A FiPS Guide To The Ultimate Super bowl Snacks

Patton Oswalt in Big Fan

Do you have SUPER BOWL FEVER? Are you ready to paint your face blue and/or red, white & blue and yell at the television? Giants! Patriots! Rematch! Skeletor performing at halftime! Get ready! This Sunday, it's SUPER BOWL XLVI baby!

Whether you're spending the game with a bunch of friends & getting drunk on shitty, NFL-endorsed beer, or planning to don your sharpest pair of NY Giants sweatpants & get whiskey blotto under the pale corner living room lamp all by your lonesome, you'll definitely need something to snack on alongside your beverages.

After all, Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest snacking day of the year, so while you're getting your yearly dose of over-the-top football grandiosity, you should be chowing down in style. In honor of the Patriots' impending 11-point win, here are eleven SUPER SNACKS you should probably be cramming into your piehole this Sunday.

1. Nachos / Guacamole / Salsa

 Let's start with the obvious. If you don't have nachos at your Super Bowl party, your Super Bowl party sucks. Case in point: Earlier this week, Michelle Obama told Rachael Ray that while she & Barack are watching this Sunday's game & OBVIOUSLY supporting New England Patriotism, they're going to be munching on the leader of the free world's favorite snack—nachos with guac & salsa. Here's your chance to be presidential! Don't make your nachos with lettuce. Beyond that, they're pretty hard to fuck up. As far as salsa goes, you should probably go local with something from Brooklyn Salsa. For guac, I'm going to recommend this curry & raisin laden guac that won the People's Choice Award at the 2011 Nachos NY Guactacular.

2. Cocktail Weenies

There's this one scene in this episode of the Simpsons where they're planning the wedding of Selma to Sideshow Bob and for hors d'ouevres, Homer suggests "You can't go wrong with cocktail weenies. They taste as good as they look, and they come with this delicious red sauce. It looks like ketchup, it tastes like ketchup BUT BROTHER, IT AIN’T KETCHUP!" I wholly concur.

3. Doritos

What would the Super Bowl be without Doritos & a bunch of people trying to gain notoriety by creating their very own Doritos commercial? It would just be a bunch of touching stories of courage & halftime shows featuring ancient musical acts & big, helmeted dudes in tight pants running around for sixty minutes. This year Doritos has brought back two of their retired, old-timey flavors—Sour Cream & Onion and Salsa Rio—just in time for Super Bowl Sunday. While the Sour Cream & Onion ones aren't really my thing, the Salsa Rio flavor was my childhood jam. Suck it, Cool Ranch.

4. A Bucket of shrimp on ice

Every time I go home for a holiday or some such event, my dad will inevitably let me know that "There's a bag of frozen shrimp in the freezer." Eventually, said frozen shrimp bag gets thawed & broken out during one of that weekend's televised sporting events. The Super Bowl's at least a half-day commitment, so thaw them bottom dwellers out, toss them in a bucket & for food poisoning reasons, put them on ice. It screams "CLASSY."

5. Pizza bagels

This Super Bowl Sunday, you can go out like a lil' bitch & bow down to advertising by ordering a pizza from Domino's, or you can fire up the toaster oven & turn your Super Bowl party into a PIZZA PARTY! It's like the commercial goes, "When pizza's on a bagel, you can eat pizza any time!" Oh wait...that's bowing down to advertising. At least it's COOL advertising. Seriously though. Get some bagels. Transform them into personal pizzas. Repeat.

 

6. popchips

I realize that thus far, all of my snack suggestions are a bit on the fattening side so, for my next selection, I'm suggesting chips that are supposedly healthy--popchips. They're not fried. They're not even baked. Oh no, McGillicuddy. They're POPPED. Apparently, that equals healthy. Plus, popchips are so hip to the social media world wide web trend business plan that they shun uppercase letters & have Ashton Kutcher as their "President of Pop Culture." While they have normal flavors like Barbecue and Salt & Vinegar, they recently released a bunch of new flavors, including a Chili Lime Potato flavor that's pretty damn tasty for a healthy chip.

Photo via http://www.webnuggetz.com/

7. Pulled Pork Sliders

Do you own a slow cooker or have the $15-20 necessary to purchase one? With hours upon hours of pre-game shenanigans on your side, you'll have plenty of time to grab some pork, season it & slow-cook it up. By the time kickoff rolls around, you're rolling in slider deliciousness. Sure sliders have long since jumped the shark as a cultural phenomenon, but so has the Super Bowl. Deal with it.

8. Popcorn

If you want to go the bland, unflavored route, I guess plain popcorn's also low-fat. I don't swing that way though. Popcorn without flavor is like football without steroids…BORING. With that in mind, I'd like to offer up for your consideration the various popcorns from the folks at Popcorn, Indiana. The big game's being played in Indianapolis after all & you can't go wrong laying out a bowl of their Sweet & Tangy BBQ Kettlecorn, Wasabi Popcorn or Cocoa Kettle Kettlecorn as part of your SUPER spread.

9. Tacos

I'm in love with tacos. Without them, my life would be a post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-like existence with less dust, gunfire & motorcycles. Tacos are more American than apple pie, damnit. That's why I highly recommend assembling your very own Super Bowl taco bar. It's simple. All you need is a protein or two, a bunch of chopped up veggies & some tortillas. As we've already established, you'll have salsa & guac handy, so that's covered. Before you know it, your heart will be warmed by the power of tacos.

10. Nuts

There's pretty much nothing that goes better with beer than nuts & if you're watching football, you damn well better have a cold beer in your hand, communist! Ergo proctor gamble, you should have a bowl of nuts by your side. These days, I've been eating an elephant’s worth of Lord Nut Levington peanuts. Sure any nut will do but these ones come in crazy-ass flavors like Thai Dyed (Thai Curry & Lemongrass) and Rebel Mary (Spicy Bloody Mary). It doesn't hurt that, in the spirit of this day of sanctioned violence, Lord Nut Levington would totally kick Mr Peanut's ass.

11. Chili

While I have little to no experience with actually making chili, I do have a ton of experience with eating the stuff. The tastiest-sounding chili I've come across in recent times is this Slate recipe for Chili with Beer, Black Beans & Chocolate. Chili by itself is great but with beer AND dark chocolate? That shit sounds AMAZEBALLS. I guess the only drawback to this recipe would be if you're watching the game in a residence with poor ventilation.

So there you have it. I guess if you want to be a cliché schmuck, you can whip up a pot of chowda or a few Nathan's hot dogs or some Boston baked beans or a bunch of knishes or a Boston cream pie or New York-style cheesecake. I'm hoping you have a bit more creativity than that though.

GO PATS!

Read way more from Shawn at eatdrinksnack.com.