I'm glad you asked!
For the last 16 years or so, I've had a tradition of making Super Bowl Soup. It's a little different every year, but is always sort of heavy like a stew, always with one meat, a bag or two of beans, and a bunch of vegetables, and always spicy. It's always a good bet that you'll see baby corn and water chestnuts in the mix; an average of about $45 or $50 goes into the pot (a huge pot that makes enough to freeze some to eat throughout the year). I make it on Saturday because it's better when the tabasco and Worcestershire sauce have had a day to sink in. On game day it is paired with Dos Equis Amber or Newcastle Brown Ale, and cheese and crackers. If it's spicy enough, the soup should make your upper lip sweat.
I make it every year with just those guidelines, but in years when the Patriots are in it, I'm required to theme the soup to the city where the game is played. (This requirement was not added until Super Bowl XXXVI, so it's brought good luck.) When it was in New Orleans, it was a white broth for the first time --- other years it had always been red/tomato-based --- and was sort of a play on chicken gumbo. When the game was in Houston, the soup theme was Tex-Mex, with taco-style crumbled browned beef. I had a hard time deciding what to do for Jacksonville in XXXVIII, but finally decided to go with smoked ham and blackeyed peas, and it came out excellent I must say, with kale, onions, turnips, liquid smoke, and many other things in there.
So this year, the soup will probably have beef and chili peppers, with possibly some shredded Mexican cheese to sprinkle atop each hot bowl. Then again, I could go in the direction of chicken with cilantro. I never know for sure until I do the soup shopping, usually Friday night.
