL, of course, and my issues are really with corporate plutocracy.  But still, f*ck the NFL owners.  They don't care about the players, the staff, and especially not you...just your dollars.  
   

Former Fifa President Sepp Blatter

I fully appreciate that many will disagree with some, if not all of this.  People are very passionate about their football and will defend it at any cost.  I mean, the NFL has challenged the oldest institution in the Western World for a day of the week and arguably won.  I also admit my rationale is full contradiction and hypocrisy.  I can't stand the NFL, but love watching soccer.  Whenever some NFL scandal emerges, FIFA is the first to say "hold my beer."  And as messed up as that is, I'm okay with it.  We all need to compromise for some escapism, especially with the current state of world affairs.  So, I'll enjoy the World Cup and the Premier League; you'll enjoy the Cialis and Bud Light commercials with intermittent football, and we can still be friends.  

All jokes aside, though, this is why I love food.  While we may disagree on football or the NFL, I think we can all agree the cuisine surrounding football is delightful.  Spicy Buffalo wings, saucy pulled pork sliders, unctuous brats and burgers right off the tailgate grill.  Who doesn't love a good seven layer dip or cheesy nachos?  For the upcoming Super Bowl LX, I wanted to do something similar to my ballpark seafood project from a few months back.  Let's audible to a much lighter note and make some gameday classics with the catch of the day.  So, if you're still with me, then hut, hut, cook!

Monkfish Chili 

Chili Queens via San Antonio Mag

Football and chili both have their origins in foreign concepts: football from British rugby and soccer, chili from pre-colonial Mesoamerican cooking.  Both were reshaped and adapted, eventually becoming pillars of American identity, masculine-American identity in particular.  However, chili, as we know it today, started with the Chili Queens in mid-1800's San Antonio.  Mexican and Tejana women braised dried chile peppers and beef into a rich stew and sold from street stalls across the city.  It became quite popular, and the commercialization of chili powder in the 1890's saw the dish spread outside of Texas.  By WWII, hundreds of chili parlors were operating nationwide.  Nowadays, people are just as passionate about their chili as they are their football.  Chili festivals, competitions, and debates are everywhere.  There's chili colorado, Texas red, Skyline, vegan three-bean, white chicken, Denver green, even legally defined chili.  Hot take: chili is just America's version of curry.     

More importantly, few things pair as well as football and chili.  Who doesn't love a warm, comforting cup at a wintry tailgate party?  Seeing how well fish curry works, wouldn't fish chili work too?  For my chili con pescado, I started by picking up a pound of monkfish from Hill's Quality Seafood.  Monkfish has a meatier texture than most fish, almost like lobster, and holds up well in a stew or braise.  It's the most common stewing fish around the Mediterranean.  Once home, I prepped all the usual chili suspects.  Diced onion, bell pepper, jalapeño, and garlic; canned tomatoes and red kidney beans; and a spice mix of chili powder, cumin, cayenne, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, salt & pepper, plus a little dried, foraged ramps from my Aunt Jo.  Yes, making my own chili powder from pasilla, ancho, guajillo, and other chiles would have been better.  No, I didn't do that.  I already annoy my wife enough with my seafood projects taking over the whole house.  I didn't want to exacerbate that with a powdered pepper-spray cloud.  We're a Geneva Protocol observant home.

All prepped up, I started by browning the cubed monkfish.   After a few minutes, out it came and in went the peppers and onions, then garlic.  Once softened, the spice mixture went in to bloom a bit, followed by a deglazing with some Lagunitas and a little tomato paste.  I was sure to scrape up all that delicious monkfish fond, then in went the tomatoes, a little hot sauce, and remaining beer to simmer on low heat.  After the flavors melded together, I added in the beans and monkfish to finish cooking.  Fifteen minutes later, it was lunch time.  Topped with the standard fixins' of sour cream, Fritos, cheddar cheese and green onions, it was a pretty tasty bowl of chili.  It had that classic savory and smokey chili flavor with a subtle hint of seafood.  It tasted even better the next day, when my kids surprisingly enjoyed some, and the monkfish texture held up great.  My only adjustment would be making it more seafood forward the next time.  Perhaps a little octopus or crab meat, maybe some Old Bay.  I'll let y'all know.         

Calamari Poppers 

Shrimp & Jalapeño Poppers at Acme  

Football food heavily favors Tex-Mex.  Nachos, BBQ, the aforementioned chili.  I don't think I've ever been to a Super Bowl party that hasn't had chips and salsa or guacamole.  It makes sense as Texas loves football and, of course, its namesake Tex-Mex.  Jalapeño poppers are another great example.  The precusor to poppers, the chile relleno, dates back to 19th century Puebla, Mexico.  However, surprisingly, it wasn't until the 1970's when jalapeños stuffed with cheese started to really take off in the States.  Tex Mex was in its golden age at the time, and poppers began showing up on bar menus everywhere.  They became so popular that Anchor Foods tried trademarking "jalapeño poppers" in 1992, but were rejected as the name was already established as a generic reference American society.  A few years later, jalapeño poppers started showing up on TGI Friday's and Applebee's menus, proof the dish was here to stay.           

Seafood jalapeño poppers are nothing new.  Recipes for shrimp or crab poppers are all over the interwebs.  They're even available oven-ready retail at my regional grocery chain -- just more evidence the "cheese and seafood don't mix" saying is bunk.  However, I decided to go a slightly different direction.  Squid tubes are the perfect shape for stuffing, and it's a common practice across many cultures.  Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, and Korean cuisines all have variations.  One of my absolute favorites was a Spanish tinned version in Da Morgada Stuffed Calamari I'd had at haley.henry in Boston a few years back.  So why not calamari jalapeño poppers?  I picked up some squid, as well as some Philadelphia Whipped Cream Cheese and Tillamook Sharp Cheddar.  

Once home, I crisped and chopped up some bacon, diced jalapeños and scallions, and mixed it all together with the cheeses.  I placed the mixture in a plastic bag and piped it into the calamari tubes.  Finally, I seasoned them with some leftover BBQ rub and onto a ripping hot grill they went.  A quick two to three minutes later and my calamari poppers were ready to go.  And man, they were delectable.  Nothing beats live-fire char on cephalopods.  Pair that with spicy jalapeños in a decadent cheese sauce and you've got a textbook six points.  Oh, and the two point conversion with the bacon.  Seafood and salty pig parts always deliver.   These are a 100% make again, any time, quite possibly for my buddy's upcoming Super Bowl party.      

Buffalo Salmon Wings

Top - John Young's Wings'n'Things
Bottom - Anchor Bar

Ah yes, the Lombardi Trophy of football foods - Buffalo wings.  No other gridiron fare is held in higher regard.  So much so that there was a competitive chicken wing eating competition annually in Philadelphia just before the Super Bowl: The Wing Bowl.  They retired it in 2018, but it's coming back in Vegas this year.  As for the Buffalo wing's origins, well, they're from Buffalo, of course.  How and by whom they were created is a murkier matter.  In 1964, Dominic Bellissimo and some hungry college friends were at his parents' restaurant, Anchor Bar, on a late Friday night.  Dominic's mother, Teressa, grabbed some scrap chicken wings, typically used for making stocks and sauces.  She cut them into drumettes and flats, deep fried them, tossed them in a butter-and-cayenne sauce mixture, then served them to the boys with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.  The kids loved them so much they kept coming back weekly, asking for more.  Over the next few years, Anchor Bar began serving the wings regularly.  A decade later, wings were being sold all over Buffalo, and nationwide by the 80's.

The modern Buffalo wing -- split wings, fried naked, and tossed in hot sauce -- is most often credited to Anchor Bar with the above story.  But two years earlier, in 1962, John Young opened Wings ’n’ Things in Buffalo’s East Side, serving whole, breaded wings dipped in a spicy mumbo sauce inspired by African American cooking traditions around the South and Washington, D.C.  Young never claimed he invented sauced wings, but he did claim to have introduced them to Buffalo.  He also noted that Anchor Bar co-owner Frank Bellissimo had visited his restaurant more than once.  Was this the true origin of the Anchor Bar Buffalo wing?  Sadly, Young’s restaurant closed after only a few years due to financial challenges.  Buffalo was one of the most heavily redlined cities in America, and Black neighborhoods, including where Wings ’n’ Things operated, were economically crushed.  I'm not sure we'll ever know how to appropriately credit the Buffalo wing.  However, we do know that wings were considered inedible scraps for decades, only utilized by marginalized minorities who had to make the most of what others discarded.  With that said, I think John Young and the African American community deserve more credit for the Buffalo wing than is currently acknowledged in the mainstream origin story.

As for my seafood spin on the football classic, that was easy.  Chickens have wings, and fish have fins, pectoral fins to be precise.  I again took some inspiration from one of the whole fish OGs, Beau Schooler out of Juneau, Alaska.  Dude was rocking salmon wings back when I still thought football was cool.  I picked up some salmon collars from Hill's Quality Seafood and boned out the pectoral fins.  I patted them dry, then into a 375° peanut oil bath they went for four to five minutes.  Finally, I tossed them in a Frank's Red Hot and butter sauce mixture and plated with celery, carrot, and blue cheese.  I did overcook them slightly, and the meat was falling off the fin a bit.  However, fish fins are much like dark meat chicken and retain their moisture well even when overcooked.  They were rich with a strong, gamey-salmon flavor that balanced out well with the heat and acidity from the Buffalo sauce.  A light dredge or coating might help with the texture integrity on the next batch, but I was pleased overall with my initial trial. 

I really enjoyed this Super Bowl seafood project.  While I can't say I enjoy the sport much any more, I can wholeheartedly say I love the food around it.  If I'm lucky enough to be invited to your Super Bowl party some time, I can promise I'll show up with a smile on my face and calamari poppers in my hand.  Or maybe seven layer smoked fish dip, crab-stuffed potato skins, or even swordfish BBQ ribs.  Let me know some other ideas in the comments.

 

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd

  

Baseball, Ballparks, & Seafood

I pretty much write about whatever I find interesting at the time and find a way to tie it to oysters or seafood.  Philadelphia hoagies, the history of chili peppers, unconventionally flavored potato chips.  Luckily, most of my interests are culinarily focused or akin, so it aligns rather easily.  I enjoy gardening, so I made a ceviche with homegrown produce.  I like underrepresented history, so I did a piece on famous oysterman and abolitionist Thomas Downing.  However, I'm also a massive sports fan, and nothing is better than playoff baseball, especially with the Phillies in the mix.  #RingTheBell.  #RedOctober.  So, as we're heading into the MLB postseason, I wanted to do an exploration of ballpark cuisine with a seafood twist.

Of all the professional sports, none is more closely tied to culinary fare than baseball.  Popcorn, beer, soft pretzels.  It's a stop-and-go game full of frequent lulls that are perfect for grabbing some grub.  Some say a ballgame isn't the same without a hot dog, others say a hot dog isn't the same without a ballgame.  Baseball is also full of tense moments and nervous energy, perfect fidget snacks like sunflower seeds and peanuts.  The iconic 7th inning stretch's Take Me Out to the Ball Game literally has ballpark culinary staples right in the lyrics.  I don't even need to say them and any American reading this knows exactly what those foods are.  If you think about it, that's objectively pretty funny.     

via TheBayOnline.com

Seafood and baseball are closely tied as well.  Beach season and baseball season are the twin tides of summer.  And over the last few decades, several seafood offerings have steadily flowed into the ballpark.  Oracle Park's garlic crab fries, Fenway Park's lobster rolls, T-Mobile Park's poke bowls.  The Baltimore Orioles have hosted Crab Fest games at Camden Yards, and the Milwaukee Brewers reportedly have a secret Friday Fish Fry in American Family Field's section 208.  Double A's Richmond Flying Squirrels even showcased a 300 pound monstrosity earlier this year with the world's largest crab cake.  I hope it at least tasted good.

Beyond the dishes, many ballplayers have been dubbed with seafood nicknames.  Tim Salmon and Mike Trout might not count, but Catfish Hunter and Oyster Burns certainly do.  Several minor league teams' names and mascots are also seafood inspired.  The Biloxi Shuckers, Jersey Shore Blue Claws, Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp.  There's a collegiate league team out of Seattle known as the DubSea Fish Sticks.  The Carolina Mudcats have Muddy, a flathead catfish, as their mascot, and Japan's Chiba Lotte Marines have Nazo No Sakana (謎の魚), or Mysterious Fish, as their mascot.

Things have become even more fun with minor league baseball's alternate identities.  Back in 2014, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs decided to don bacon uniforms for a series.  The following year, the Fresno Grizzlies became the Fresno Tacos for a weekend.  Ever since, whether it be via the Copa de la Diversión or Stouffer's Alter Ego Challenge, MiLB teams have been embracing regional culture, economy, and cuisine in rebranding for a couple of games a season.  As few things are as fiercely tied to regional identity as food, many of these rebrands have paid homage to local delicacies.  And many are seafood themed.  The Fort Myers Mighty Mussels became the Grouper Sandwiches; the Portland Sea Dogs were the Maine Clambake; and the Morehead City Marlins switched to the Fish Tacos.  I won't lie, I find the MiLB alter egos concept so enjoyable, especially in contrast to the MLB's City Connect jerseys.  The Augusta Pimento Cheese and Erie Pepperoni Balls, yes please!  The Phillies and Twins dressed like cans of Axe Body Spray, no thanks.   

However, nothing can beat the Chesapeake Baysox' temporary rebrand as the Oystercatchers, a seabird native to the area.  In short, the Baysox initially released the baseball glove with an oyster and baseball pearl as part of their rebranded logo, pictured here.  And, well, many fans saw something less catcher's mitt with an oyster and more of a "third base" situation.  My favorite quote had to be "most men can't even find the baseball."  They quickly took the NSFW rebrand down from all socials, but it had already gone viral.  In laudable fashion, they owned it and brought it back for merchandising, donating 10% of proceeds to Cervivor, Inc., a non-profit focused on cervical cancer awareness.  You can't make this shit up.  Minor league baseball is the best, and this is MiLB at its finest: absurd, self-aware, and community-driven.

Ballpark Food History

Stevens Scorecard via Our Game

 Alter egos, animated mascots, and celebrated cuisines were not always part of baseball.  Records of the first foods at ballgames are sparse and disputed, and concessions were relatively disorganized and ad hoc — apples, lemonade, ham & cheese sandwiches, beer, ice cream, pasta, even charred onions and tripe.  Then, in the 1880s, Harry M. Stevens began shaping the ballpark cuisine landscape we think of today.   Posthumously known as the King of Concessions, Stevens' beginnings weren't even in food sales.  He started by selling scorecards at Columbus Buckeyes games, a novel concept at the time.  He added food advertising to those scorecards, and eventually sold the food itself at ballgames.  Stevens' business quickly spread to ballparks and stadiums all across the country, essentially codifying concession offerings.  The invention of the hot dog is often mistakenly credited to Stevens, but he was responsible for popularizing them at ballparks.  He's also credited with bringing peanuts to the game.  Story goes that a peanut company wanted to advertise in Stevens' scorecards, but was unable to pay.  Stevens accepted literal peanuts as payment, then resold them at ballgames.   They were so successful that he eventually bought a peanut farm in Virginia to vertically source them.  This is also a speculated origin for the phrase "working for peanuts."

Stevens passed away in 1934, but the concessions game continued on.  Ballparks themselves followed America's Post-WWII car and highway development and migration from cities to suburbs.  Stadiums became soulless, concrete multi-purpose shells in the industrial outskirts of town, prioritizing capacity over quality.  The food largely followed.  Some diversity came in the form of nachos and pizza, but they served mostly the classics.  That's not inherently an issue, but it was when the quality decreased.  Stale soft pretzels, tepid hot dogs, rubbery burgers; the AstroTurf of cuisine.  Concessions operations became consolidated to a few major conglomerates, and they mirrored the prioritization of capacity over quality.  Even today, all 30 MLB teams' concession programs are operated by just six companies.  The rise of agribusiness in the 60's and 70's diminished our foodways well beyond just the ballpark's, but that's a whole other conversation. 

  

However, when Camden Yards opened near Baltimore's Inner Harbor in 1992, ballpark culture started to shift again.  Stadiums began moving away from sprawling parking lots and back into cities' downtowns.  The Orioles' concession company partnered with local vendors to serve regional cuisine like crab cakes and pit beef.  This kicked off the ballpark renaissance, and over half the league built new stadiums in the next 15 years.  They began reconnecting with their local identities, both geographically and culinarily.  Cheesesteaks at Phillies' games, BBQ at Royals' games, Skyline Chili at Reds' games.  30 years later, we've now entered the era of epic ballpark cuisine where clubs try to one up each other with the most extreme dishes.  Cotton candy fries, mac 'n' cheese hot dogs, s'mores quesadillas, two-foot burritos, toasted crickets.  Some people celebrate the direction ballpark cuisine is now heading, and others utterly despise it.  I see both sides.  The Boomstick Burger and What Up Corn Dog look disgusting, but I loved the Banana Dog at a Savannah Bananas game.  And that's okay.  Some dishes are home runs, others are 'a swing and a miss.'  Either way, it's all pretty damn fun.

So, in that spirit of ballpark whimsy and fun, I set out to reimagine some of baseball's culinary classics with a seafood twist.  Let's kick it off with "....buy me some shrimp at the seafood shack, I don't care if I never get back...."  Maybe "hook, line, sinker you're out?"  Whatever...play ball!

Blue Crab Nachos

While not canon in classic ballpark cuisine, nachos have become a staple at practically every stadium.  As noted, hot dogs, peanuts, and popcorn go back to the early 20th century.  Nachos at ballgames first appeared the 1970s.  The original nachos, invented in the 1940s on the US-Mexico border, were fried tortilla chips, jalapeños, and cheese baked in an industrial oven.  Not an ideal offering for fast paced concession stands.  However, in 1976, Frank Liberto of Ricos Foods invented a shelf stable, pourable spicy cheese sauce, enabling nachos to be served efficiently.  Liberto first sold them at Arlington Stadium for a Texas Rangers' game, and they were an instant hit.  Within a decade, nachos with cheese sauce were being sold at practically every convenience store, concert, movie theater, and of course, ballpark.

Everyone loves nachos.  Pretty much everyone loves crab.  And everyone I know loves crab nachos.  It's a well established dish, and was a no brainer to kick off my ballpark seafood trials.  I picked up ½ pound of fresh picked lump blue crab meat on my way back from a brief trip to the shore.  Once home, I grated Tillamook cheddar over Mission tortilla rounds, added the crab with pickled jalapeños, black olives, and ample amounts of Old Bay.  Into a 400° oven it went and additional toppings were up next.  I mixed up a quick pico de gallo with some garden fresh tomatoes, peppers, garlic, cilantro and lime.  I also made a crab-seasoned nacho cheese sauce with a roux, heavy cream, shredded cheddar, Old Bay and a little bit of the pickled jalapeño brine.

After about 15 minutes, the crab nachos were bubbly brown and ready to go.  I took them out of the oven and drizzled on the cheese sauce with a few dollops of Daisy.  Cheeky little Old Bay seasoned lime and it was time to serve.  They were delicious, at least from the few bites I had.  Cheesy, savory, and spicy with a bright acidity from the pico de gallo and sweet, briny bites of lump crab meat.  I'm sure my wife and kids would have articulated the same.  But, instead of bases, they were too busy stealing chips and clearing plates.  Hey, at least I tried.  Nacho easiest pun situation.  

Seafood Bratwurst 

The natural choice here would be seafood hot dogs.  I made and profiled smoked trout dogs a few years ago, which were delightful, but I wanted to try something new.  Next to the classic ballpark frank, nothing says I'm at a ballgame quite like a brat.  I picked up some day-boat scallops, monkfish, and a Northern Atlantic lobster tail from Hill's Quality Seafood.  Chef Cuso's rustic style of seafood sausage looked interesting, but I was swinging for the fences on this one.  Proper sausage maker, 10mm plate, coarse grind, stuffing in hog casings. 

The seafood all got a rough chop and mixed with proportional bratwurst seasoning.  I've made pork bratwurst several times before, both by toasting and grinding my own spices, and using premade spice mixtures.  Maybe I'm just an inept spice crafter, but the premade mixtures have always turned out better for me, especially with A.C. Legg's Bratwurst Seasoning.  Don't mess with a winning lineup, right?  I set the mixture in the freezer to chill and meld for a few minutes.  Rule one of sausage making is keeping everything ice cold.  Otherwise the fat will render and the meat will smear, leaving you with a nasty paste rather than a coarse grind.  I wasn't sure the same logic applied to shellfish, but I wasn't about to test and find out. 

My wife is from Wisconsin.  As such, I know a brat is not a brat without peppers and onions, so I sautéed some while I waited.  Once the seafood mix was fully chilled, I added a little lager (Wisconsin-style, again) then ran it through the coarse grind and into hog casings.  I ended up with only two brats, but they were big league sized.  Seafood's expensive, and I'm a baller on a budget.  Onto the grill they went for 5 minutes, then into some Amoroso's Italian Rolls with the peppers and onions, horseradish, and spicy mustard.  Give 'em the heater, Ricky!  And they were delicious.  Discernibly bratwurst with that herbaceous, peppery-nutmeg flavor, but they had a distinct, oceanic sweetness, especially from the toothsome lobster.  The caramelized peppers and onions brought in that familiar savory-sweet and the horseradish a piquant zest.  I shared the other with my neighbor, and he agreed: web gem worthy.

    Rock Shrimp Cracker Jack

No ballpark cuisine post would be complete without Cracker Jack.  Recipes for candied popcorn & peanuts in the States go back to the early 19th century.  However, Frederick Rueckheim is largely credited with its popularization.  He and his brother first reportedly offered it at the 1893 World's Fair.  A patron tried some and declared "whoa, that's crackerjack!," which was slang for something excellent or outstanding.  Rueckheim trademarked the name Cracker Jack in 1896, and in that same year, there's record of it being a concession at an Atlantic City game.  Then, in 1908, Jack Norworth penned Take Me Out to the Ball Game and Cracker Jack was forever deified within baseball.  Just imagine what food that might be if "and Cracker Jack" didn't rhyme with "never get back."  Also, I don't say deified lightly.  Check out what happened when the Yankees tried to replace Cracker Jack with Crunch 'n Munch.

Cracker Jack is made with popcorn, right?  And popcorn shrimp is a popular dish.  So why not shrimp cracker jack?  I picked up some rock shrimp from Hill's Quality Seafood, along with peanuts, molasses, and other fixins' at my local market.  Cracker Jack has those distinct, red skinned Virginia peanuts, and most markets around me don't sell them in shelled, cocktail form.  No problem, though — I had the kids shell (or shuck!) them.  They were more than happy to be involved.  I also created a simple brown sugar syrup with some vanilla extract and molasses and set it to the side.  I wanted to mimic that Cracker Jack candy flavor, but that classic butter based caramel wouldn't work in this instance.  Next, batter up!  I mixed water with equal parts AP flour and potato starch, per the instruction of Dredgemaster Flex, a.k.a. Rizzi from Lou's Takeaway.  Dude knows how to fry.  The AP would create that familiar popcorn shrimp breading, and the potato starch would ensure it stayed crisp enough to hold up to the caramel coating.    

Now, time to fry.  Each shrimp got battered and dropped in a peanut oil bubble bath.  Sure, seed oils are the enemy these days.  Red meat, eggs, and avocados were all once too, but now look at them.  I'm not saying red dye 40 and soybean oil will be deemed superfoods at some point; but everyone should chill out for a bit and let science catch up to the clickbait.  Stay hydrated, eat more fiber, and all things in moderation.  You'll be fine.  Once all the shrimp were done, I returned them in batches to the frying oil for a second dip.  Just like twice fried potatoes, this would ensure the ultimate crispy exterior.  Finally, I mixed the shrimp, peanuts, and caramel sauce all in a bowl, seasoned to taste, and plated.  They weren't as close to Cracker Jack as I'd hoped, but did taste great.  Just more like Honey Walnut Shrimp than the ballpark classic.  Not quite a home run, but a solid line drive up the middle.  I'll need to hit the cages in the offseason for this one.  Will keep y'all posted.

Overall, my whole baseball, ballpark, and seafood exploration was a grand slam.  Interesting history, exciting ephemera, and some fun dishes.  The only remaining question: what to do next?  Lobster poutine for the Stanley Cup?  Fish and chips with caviar for Wimbledon?  Salmon buffalo wings for the Super Bowl?  Oh — what about oyster baseball cards for the hundreds of varieties around the country?!?  Comment below with what should be 'on deck.'

Cheers,

The SF Oyster Nerd