Food-verb events

[TAPrice]

In an article on Slate about about the New Hampshire primary, I ran across this wonderful term:

The real action is to be found on the rope line after a rally, in the small talk of grip-and-grin photo ops, and in the human swarms of what Mark Costello, in the comic novel Big If, called "the food-verb events" of the campaign season—the corn-boils and the weiner-roasts, Tom Harkin's annual steak-fry.

"Food-verb events," what an apt phrase.

So what are the popular food-verb events where you live? Does the expression translate into other languages and culture?

Down here in Louisiana, of course, we have the crawfish boil.

P.S. Please keep the conversation on food and not politics. Any off topic posts on politics will just create work for the host, and since that's me I strongly disapprove of such behavior.

[maggiethecat]

In the Midwest it's the Friday night VFW fish fry. All u can eat, 5.99.

[Fat Guy]

Pig pickin' is in the family even if pickin' is more of a gerund.

Clam bake, of course.

In college in Vermont we had a tradition of going once a week to "Mr. Mike's pizza pig out." I guess "pig out" is a verb phrase, so that should count.

I agree that "food-verb events" is an utterly brilliant turn of phrase.

[petite tête de chou]

About once a month our small town church puts together a spaghetti feed. Sounds rustic, sounds sweet and it *is* but the food is awful.

[natasha1270]

Our favorite end of summer food-event is the crab feast hosted by a family friend and county supervisor. One of the local reps has family in the crab business and no doubt they have the best crabs on offer.

[BarbaraY]

About once a month our small town church puts together a spaghetti feed. Sounds rustic, sounds sweet and it *is* but the food is awful.

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This is the customary fund raiser in this area, too. Overcooked spaghetti, soggy iceberg salad, and garlic bread with margarine and garlic powder. I don't attend.

[Barry Foy]

If it's OK to slip across the border into another language:

A venerable tradition in the part of Québec where I was born is the late-summer "épluchette de blé d’Inde" (probably translatable as "corn husking"), which is a party centering on mountains of boiled corn on the cob.

Oh, and one other: A parody cookbook I'm writing will feature a recipe for "An Old-Time Savannah River Locust Boil." Yum!!

[insomniac]

If it's OK to slip across the border into another language:

A venerable tradition in the part of Québec where I was born is the late-summer "épluchette de blé d’Inde" (probably translatable as "corn husking"), which is a party centering on mountains of boiled corn on the cob.

Oh, and one other: A parody cookbook I'm writing will feature a recipe for "An Old-Time Savannah River Locust Boil." Yum!!

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faites attention, Barry, locust boil is an old established

Thai meal (Isaan) and tastes, well, yum....

[markk]

And the most important of them all...

"Lobster-Fest"

[Paul VanSavage]

In Binghamton NY we have the Spiedie Fest

[Fat Guy]

I don't think there's a good argument for fest as a verb, though.

[faine]

Using "feed" as a verb always struck me as vaguely perverse. It evokes images of pig-like people eating rafts of poorly cooked food to me. Maybe I'm over-sensitive.

The Friday Night Fish Fry is a beautiful thing. I'm thinking of the B.B King song (I think he covered it from someone else whose name I cannot recall.)

Crawdad boils are a definite favorite where I'm concerned. They even do one here in Sacramento, although they can't get enough crawdads from our own levees now and have to import them from Louisiana...ah well.

[MarketStEl]

When I worked at MBNA in its last days as an independent company, I learned about an annual company tradition stretching back to the company's origins as Maryland National Bank's credit-card affiliate in a former A&P on Route 4 in Newark, Del.

This event was called the "Cornboil" -- one word.

At the Cornboil, MBNA execs served corn, hot dogs and hamburgers to the company's employees, who got the workday off.

As the company grew, every branch office got a Cornboil of its own, and the main offices in Newark and Wilmington had multiple Cornboils to accommodate everyone.

I suspect that this event had its roots in some Chesapeake Bay tradition or other. As I was a contract employee, I wasn't eligible to attend. I have no idea whether Bank of America, which acquired MBNA in July 2005, chose to continue the tradition.

[markk]

I don't think there's a good argument for fest as a verb, though.

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I just checked with Red Lobster, and they said that "to fest" was definitely a verb, so there you have the definitive answer, no?

[WoodleyGrrl]

My family back home in Toledo, Ohio always has "Swamp-Romp" in the back yeard once a year.

What makes it "swampy" is the cajun food that is made by my dad who has a fascination with all things cajun, most especially music and language. What makes it "romp-y" is the pool, hot tub, and the keg of Burning River Pale Ale made by the Great Lakes Brewing Company.

[racheld]

Years of Shrimp Boils out under our backyard trees could probably be attested to by an errant little pink tail-flap or two, escaped from the layers of black garbage bags and newspapers which cover the tables and roll up all at once with all the debris inside.

There are also chitlin' boils, kinda halfway named, as the most popular trays hold great crisp heaps of the fried ones---don't prove it by ME---I stay FAR away from these social gatherings, and UPWIND.

And then there are Hog Roasts. That scent will draw you in from miles away, with its hickory nuances, its roasting-meat scent, and its crisping-fat aroma that sets your salivaries into fast-forward. The draw is so sirenic, whole neighborhoods gather in their OWN yards, just for an olfactory fix.

But the best version, the never-to-be-forgotten genre, is a HAWG-Roast. They are cause for gathering right about dusk on the night BEFORE the party. People draw up a chair, a cooler, a tent, and just soak in the atmosphere and the smoke. Beer flows, as do tales of trucks, huntin' dogs, huntin' trips, stupid Bubba tricks, gossip and jokes. Hunkering down in the vicinity of an undertaking like roasting a whole hog is a rite of passage enjoyed by the lucky and the comparative few, and the final result when that big hunka meat is planked and pulled is just the sauce on the 'Cue.

We've attended countless Hawg Roasts, with their grass-trample and their smoke-tang that haunts and lingers and goes home with you. One memorable one was at a wedding reception, in which tuxedoed young men ran for the house and easier clothes even before the pictures were finished, just to get at that beer and the first off-the-meatfork-samples. The Bride and Groom sent messenger after messenger around the grounds, trying to round up the wedding party, all of whom seemed to be getting drunk on beer or pit-fumes.

Ladies in Summer dresses smilingly accepted their own smoking bits of the fragrant meat, reaching for one of the many rolls of paper towels scattered amongst the flower arrangements and placecards, and the rented china and silver served up that slaw and beans and big pulled-filled buns as nicely as they usually did the chicken and salmon of most wedding dinners.

I LOVE Winter, but I'll be SOOO glad to see Spring!!

[Busboy]

I don't think there's a good argument for fest as a verb, though.

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I just checked with Red Lobster, and they said that "to fest" was definitely a verb, so there you have the definitive answer, no?

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Under no circumstances is "fest" a verb, regardless of the opinion of the Red Lobster's corporate etymology department.

Here in the Chesapeake Bay area local politicians and Lions Club chapters favor a Bull Roast.

(Just googled "Bull Roast" to see if the term was truly was a Maryland thing and was pleased to find nine of the first ten hits were indeed references to Maryland events. And surprised to see this somewhat non-traditional variationwas being flogged on line. BAsed on the people I've seen at other bull roasts, I will not be attending.)

[natasha1270]

Here in the Chesapeake Bay area local politicians and Lions Club chapters favor a Bull Roast.

I've also heard this paired with oysters as Bull & Oyster Roasts. I suppose Oyster Roasts, as well as the ever popular Clam Bake.

N.

[Busboy]

Here in the Chesapeake Bay area local politicians and Lions Club chapters favor a Bull Roast.

I've also heard this paired with oysters as Bull & Oyster Roasts. I suppose Oyster Roasts, as well as the ever popular Clam Bake.

N.

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The few I've been to have featured unlimited fresh-shucked oysters, but they don't seem to get the billing they deserve on the event announcement.

[sparrowgrass]

We have spaghetti feeds here, too, and most are of the soggy noodles variety, but if Dr. Joe is making the sauce, the $5 a plate is well spent.

He is a cranky old bastard, but his sauce is to die for, fennel-y and flavorful, noodles are al dente, and you get 2 big meatballs with each order. Skip the spongy garlic bread, but don't miss the dessert table--lovely home-made brownies, icebox cakes, pecan pies and coconut cakes.

We have ham and bean dinners and chicken and dumplin' dinners, but no verbs are harmed in those events.

[jbh]

Well...it's sorta food-related...

In a northwest Florida town there is/was the annual mullet toss. Shotput with mullet.

[ludja]

...

There are also chitlin' boils, kinda halfway named, as the most popular trays hold great crisp heaps of the fried ones---don't prove it by ME---I stay FAR away from these social gatherings, and UPWIND.

...

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I've heard of (but never been to) a chitlin strut.

When I googled it to make sure I wasn't misremembering I also found that, at one time at least, possum roasts were an event, primarily for Southern blacks according to the reference. click

Here is another one: cake walks.

Edited January 11, 2008 by ludja (log)

[Smithy]

So far nobody has mentioned the smelt fry. No, it isn't a redundant term, it's what happens up here during the smelt run. Smelt, for those of you who don't know, are small fresh-water fish, a freshwater version of the grunion.

Come to think of it, California Coasters have the grunion run, although it may not count as a food-verb event since it's the fish's activity, not the humans'.

[Fengyi]

Here in Beijing, we have a verb-food event (due to the linguistic differences) : 包饺子 - but this reverses into English as 'Jiaozi (Dumpling) Wrap' so it can be shoehorned into the pattern

Just a few simple steps:

Make dough

Make filling

Roll out dough......

Wrap Jiaozi dumplings

Boil jiaozi

Eat them and drink beer until you fall over/die of surfeit/ pass-out.

Hurrah!

[pax]

Pancake Breakfasts were a staple of growing up in my church. To this day if I smell cheap syrup I have to fight the urge to genuflect.