Buy Me Some Peanuts and Orange Cheese-Food...
...I don't care if I ever get fat, so it's root, root, root for the River Cats!
A weekend baseball game in July is just the thing to celebrate summer. Peanuts, hot dogs, and cold beer, the seventh-inning stretch, crazy between-inning antics, and kids hopped up on sugar. It's a classic. And last Saturday was a great night for the River Cats, complete with a winning game and fireworks.
So I don't mean to be a party pooper, but what's with all the orange cheese-food and heart attacks on a bun at Raley Field? I guess it's just as American these days to eat really bad food that could kill you. Why has it become the American way to have greasy, salty "food" at our sporting events? Now you might argue that there are non-greasy choices available (roasted peanuts, Merlino's Freeze, even red ropes I suppose), but the majority of what I saw people wolfing down was meaty, cheesy, grease-dripping stroke material. With beer or a gallon of soda. Mmmmm, what a treat.
The photo above shows a Mexican bowl from the Left Field BBQ that we eventually found. The guacamole was amazingly good, but the rest of the big bowl consisted of ropy pork, half a cup of sour cream, and some rice and beans. Oh, and the lovely cilantro garnish. A vegetable! For $6.50, it was a better cost to quantity ratio than most offerings. We also tried Jimboy's tacos, which were not bad in the grease department, but garnished with shredded American cheese, which was just weird. Although I do give them points for not frying their tortillas. The people in front of us ate big steak sandwiches smothered in melted Velveeta and a fried taco "salad" that seemed to have a few paltry iceberg lettuce chunks and a sad tomato or two under the meat and cheese.
I did enjoy a Merlino's Freeze in original orange ($4) and we got some roasted peanuts. My father complained that there were too many small and shriveled nuts but most of them were fairly tasty and not too salty. Packaged, though. You can buy those and have them arrive in boxes. For the food they "made" there, it was stuff like hot dogs and sausages, a "Sicilian Po'boy" (which I didn't have the stomach to try), pork barbecue for $10 a plate, and nachos with that evil cheese-food again. I'm sorry, but I don't think Californians should be eating bad cheese. There's no excuse for it in this dairy-rich area.
I don't want to get all Berkeley hippie on anyone, but would it be so hard to have a chicken and veggie kabob? How about juice in addition to soda? What about some real cheese, people? The Giants park (whatever it's called these days) has some interesting, healthy-ish food available and people seem to buy it. Surely there could be something reasonably healthy to offer our local baseball fans that would allow them to maybe participate in a baseball game outside of watching it. Or some other physical activity so that they don't all die of coronaries and stop buying those branded hats and gloves. It's called taking care of the customer, or you won't have any.
Comments
It's a sad commentary on the new American diet that sports-goers, theater-goers, and fair-goers have come to expect billion calorie 'snacks', 2 quart sodas, and barrel-sized tubs of popcorn (swimming in butter-flavored Penzoil, I might add) when they're out 'rec-reating'. I'm a huge proponent for a some healthy choices when I attend my sporting or cinematic events. Unfortunately, the demand or desire for real food, something that bears some resemblence to its original form, something not processed into cute shapes, deep fried and/or doused with neon food coloring is just not there;
deep fried twinkies, anyone? how about a couple deep fried snickers bars? This is typical fair food these days, and it's obvious that these 'delicacies' are not going away any time soon; just look at the concession lines! Makes corn dogs and the Texas donuts look healthy! Who's in charge here? A delirious 8 year old, careening off a sugar high, making up the most absurd food concoctions he could think of? You would think the notion of a deep fried Snickers Bar would draw laughs, not crowds of folks lining up 3 deep, anxious to plunk down $3 for the chance to give it a try...what's next? A deep fried bowl of mayonnaise? Remember when Taco Bell offered a 'light' menu? It was great, but short lived; I remember inquiring where my favorite light taco was on the menu, only to find out the light menu just didn't sell, so they discontinued it. The fast food generation actually prefers the liquid-latex-cheese-substance served with tortilla chips, and therein lies our problem. People have forgotten what real (good) food tastes like, and have relinquished their palates (and their good sense) to over-processed-white-flour-sugar-enveloped-red-dye#2-and/or deep-fried-'food'---what I like to call the Beige-and-Neon food group.
May the American Heart Association help us all....
Posted by: tammi | July 25, 2007 1:17 PM