Fall is the season most famously known for football. Follow one man's tailgating adventure at a Packers-Pittsburgh Steelers game.

By George Hendrix

September/October 2006

On a November Sunday morning, I gaze at myself in the mirror of a Green Bay, Wisconsin, motel room and see a body honed by years of reporting on giant steaks, enormous sticky buns and the best buffets in the Midwest. I see an outfit of a green-and-gold jersey and hat. In short, I look typecast for brats and beers. In fact, I'm so convincing that it crosses my mind that my story subjects for the day-tailgaters at the afternoon Packers-Pittsburgh Steelers game-might think I'm simply posing as a writer to get free food.

Shortly before 10 a.m., I arrive at Lambeau Field, the red brick shrine to Packerdom. It looks like a classic bowl of a college stadium, but on the east end, soaring glass walls enclose an atrium of restaurants, shops and the Packers Hall of Fame. The atrium, along with the towering brass statues of team founder Curly Lambeau and legendary coach Vince Lombardi, was added during a recent $295 million expansion financed by the city of Green Bay, county taxpayers, the Packers and the National Football League. With a population of 102,000, Green Bay is far and away the smallest city with a team in the National Football League. The Packers generate the sort of loyalty and fervor generally reserved for college teams, perennially selling out the stadium's 72,601 seats.

The morning's dark, low clouds and rain have disintegrated into fluffy white tufts scuttling eastward toward Lake Michigan under a Packer-gold sun. With the parking lot's gates thrown open long before the game, a stream of cars and trucks is angling into favorite spots to disgorge folding tables, web chairs, grills, great stacks of coolers and a green-and-gold horde of fans.

Within minutes-impossibly fast, it seems-the air is hazy with brat-scented smoke, though today I'm not tempted by this Packer signature. The acres of asphalt parking lot surrounding the stadium serve as the stage for some of the most boisterous, tradition-rich, appetizing tailgating in America, and I've come to discover the culinary treasures tucked within the mayhem.

The most elaborate setups spread eastward from the stadium's Oneida gate. Fans set up their tables and grills into long tailgating rows. Soon the tables are covered by casseroles, slow cookers, trays of chips and salsa and thickets of toothpicks rising from bite-size chunks of Wisconsin cheese.

Some fans arrive in panel trucks outfitted like living rooms, with easy chairs in front of televisions equipped with satellite dishes. Others ice down kegs and politely ring them with camp stools for passersby. Along with the scents of dozens of different meals, the breeze carries a smorgasbord of tunes belted out by boom boxes, car stereos and a wandering brass band. Some entrepreneur has erected a pole dangling several medical IV bags, each filled with a different liquor. He's doing a brisk business dispensing jolts of medicine.

My first stop is to sample Patty Jahnke's barbecue beef, simmering away on a camp stove next to sister-in-law Debbie Pamperin's spinach-artichoke dip. Patty, from Green Bay, is sipping a celebratory glass of sparkling wine. "My birthday is tomorrow," she says. "It's the 21st anniversary of my 19th birthday."

Were it not for the special occasion, Patty and Debbie would be mixing their usual raspberry daiquiris in the gas-powered blender. Patty and Debbie cook something different for every game, they say. One of their standbys is booyah, a thick stew of several meats that's a staple of Packer tailgating.

A few cars down the row, I run into Dave Ashbeck and Tom Jungwirth and ask, "You're showing off, aren't you?" On their table, these two beer-drinking guys from Wisconsin Rapids have a minimalist display of one impressively large butcher knife buried almost to the hilt in a vast slab of beef strip loin. Big as a gym bag. Nothing else on the table. "If you think that's impressive...," Dave says, opening a cooler to show an even larger slab of rib eye.

The strip loin is to be carved into pre-game grilling steaks. The rib eye is set aside for tailgating after the game. I make a high-priority mental note to check back later. Dave and Tom also will be serving their friends potatoes and sauteed garlic mushrooms, all cooked on what appears to be the official Packer tailgating kitchenware: well-seasoned steel pans atop propane camp stoves. Some tailgating tables feature up to four of the two-burner stoves practically hidden under steaming pots and pans.

Several rows away, I eat meatballs simmered in a grape jelly sauce (my first time with the dish, which I find strangely good) and lasagna while Sue Haase of Berlin struggles to loft her friend's bulldog "Packer" for a few photographs. Packer is dressed for game day in a cheesehead hat, a Packers jersey and a look that, for a bulldog, might pass as happy.

Nearby, Greg Hiebing of Neenah is somewhat frighteningly decked out in a full Packer uniform (wearing the jersey of legendary defensive end Reggie White). "I just became a season ticket holder this June," he says. Greg's tailgating mate, Larry Primeau of De Pere, is famously known as the Packalope for his habit of coming to games in a Packer helmet fitted with an impressive set of antlers. Most importantly at the moment, Greg, the Packalope and I are being served chicken gumbo by a third member of their tailgating crew, Pete Damico of Ellison Bay. Pete dishes up bowls of rice and pours on the roux- and okra-thickened stew native to the Gulf Region. If you think gumbo sounds like a distinctly non-Green Bay sort of dish, keep in mind that the most popular Packer, quarterback Brett Favre, hails from Mississippi.

Kickoff comes, and the Pack falls to the Steelers 20-10. Despite the loss, I step quickly while walking back through the parking lot. I have to go see whether that rib eye has been cut into steaks yet.

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