Tailgate titans

When you’ve got tons of people to feed at a tailgate party, you’d better bring your A game. For many of those hardcore football fans, this will be the one big meal of the day. Those on cooking duty need to make sure the grub is filling and can stand up against whatever combinations of liquor may follow it. With that in mind, we talked to some tailgating aficionados who impressed us last season with their culinary pre-game spreads.

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“We do that for the early kickoff. We get there around 8 or 9 in the morning. It ends up being quite a production,” Romero says. He cooks about three dozen eggs, topped with a hollandaise sauce made on the spot over a double boiler. It’s a fancy touch that requires some strong culinary skills, but Romero has mastered it. His tailgating crew includes eight to 10 members, and one person is responsible for the main dish for each game. “I usually get hooked into doing eggs Benedict for those early games,” he says.

Cortez, a Thibodaux resident, and her husband are early risers—for the Tigers at least. On game days they get up at 3 or 4 a.m. to get to campus for 6 a.m.

“We’ll tailgate until it’s over,” she says. “There’s a lot of drinking and cooking. Since we’re there so long, we make breakfast, lunch and dinner out there.”

Her pulled pork loin is seasoned and cooked overnight in a crock-pot, then slathered with TryMe’s Tiger Sauce once they get to campus. Her crew, Hoppy’s Corner, sets up on Skip Bertman and Nicholson drives and is known for cooking a whole alligator on a rotisserie.

With so much fanfare, a friend dubbed their setup “better than Mardi Gras.”