When food attacks
In honor of Memorial Day meals past, let’s examine the word “decadence.” This is not to be confused with “Decca dance,” an annual soiree held by Decca Records in the 1950s. For benefit of the young, allow me to explain the Fifties.
It was a dark, mysterious time when the United States had no enemies except Commies, Muslims were still called “Mohammedans” and, in certain portions of the South, people still had to work long hours in squalid sweatshops in order to save enough money to rent teeth. Now, of course, they simply get them for free from the gubmint.
Enough history.
“Decadence” has several meanings, including “unrestrained and excessive self-indulgence.” Which brings us back to Memorial Day.
Most of us can be forgiven if we overindulge in hamburgers, hot dogs, wings, chicken, ribs, hot sausage, potato salad, macaroni salad, Jell-O salad, pistachio pudding, corn chips, potato chips, nachos, pretzels, celery sticks slathered in cream cheese or peanut butter or any of the varied foods that help Americans remember the sacrifice of our war dead. But when we turn to “stadium food” – offered in American ballparks not only on Memorial Day, but throughout the baseball, football, hockey, basketball and, probably, curling and bocce seasons – it’s a whole new ballgame.
Today’s offerings are a far cry from the wieners, popcorn and peanuts that once were the staples of ballpark menus in baseball’s halcyon days. Back then, even if your home team was terrible, at least you could get a free toy in every box of Cracker Jack. What you can get today, in baseball terms, is the high-inside greaseball.
For example, last year PNC Park premiered “The Closer,” a grilled-cheese sandwich made with four slices of bread, nine different cheeses, candied bacon, Granny Smith apple slices and leek compote. This year – maybe in honor of normalized U.S.-Cuba relations – saw the debut of the Cuban Pretzel Dog, a footlong tube steak wrapped in an imported German pretzel bun and topped with smoked pork, diced ham, mustard and pickles.
PNC Park fare is typical of American stadium food, but it pales in comparison to what’s being offered elsewhere around the nation, including:
• A 4-pound edible edifice offered at Tropicana Stadium in Tampa Bay that has eight hamburger patties and 32 slices of bacon. Anyone who finishes the burger, along with the pound of fries included on the side, wins tickets to a future game. If they can walk out of the stadium that night.
• The Krispy Kreme Doughnut Dog, a wiener and chips wrapped in a glazed doughnut bun with bacon and raspberry jelly as toppings, put on the roster by the Wilmington (Del.) Blue Rocks, a single-A farm team of the Kansas City Royals.
• Alcohol-infused gourmet cupcakes, sold at the Atlanta Falcons’ Georgia Dome for $37.50 to $40 per dozen. Sales stop at the end of the third quarter in hopes of preventing the always-dreadful cupcake crapulence.
• Hugo’s Boss Burger ($75): 14 meat patties, cheddar, bacon, lettuce and mushrooms, totaling 8 pounds, sold at the Charlotte Hornets’ arena
The seventh-inning stretch will never be the same:
“Take me out to the ballgame, wheel me out at the end.
Buy me some Bromo or Prilosec; I don’t care if I really get sick.
Let me eat, eat, eat at the home game; a few more beers, if you please
For it’s one, two, three sides of fries and a tub of cheese.”