October 4, 2023
Good Day Grover Pickers,
It’s Texas State Fair Week! The annual clash between Texas and Oklahoma will soon be the SEC’s sixth or seventh best rivalry, but it may always have the best terrible food!
So let’s celebrate football and the newest death-inducing menu items at the Texas State Fair has to offer! And to be clear, I, The Commissioner, have not made up a single one of these ‘foods’. These food descriptions and photos below are straight from the Texas State Fair website.
If any of this looks good to eat, please seek help
Here: American Heart Association Healthy Eating
Here: Mayo Clinic Nutrition
Or Here: McRib
The awful things I have to say about the games, especially FSU, are Commissioner originals.
LSU v Missouri
DEEP FRIED HONEY BUTTER BRISKET SWIRLS
“In the spirit of Little Debbie® Pecan Spinwheeels and homemade cinnamon rolls, the Deep Fried Honey Butter Brisket Swirls are a delightful treat with a Texas twist. It’s a buttery, flakey dough layered with 16-hour, slow-smoked, chopped brisket, then rolled and cut into swirls of smokey goodness. Deep fried and glazed with secret honey butter sauce, these crispy, sweet, fluffy swirls are sure to put a smile on your face.”
In the pantheon of crap, anything that begins with ‘In the spirit of Little Debbie’ is going to be top tier. This recipe is about details such as “16-hour, slow-smoked, chopped brisket”, which should never be confused with “15-hour, flash -fried” brisket.
Missouri is a slow-smoked King. They’ve been simmering for many seasons, you forget it’s on the fire, and suddenly they present with balanced flavor and offense and run all over LSU.
LSU is the “Secret honey butter sauce” because they are the kind of dopes who list all of their secret ingredients in the name of the recipe and think they are being sneaky. Go Tigers.
Alabama v Texas A&M
DEEP FRIED CANDY PECAN BACON BREAD PUDDING
“This recipe begins with making the perfect bread pudding, a marriage of French bread, and a perfect custard recipe. After it cools, it’s cut into bite-size morsels. As the bread pudding is placed in the fryer, it starts to caramelize the edges, turning golden brown with a rich and creamy center. The bread pudding is tossed in a perfect blend of cinnamon sugar and candy pecans, which find their home nestled next to crispy chopped bacon. It is topped with a New Orleans praline sauce that perfectly ties together these sweet and savory flavors. Lastly, a touch of salted caramel bourbon sauce is added that creates an explosion of flavor which makes you wish the State Fair of Texas was year-round!”
Bacon is our greatest ingredient. That’s Bama in this case. All the rest of this is just trying too hard to improve bacon, which is a waste of time, energy and money, and that’s Texas A&M.
UGA v Kentucky
TAKI RAMEN TOSTADA
“A ramen noodle cake is flash-fried, smothered with made-from-scratch savory seasoned taco meat, and topped with crispy Asian sesame seed slaw and a drizzle of garlic lime aioli. Finally, Mexican queso banco and crumbled Takis® are sprinkled on top to complete this Mexican-Asian fusion dish.”
I don’t normally associate ‘Mexican-Asian fusion” with Lexington and Athens, but this recipe includes Takis, which are, technically, “rolled corn tortilla chips (that) deliver a bold, cheesy flavor that has all the intensity, none of the spice.” The ‘cheese’ is relevant, but “all the intensity, none of the spice” perfectly sums up the entire SEC so far this season and this game in particular.
Illinois v Nebraska
CORNBREAD SAUSAGE BOMBS
“Pecan-smoked Texas sausage slices are topped with a heaping portion of pimento cheese and a slice of jalapeño, then dipped in a fluffy cornbread batter. These savory treats are fried golden brown and served with jalapeño ranch dipping sauce. This Texas flavor explosion will leave you shell-shocked!”
A couple of corn producing state schools with a long history of playing ‘fluffy batter’ defense and leaving fans ‘shell-shocked’.
Ohio State v Maryland
DEEP FRIED VIETNAMESE COFFEE
“Meticulously slow-brewed coffee-infused cake that will ignite your energy levels and your sweet tooth. The cake is then rolled into a ball, battered, and deep-fried Texas style! To finish this off, it is dusted with powdered sugar and served with velvety condensed milk.”
Why are these teams still in the same conference? The Terrapins still want to ‘infuse’ into the Big 10 and the result seems very much like trying to fry coffee. For this game, Maryland enters undefeated but now faces being ‘rolled into a ball and battered’.
The Buckeyes are condensed milk. For those of you who are not as expert on your shelf-stable dairy products as The Commmissioner and our several Grover Picks Food Scientists, condensed milk is cow milk with the water removed, sugar added, and surrounded by a can. It’s just like if you are a football team from Columbus with two of the best receivers in America with a quarterback removed and Ryan Day as coach surrounded by Ohio.
Florida State v Virginia Tech
THE FRUITY PEBBLE PICKLE
“A delicious, whole dill pickle wrapped in every kid’s favorite fun snack. A Fruit Roll-Up® and Fruit by the Foot®, drizzled in sugar syrup and coated in one of the most popular cereals in the world, Fruity Pebbles®. This is then drizzled again with strawberry snow cone syrup. It’s crunchy, sweet, and delicious!”
It’s horrific judgement that created this pickle disaster that will doom FSU to the ACC forever. There are no delicious pickles to start. Fruity Pebbles, like FSU, are a relic from a bygone era. It’s a cereal built on the brand power of an outdated cartoon, “The Flintstones”, just as FSU was built on the brand power of another buffoonish dinosaur, Bobby Bowden.
Patriots v Saints
CREOLE ETOUFFEE BEIGNETS
“Onions, bell peppers, and celery. This etouffee sauce is mixed with shrimp, smoked sausage, and steamed rice. The savory Crescent City classic is then dipped into beignet batter and fried until golden brown, and topped with powdered sugar! It is a beignet, after all.”
This game is football celery. There is no amount of fry oil and sugar that makes Mac Jones/Bailey Zappe and/or Derek Carr/Jameis Winston tasty.
Commanders v Bears
DEEP FRIED SUSHI BOMBS
“Sushi rice is generously topped with imitation crab meat and perfectly seasoned salmon for a quick bake. The sushi bake is then rolled in panko breadcrumbs and deep-fried until golden brown and served with a side of seaweed and Yum Yum dipping sauce.”
Justin Fields = Imitation Crab Meat. Sam Howell = Seaweed. But this is the NFL, so let’s deep fry that junk and pour some Yum Yum sauce on it and see if anyone will watch on Amazon.
Texas v Oklahoma
FRIED TEXAS BBQ SHOTGUN SHELLS
“This cheesy, savory roll-on-a-stick is the perfect State Fair treat! Made with slow-smoked, shredded, Texas BBQ beef brisket, melted, gooey Velveeta®, and cream cheese, seasoned with Meat Church Texas Sugar Rub®, then rolled in a pasta sheet, wrapped up in hickory smoked bacon, and rolled in jalapeño breadcrumbs. It’s a savory bomb that’s going to be nearly impossible to put down!
This recipe was the entire text of the Longhorn’s and Sooner’s application to join the SEC.
Niners v Cowboys
BOUJEE GRILLED CHEESE
“America’s favorite sandwich, taken to an elevated level for sophisticated taste buds. A gourmet grilled cheese filled with fresh arugula, thinly sliced green apples, turkey, and scratch-made cranberry mayo, all in between ooey-gooey melted Brie and Havarti cheeses and buttery, crispy sourdough bread.”
Football can be simple, like grilled cheese. Run the ball, block, tackle. Butter, toast, cheese. Dallas coach Mike McCarthy is embodiment of grilled cheese football.
The Niners, being in San Francisco, always have to make it a little more boujee with their waggles and motions and Christian McAfferey’s.
Simple, but delicious.
Florida v Vanderbilt
FRIED FIREBALL® SHOT
“The fluffy, airy, melt-in-your-mouth sweetness of angel food cake meets the red-hot and fiery cinnamon flavor of Fireball® Cinnamon malt liquor. After deep frying to a perfect golden brown, Fireball® Cinnamon is poured over the top and into a shot glass.
“What if we fry up some liquor?” is the kind of thinking that is about to get Billy Napier Fireballed right out of Gainesville. There is no coming back from a loss to the Commodores on Homecoming. There is not enough angel food cake in Texas to sugar coat that.
Bon Appetit and Happy Picking,
The Commissioner
The Grover Picks 