Posted on: Wednesday, January 29, 2003

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Super Bowl a holiday it's hard to hate

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

A quarter century of writing about food for a daily newspaper will cure you of any interest in holidays. Cherry pies for Washington's birthday, heart-shaped cakes for Valentine's Day, red-white-and-blue fruit salads for the Fourth of July — I've done 'em all.

In these pages, I ignore holidays as much as is humanly possible, and, when I do write a story with a holiday theme, I try to be sure it isn't too silly. Because, really, how often do you make green cookies for St. Patrick's Day or pumpkin cupcakes for Halloween?

But buzzing through the grocery last Saturday in search of ripe avocados and hot sauce for my Super Bowl spread, it occurred to me that I was happily participating in a relatively new American holiday. Several factors led me to this conclusion:

California avocado growers say 8 million pounds of avocados go into guacamole and other dishes during Super Bowl weekend and this, along with the holiday party season, is their biggest sales period.

Super Bowl Sunday is the second largest day of food consumption behind Thanksgiving, according to the American Institute of Food Distribution.

Sales of beer and wine, chips and snacks rise by a third and soft drinks by 20 percent, according to Efficient Market Services Inc. a Deerfield, Ill.-based firm that tracks consumer purchases.

Statistics aside, my grocery store appeared to be all about the Super Bowl: displays of chips, beer, ready-made pupu platters and even cakes decorated with team names were on every aisle. And there seemed to be a celebratory atmosphere about the place.

Perhaps because it is an unofficial holiday, and one unencumbered by a lot of tradition, it didn't trip my anti-holiday alarm. Nor was any guilt involved. Because the best part of it is: You don't have to do it! You pretty much have to do Christmas or Hanukkah, Easter or Passover. But Super Bowl Sunday? You can skip it. Sleep in. Ignore the game. Go shopping.

And if you do have a party, you can serve anything you like. I did from-scratch chili, guacamole, nachos and other dips — pretty standard. But I could have done anything and no one would have remarked on it so long as it was something they could eat with their eyes glued to the television. My kind of "holiday."