Superbowl Gluttony





This year, was my first appearance at a long-standing super bowl party that has become a serious tradition...this was the fifth year that this group of friend’s has held a pre-super bowl game of touch football on the same soggy Burnaby field, before heading back to the host house to watch the game, drink a lot of beer, and eat a lot of food.

Cheer-off: The Pyramids!

This year, some new elements were woven into the tapestry of this tradition: along with the usual “kick to win: field goal distance kick-off”(this year’s winner: Kyle Murphy), there was a “cheer-off” at half time, and this year, this group took excessive eating to a whole new level by adding a weight gain competition (I'm calling it The Gluttony Bowl).




Pre-game weigh in

 At the beginning of the Super Bowl, brave and hungry participants stepped up to the scale with a seemingly simple goal: to reach the end of the game with highest percentage of weight gain.

Tasty tradition: the ham

There was quite a selection of food to help these brave food warriors with their goal- a stock pot full of chilli, a glazed ham
, pulled pork, a variety of dips (seven layer, Indian cumin, eggplant, salsa), 5 varieties of chips, Schwartz (a baked cheesy potato dish), stuffed mushroom caps, pasta salad, chicken wings, a veggie platter, buns, sausage, cookies, cinnamon buns, a chocolate football cake,

a Steelers cake (rainbow chip), a Green Bay cake (chocolate), and Guiness cupcakes with a light guiness frosting.


You could've bathed a small child in this tub of chili



Also contributing were a fridge and two coolers full of beer….with many participants chugging a beer between each quarter.

A half-time weigh in had my “sous-chef” looking like he might have victory wrapped up with an jaw-dropping 7 lb weight gain… but at the end of the fourth quarter, the winner of the 1^st annual Belt-Busting-Bloated Bowl was Adam with an awe-inspiring 7.6 lb weight gain. Adam was the actually the lightest guy going into the competition and with a lot of strategy, grit, and determination to avoid any kind of lb.- dropping excretion, Adam walked away with the win.

7.6 lb weight gain!

Adam thanked his wife, Leah, for all of her support and credited his win to chugging a lot of beer (and water) right before the final weigh in…although the 4 pulled pork/ham sandwiches certainly played a big role too.

Clockwise from top centre: pulled pork on pita with hot sauce, 7 layer dip on chip, cumin spiked indian dip on cucumber, Schwartz and mushroom caps. This was probably my 2nd of 4 full plates that afternoon. I felt like I had a Gremlin in my stomach trying to claw his way out......

My food highlights were the pulled pork (it wasn’t very saucy so I added Frank’s hot sauce), the cheese and veggie stuffed mushroom caps, and the seven layer dip. The desserts were all pretty epic: amazing cinnamon buns with just the right amount of icing, beautifully decorated football and helmet cakes, and the inspired Guiness cupcakes (makes for a dense texture and rich flavour).

The actual game itself was pretty good too- with a few nail-biting moments, it was nice to see the Green Bay Packers finish a great season with a big Super Bowl victory.