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Hottest taste sensations
[Times art: David Williams]
By CHRIS SHERMAN
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 26, 2001
Chris Sherman, Food Critic
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The voice simulator of the robo vendor will boom at Super Bowl CXXXV, reminiscent of the days when human workers delivered food in the stadium.
Peanuts, popcorn ... but they never had anything like KICKZ.
"The rootin' tootin' interactive candy for the true fan. It plays the game in your mouth. Pick the winner and taste victory too. The candy for fans who go with their gut. A Pro Pick tropic snack!"
You won't be able to pass up the hottest taste sensation of the season, but line up at the robo early because you won't be alone.
Have your account number and team preference ready and be prepared for your bag of miniature gumballs in team colors.
Before the game, they have a pleasant minty taste. That's the ice blue phase, okay sort of like kissing the team manager. Any time the ball is within the 10-yard line, a signal from a stadium transmitter triggers the cinnamon and clove in the candy to start the red hots tingling.
And then for Barsntaz fans, if Jarnal Spodio dives for a score -- Wow! -- your mouth explodes in chocolate, or sometimes orange blossom honey. The labs change the touchdown taste every game and the special victory flavor too. What could they do for the Super Bowl? Mango cheesecake? Banana split? Tiramisu? Nutty Buddy?
How sweet it is . . . if you win.
The robo's pitch never mentions the other half of these sweet-n-sour suckers, when your team is on the short end of the scoreboard. Everyone knows. Every touchdown when the other guys are savoring the good stuff, the candy in your mouth turns sour, then salty and finally to vinegar. And you'd been so confident you'd wolfed down two bags of KICKZ, one in each half.
Yuck. No guts, no glory that day.
But hey, a real fan knows football is food. Play it, watch it, listen to it, feel it, why not eat it?
Nibbling and noshing through the game isn't half of it. Fact is that's why the commissioners expanded halftime to an hour during the season and two hours for the Super Bowl. Power-level suites are nice, but few of them can duplicate what a first-rate cruiser has nowadays.
So at the half, many folks fire the retro rockets to return to their tailfin party. That way you can gorge on what the family caterer made just for you and your diet, maybe a faux rack of lamb made of tofu, or that funny sandwich you found in that old story about the 2001 Buccaneers -- what was it, a Cuban?
Lately, the designers have miniaturized the home-brew process, so there are portable models even smaller than the home kitchen units. Now every party can have several personal brewers. With the new super yeast, you can brew several gameday concoctions -- Lineman's Stout or T-Back Ale -- at the stadium. Stick any beer in the flash freezer and you can drink 'em at any temperature from ice-bucket cold to rugby-pub tepid.
Plus almost any rig now has a bigger wine cellar than the stadium's, full of your favorites: the Wisconsin dessert wines, Uruguayan chardonnay, and maybe after the game, one of those Shandong cabs from the great 2085 vintage.
Sometimes it's just as well if you don't have your own private launch, access to a fancy club suite or an invite to a VIP tailfin bash.
You'd need at least that two-hour halftime to explore half of the Super Bowl concessions on the third-level holodeck.
Used to be it was fun just smelling all the foods from around the world at a big global game like this. At the Taste of Old Earth at this year's Super Bowl, you'll get more than a taste of faraway times and places. Enter any portal and you can dine on pad thai on a boat in the floating markets of Thailand, have a steak fresh off the fire on the pampas with gauchos surrounded by their herds and horses, watch your sushi sliced up fresh from the floor of the Tsujiki market, or the smoothie bar where you pick your own fruit from rainforest trees.
There's a recreation of Times Square where you can buy hot dogs from pushcart vendors and a tile palace serving the paella and a flamenco floor show from Tampa's 196-year-old Columbia restaurant.
It's all too much to sample in the space of one game, even such a big game. Especially if you have to use the female comfort station. But they say they'll achieve parity by 2102.
Today's Odyssey
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