The taste of delicious jambalaya, the sound of the Pride of Acadiana, and a sea of ÐÇ¿ÕÎÞÏÞ´«Ã½ Lafayette alumni in red all in one place can only mean one thing: tailgating! In 2019, the Alumni Association was proud to open its Hospitality Tailgate Tent three hours before every single Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns home football game. The Alumni Association wants to thank our 2019 Tailgate Sponsors for making this season one of the best and biggest yet. Our sponsors include Bancorp South, Gerami Academy of Fine Arts, Meritus Credit Union, NuNu’s Markets, Thornton, Musso, Bellemin Inc., Cajun Country Rice, Schilling Distributing, Coca-Cola, and Fab Services.
But just how big was our tailgate this year? We decided to crunch the numbers and find this answer out for ourselves, one bowl of jambalaya at a time.
Jambalaya
If you’ve been to our tailgate before, then you know (oh you know) the first thing to get once you’ve entered our tent is jambalaya. You may have pulled a muscle or two sprinting to grab a bowl, but once you’ve tasted those classic Cajun flavors, it was all worth it. This season, the Alumni Association used 480 pounds of rice to make our delicious jambalaya. That’s equivalent to the weight of 533 footballs. Are you hungry just thinking about it? Do you want some right now? Can it be football season again already?
Cracklins
Now once you’ve grabbed your jambalaya and recovered from that pulled muscle, it’s time to grab the perfect addition to your tailgate meal, and that is our cracklins. You may try to use self-control and only have a few, but sooner or later, you’ll end up going back for more because they are that good. This season, the Alumni Association served 160 pounds of cracklins at our tailgate tent. After adding the numbers (and dividing by a cracklin), we determined that is equivalent to the weight of around 26 football helmets. Regardless of how many cracklins we served this season, the math is pretty simple:
Cracklin + Cracklin = Deliciousness.
Quail Eggs
You’ve gotten your jambalaya, you’ve devoured your cracklins, but there’s still one thing missing from your perfect tailgate meal. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s quail eggs! Since we’re in the heart of Cajun Country, quail eggs are a staple at our tailgate tent. The Alumni Association served 14 gallons of quail eggs this season. That’s equivalent to 106 water bottles full of quail eggs.
Despite these impressive numbers and our math skills, this would mean nothing if it weren’t for the amazing people that attended our tailgate each week. On average, we had 366 people attend each one of our six tailgates this season. There is no equivalent to the amount of joy, laughter, and Ragin’ Cajun pride brought to our tailgate every time someone stepped into our tent. Thank you for a fantastic tailgating season Ragin’ Cajuns, congratulations to our LendingTree Bowl Champions, and we’ll see you again next year!
GEAUX CAJUNS!
Photo: A bowl full of jambalaya, cracklins, and quail eggs served at tailgating.