True test of tailgating cooking: Bad weather

Anybody can tailgate in nice weather.    But the true test of a tailgater’s mettle is what sort of spread he or she can whip up in nasty weather, and, make no mistake, the weather Saturday at Fred G. Hughes Stadium on the Missouri Southern State University campus was nasty. It was cold, it was wet and bolts of lightning danced around the sky. Because of that, the number of tailgaters was down Saturday afternoon but their spirits were not.

“Eighteen years, rain or shine,” was how Jon Tupper responded with a smile from under a large canopy sheltering he and his guests from the elements when asked how many years he has been serving up food for family and friends prior to MSSU football games.

Tupper, a former MSSU football standout and current member of the team’s radio broadcast crew, talked about tailgating from a perch near his massive smoker grill. While he talked he scooped a spicy grilled fajita mixture and placed it into a soft flour tortilla and handed it to Krystal Coy. He then handed another tortilla filled with the grilled steak, peppers and onions mixture to Austin Gilbert.

Coy and Gilbert, members of the MSSU cheerleading squad were sampling the tailgate fare as part of their duties as judges in a school-sponsored tailgate contest.

“Winner,” Gilbert said after taking a big bite of his fajita.

From underneath another canopy, Bruce Anderson took the lid off of a stockpot sitting on a gas-fueled flame and stirred a mixture of corn on the cob, potatoes, onions, lemons and sausage. In a few minutes, Anderson would add six pounds of shrimp to the stockpot to make a warm and savory shrimp boil.

Anderson said his tailgating group is made up almost entirely of Lionbackers, the MSSU athletics booster club. While Anderson oversaw the shrimp boil, other members of the group munched on chips and salsa and grilled chicken wings. Anderson said he and the other folks who put their pre-football game menus together always try to have a main dish to go with the more traditional tailgate fare like wings and brats.

“Sometimes we do chili or a fish fry,” he said.

Steve Allgood, who was helping Anderson, said there are usually four or five people who handle the cooking at the tailgates and that, in addition to the main dishes, snack items like beef sticks, cheddar cheese and peanuts were available for tailgaters to dive into.

And, while the food took center stage at a tailgate, both groups said that getting together with friends before MSSU football games is what real tailgating is all about.

Tupper, in fact, said he usually doesn’t eat much when he’s dishing out his tailgate favorites. His fajitas, for example, don’t really appeal to him.

“I don’t like the peppers,” he said.

What he does like is watching other people enjoy his food.

“That’s what it’s  all about,” he said.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/food/x94880064/True-test-of-tailgating-cooking-Bad-weather