Jackson Free Press

Whether you prefer The Grove at Ole Miss, The Junction at Mississippi State, rolled into Tuscaloosa to cheer on the Tide or headed to Toomer's Corner in Auburn with a roll of toilet paper in your hand, chances are, if you were reared in the South, you grew up on football.

I remember my parents plucking me from my bed, shoving me into an orange and blue cheerleading outfit and loading up into our maroon and cream Dodge Ram van at an ungodly hour of the morning for the four-hour drive to Auburn. It was magical to wake up on Thach Avenue, tucked under the heavy eaves of trees and the shade of the School of Pharmacy, in the midst of a sea of orange and blue.

The shouts of "Go Dawgs," "Roll Tide Roll," "War Eagle" and "Hotty Toddy" have echoed across college campuses for decades. Generations of little boys have grown up spending their Saturdays huddled up in groups of four or five, wearing their team colors and running plays between parked cars, with adults yelling at them for tackling each other.

Regardless of where your team loyalties lie, if you've been to a football game in the SEC, you've experienced the camaraderie, passion and, of course, the food. Football is the one and only occasion in the South that calls for more food than a funeral. The two are as interwoven as southern and storytelling.

On football Saturdays, women stop dieting and counting calories as men stop counting beers, and they both allow children to indulge. Stadium food is a treat, and there's nothing quite like the sharp bite of classic yellow mustard on a hot, soft, salty pretzel, or a funnel cake still hot out of the fryer and buried under mounds of powdered sugar that melts like snow on Mississippi asphalt. But even the best funnel cake can't compare to a mediocre tailgating spread.

In The Grove at Ole Miss, I've heard tell of real china and fine wines, but when it's time for a football game, I tend to be more of a beer and Chinet kind of girl. When I was in college, my friends and I would send the boys the night before to stake our claim before some old alumnus parked his RV in our desired spot. On more than one occasion, someone's La-Z-Boy ended up sitting right next to our grill and coolers with beers on ice.

The older I've gotten, the more important the food has become and the less important the beer. And these days, I cross my fingers and pray to end up next to an RV with a friendly alumnus, a working restroom and enough hors d'oeuvres to share.

Funeral food usually consists of casseroles in hundreds of varieties, fried chicken and the southern delicacy of deviled eggs. But football food is in a class of its own. Not only does football food need to be portable, it needs to be able to withstand the heat and humidity of at least 12 hours of story-telling, gossiping with friends and catching up with people you haven't seen since college or at least since the last home game.

Without the food and festivities, football would be ... well, it would be bland. There is nothing like munching on spicy chicken wings in a lawn chair on your favorite college campus, talking smack about your rivals and cracking open an ice-cold beer.

If you can't make it to the actual games, the next best thing is to cram as many people as possible into one house, gather around the TV with the volume blaring to drown out the screaming of small children, and watch the game.

Regardless if you are sweating it out under a tent or in the comfort of your home, you don't have to miss the three best things about football season: food, food and, yes, more food. I dream about football food of all shapes and sizes: finger sandwiches, cookies, cakes, chicken wings and dips of so many varieties, you'll need a dozen bags of Fritos.

And bless God, if there is anything I love as much as I love college football, it's a bag of Fritos. I'm not above buying the cheapest, most disgusting can of bean dip on sale at a corner quick-stop simply for an excuse to eat Fritos. When I say Fritos, I most definitely do not mean those scrawny little toothpicks that are "Original" Fritos; I mean Fritos Scoops.

No other snack chip is worthy of a good tailgating dip, not to mention the originals completely throw off your dip-to-chip ratio, which is always a delicate balance. (Their sheer scrawniness can also lead to dip under your fingernails.) But never fear, faithful football fans, I am here for you. I promise to provide you with recipes for your tailgate parties, to keep you out of the quick-stop and your fingernails clean. It's the least I can do for the love of football.

Broccoli Cheese Dip

1 stick of butter
1 medium onion, peeled and diced finely
2 tablespoons of minced garlic
1 can condensed cream-of-mushroom soup (Don't judge me, it's worth it.)
1 16-ounce package of Velveeta cheese, chopped
1 cup of chicken broth or stock
2 packages of frozen, chopped broccoli
1 can of chopped mushrooms, drained
Dash of hot sauce of choice, such as Crystal or Tabasco
Ground black pepper to taste
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt

Sauté onion in butter on medium heat. Add diced garlic, ground pepper, condensed soup, Velveeta and chicken stock. Stir until smooth and cheese is melted. Add drained mushrooms, frozen broccoli, hot sauce and garlic salt. Serve in a crock-pot or chafing dish to keep warm, with plenty of Fritos for scooping. (This is also yummy served over a piping hot baked potato.)

Buffalo Chicken Dip
(This is only better than eating actual chicken wings because you get to put it on Fritos.)

2 cans chicken breast meat, drained, or 3 cups of cooked, diced and shredded chicken
2 packages of cream cheese
3/4 cup Crystal hot sauce
1 cup of ranch or blue cheese dressing (I prefer blue cheese.)

Heat all ingredients on the stove, or dump it all in your crock-pot and stir until mixed thoroughly. Don't be fooled by the orange sherbet color: if you take this tailgating, you will leave with a dish that someone will have scraped clean.

Beer and Cheese Fondue

1 clove of garlic, cut in half
3/4 cup of beer (You make the judgment call about what to do with the rest of it.)
2 cups Swiss cheese, shredded
1 cup sharp cheddar, shredded
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
Dash of Tabasco
1 loaf of French bread, sliced then and toasted until golden brown.

In a large bowl or sealed plastic bag, toss grated cheeses and flour. Rub the inside of a heavy saucepan with the clove of garlic, cut side down and then discard. Add beer and heat slowly, gradually adding the cheese and flour mixture until cheese is melted.

Serve with toasted bread slices for dipping. I've never tried this with Fritos, but it couldn't hurt.