Howard University tailgate: A party in the parking lot

Interestingly enough, no one working the Louisiana-themed space was a Howard grad. The tent was, essentially, an extension of the annual (and massive) crawfish boil that Louisiana natives Umekki and Lance Curry host every Memorial Day weekend at the District Yacht Club. The couple was joined by friends and/or fellow Pelican State transplants such as Clinton resident Tony Harkley (who was manning the three-basket fryer filled with peanut oil for that crispy fried fish), Craig Jones of Laurel (who developed the canyon-deep flavors of his seafood-and-sausage gumbo without a lick of roux) and part-time Logan Circle resident Phillip Jones (whose dry-rubbed baby-back ribs were practically served blackened-style, a la Paul Prudhomme, slow-smoked with layers of garlic powder, black pepper, Hungarian sweet paprika, cumin and Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning).

These Louisiana interlopers swear they weren’t trying to upstage their mid-Atlantic peers in the other tents. “We like to tailgate,” said Lance Curry, a native of Alexandria, La., northwest of New Orleans, who paid $200 for the privilege of serving free food to the crowd. “We like to get together. We love cooking our home dishes.”

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Tailgating recipes for a moveable feast: Whether you’re setting up a grill or a bringing a glorious buffet spread, here are snacks, salads and sweets to satisfy game-day appetites.

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Howard University’s homecoming: Since the early ’90s, Yardfest has remained one of the most hotly anticipated gatherings of Howard’s annual homecoming festivities, showcasing rap stars on their way to becoming superstars.

Not that gastronomic obsessions are exclusive to those from Louisiana. Washington resident Brent Hughes is a Howard electrical engineering graduate who has developed a taste for cooking. He has taken several courses at L’Academie de Cuisine and was putting his knowledge to the test on a patch of asphalt near the Georgia Avenue side of the parking lot. He was standing duty over a pair of two-tiered smokers, one filled with racks of untrimmed spare ribs and the other crowded with a small flock of chicken wings. He had devised his own rub and marinade for the meats, the former of which incorporated a spice rack of flavors, including cumin, coriander, paprika, cayenne, thyme and parsley. He added even more spices to his cough-inducing jerk rub.

If Hughes’s wings weren’t fiery enough, tailgaters could add a splash or two from one of Lula B’s sauces, which Damien Noble was proudly selling from a table. (The sauces are also available at area Wegmans.) Noble is the chief executive of Bowie-based Lula B’s Sauce and Seasonings, named after his mother, Lula Beatrice Winslow Noble, who started making sauces as a girl during the Great Depression. They’re made with real fruit, Noble boasted. “If you see something floating in there,” he deadpanned, “it’s not a bug.”

Smoke was, without question, the primary ingredient at the Howard tailgate. It hovered in the air, adding a distinct, woodsy aroma to all those cutting-edge fashions in the parking lot. It also cooked and flavored the three types of fish prepared by Sherman Addison, a retiree from Howard University Hospital. Addison adopted a lean approach with his fish, marinating them in lemon juice and lemon-pepper seasonings before smoking them over charcoal and soaked hickory chips; it was a technique that favored the meaty, almost nutty flavors of rainbow trout, whose rustic smokiness was balanced with a kiss of clean, light citrus.

Howard alumnus Robert Winters was applying smoke with a heavier hand over at his stretch of parking lot. He was using hickory and maple chips and chunks to slow-smoke, among other meaty bites, a boulder-size hunk of bone-in pork shoulder. He was fighting the clock. Howard University cuts off tailgating an hour after the game ends. The pitmaster was looking to pull his pork off the smoker around 5 p.m., which would roughly coincide with the school’s official deadline for the party.

Winters wasn’t worried. It was as if he knew the university — the same one that had already looked the other way over the use of fryers in the lot — would never dare shut down his pending pork feast.

“Trust me,” he said with an air of certainty. “After the game, they’ll all be over here.”

RECIPES:

Keith Benn's Seafood Boil

Craig Jones' Red Beans and Rice

Iced Tea-Brined Chicken

Jambalaya Pasta

Brent Hughes’ Spiced Chicken Wings

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