Yesterday was Super Bowl, and because it’s a sporting event, naturally there are rules.
The first rule of the Super Bowl is that you must talk about the Super Bowl. The second rule of the Super Bowl is that you must talk about the Super Bowl. If you are a living, breathing, human-like person who is not actively in a coma, it’s required by American law that you acknowledge the existence of the Super Bowl.
The third rule of the Super Bowl is that someone at some point has to acknowledge that they are only here for the commercials.
And the final rule — second only in importance to the strangely repetitive first and second rule — is that you have to make a meal out of snacks. Dips, spreads, poppers, wing…all are fair game as long as it can be classified as “finger food.” No plate should feel as though it is in any way attempting “health.” And if a fork is needed, it is disqualified for consideration as a foodstuff to be consumed on the day.
Fortunately, sandwiches are considered to be acceptable Super Bowl fare. If it wasn’t, we were going to have to make an appeal to the Supreme Court to allow us an exemption on the grounds of “because sandwiches” — and honestly, who has time for that kind of paperwork?
Despite the national holiday that will probably be renamed “Tom Brady wins again Day” from here on out, we made no special allowances or exceptions to our method of choosing sandwiches and merely continued our way alphabetically down the list. This week that meant we and landed ourselves (figuratively) in South Dakota where the sandwich that was going to be held aloft in comparison to classic gameday snacks like seven-layer dip, pigs-in-a-blanket, and loaded nachos was….Pheasant Salad sandwich.
I guess if we wanted another sandwich we should have planned better when we started this whole journey back in April. Classic us, not thinking nine-months ahead. But we didn’t have time to overthink it too much, because we had to find a pheasant.
Do you know what’s not the easiest thing to find in California in January?
If you didn’t think “pheasant” I’m going to need you to start back at the top of this newsletter and keep your Scooby-Doo eyes peeled for all of those context clues I was dropping.
I called a few butchers and specialty shops in Los Angeles, and they were like, “who is this crazy lady who wants to eat pheasant?” It’s a little hurtful that they said it out loud, but alas, sticks and stones.
I was thiiiiiiis close to paying way too much to have a 2.5-pound bird delivered from South Dakota to my door when the Gods looked down upon me and said, “eh, let’s give her a win.” I stopped into Whole Foods for something else entirely and lo-and-behold, they had exactly two pheasants. Even the person helping me behind the counter was surprised and said that he didn’t know they had pheasant.
I had him wrap up that bird lickity-split before any other pheasant hunters could snatch it up. It felt like stealing, except it was pretty expensive for the amount of bird you got, so it was like stealing that you had to pay for? I’m not a very good thief, I guess.
Onto the star of the show: T̶o̶m̶ ̶B̶r̶a̶d̶y̶ the Pheasant Salad Sandwich. The lore behind the sandwich is that, during WWII, a USO canteen opened up in Aberdeen, SC to provide free food or drink to any soldiers passing through. Pheasants were aplenty in the area, so the Pheasant Salad Sandwich was a quick, easy, cheap, and — according to soldiers — delicious staple. It was so popular, the recipe remains readily available to anyone visiting South Dakota — or who takes the time to Google it.
So on Super Bowl Sunday, we cooked up the pheasant, which was just roasting it low and slow for a couple of hours. It’s a very tiny bird, so it really wasn’t that complicated or time-consuming. But it was an annoying amount of effort and commitment for what happened next.
We chopped up all the meat and mixed it with chopped onion, celery, and hard-boiled eggs, shredded carrot, sweet relish, salt, pepper, and mayo. Honestly, this combination of ingredients made me really question whether or not South Dakotans were being nice to soldiers or trying to pull a fast one on them, but I was pleasantly surprised.
When all was said and done, it had all the look, taste, and mouthfeel (yes, mouthfeel) of a chicken salad sandwich. Just without the cost-effectiveness or what-to-do-with-that-leftover-chicken ease of a chicken salad sandwich. That all said, it really was a really good c̶h̶i̶c̶k̶e̶n̶ pheasant salad sandwich.
So did it win the Super Bowl of snacks? Nah, Tom Brady won that one, too. But while pheasant salad isn’t the most Super Bowly foods of all time — I didn’t see one mention of pheasant on any super bowl listicle — it was tasty and fit the snack-food-as-a-meal bill. It was the perfect thing to enjoy while watching commercials that were being so rudely interrupted by people playing football.
Sure, you eat sandwiches, but do you read about them???
Sure, your friends eat sandwiches, but do they read about them??