Once a year, friends don warm sweaters and sports jerseys, ready their battle cries and sojourn to the homes of friends and family to partake of culinary delights featuring melted Velveeta cheese, chili and a dizzying array of dips.

Oh, yes. There’s football involved, too.

Traditionally, though, Super Bowl food is the stuff parties are made of – the cheesier, spicier and gooier, the better – especially when your favorite team isn’t doing so well. What better way to drown yard-line frustrations than with a Frito full of taco dip or a plateful of chicken wings? Diets, carb counts and fat calories just don’t exist on Super Bowl Sunday.

It’s an atmosphere that lends itself to casual, laid-back fun with foods we just don’t allow ourselves very often, acknowledged amateur chef Tom Coerver. During the year he cooks turkey, jambalaya and complicated recipes, but when hosting Super Bowl parties, he dishes up savories such as melted Velveeta and chili dip. The Creve Coeur resident and his wife, Anne, also use un-PC paper plates and plastic bowls, which they avoid the rest of the year.

“Paper products of your team are welcome, since we’re an NFC town,” Coerver said. “The food has to support the game and commercials; it can’t interfere. It’s not Thanksgiving. There are no themes or fancy dishes. Just good, casual finger food you can eat at your seat.”

That includes Coerver’s Dill Weed Dip; a simple tray of cheeses, salami and crackers; and for the child in all of us, pigs in a blanket with assorted mustards.

It doesn’t matter who provides the food, though, as long as it’s on time and plentiful. “People still seem to want the less complicated and more familiar, expected foods at Super Bowl parties, such as nachos and salsa, chili, sub sandwiches, chicken wraps, meatballs and chicken wings,” said Mark Russo, who operates Spazio’s at Westport and Russo’s Gourmet Express in Overland.

Kindergarten teacher Christa Cordia agreed, as she has attended parties with fancier food, but relies on her family recipe for Molly Forcshe Dip: In a pie pan, combine cubed Velveeta and chili, sprinkle shredded cheese on top and bake for about 20 minutes. Serve with Fritos for dipping. “Once a year, I make this just for the Super Bowl, and it is demolished,” the West County resident noted.

Chili is a good choice in general, said Bryna Kandel of Reservations Catering in Creve Coeur. “It’s warm, the weather is cold, it can sit and you can have all sorts of things to put on it.”

Other Super Bowl snacks Kandel’s often asked to serve up include Mexican seven-layer dip and salsa-and-cream cheese roll-ups. Neither appetizer has to be heated, and both make excellent finger food. However, both snacks are labor-intensive. “It’s the one time of year people are happy to buy guilty-pleasure food from someone else and enjoy it,” Kandel said.

Because partygoers will be paying so much attention to the television screen, easygoing and familiar foods are vital. For instance, Sherrie Meek, a Glendale kindergarten teacher, wouldn’t dream of a Super Bowl without her favorite chicken wings. “They’re a bit sweet and sour, and my family adores them. I sometimes serve them other times, but they’re a Super Bowl staple whether we’re at a party or home together.”

And football isn’t just an American obsession anymore, either. Fans from across the pond have adopted our game and its foods as their passions, too. St. Louisan Mike Coady, a retired pilot from County Cork, Ireland, said it was only normal for him to get to know what American games were about as an immigrant. “Football took over rather than baseball or basketball,” he said.

His attitude toward the game is almost as passionate as his feelings toward his wife Lourdes’ special game-day Lasagna With Bolognese Sauce and may even strike seasoned fans as a bit extreme. Football time is hallowed time, and when the Coadys’ four sons lived in town, the actual game-watching was limited to Coady, his wife, her homemade lasagna and their four boys. Other wives and all “twittering and nattering” were barred completely.

“Horrible, is it not?” Coady confessed, laughing. “We had football, family and lasagna. The wives, who were good sports, then made a party for themselves. Not football, though!”

Lasagna With Bolognese Sauce
Courtesy of Lourdes Coady

Olive oil, divided
4 slices bacon, chopped
1 onion, chopped
4 to 6 cloves garlic, minced
3 carrots, diced
3 sticks celery, diced
8 oz. mushrooms, chopped (optional)
1 to 2 lbs. ground beef
1 cup red wine
3 bay leaves
Chunk of lemon
4 15-oz. cans tomato purée
Salt and pepper to taste
1 packet lasagna noodles, cooked according to package instructions
Parmesan and Cheddar cheese for topping

For the Bolognese sauce:
• Heat a little olive oil in a large saucepan. Add the bacon and sauté.
• Add the garlic and onion, and cook for a minute.
• Add the carrots, celery and mushrooms. Cook for a minute more.
• Add the ground beef, sautéing until it is browned.
• Add the tomato purée, bay leaves, lemon and red wine. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.
• Cover and simmer for 30 minutes.
• Remove the bay leaves and the lemon chunk.
• Uncover and simmer for 45 to 60 more minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For the lasagna:
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Oil a 13-by-9-by-2-inch casserole dish, and place a single layer of the lasagna noodles in the bottom of the pan.
• Cover with some of the Bolognese sauce.
• Put down another layer of noodles, cover it with some more sauce and repeat until the dish is full.
• Bake the lasagna for 30 minutes.
• Remove it from the oven, and sprinkle the top with the Parmesan and Cheddar.
• Put the lasagna back in the oven for a minute or two until the cheese is melted.

Super Bowl Chicken Wings
Courtesy of Sherrie Meek

3 lbs. chicken wings (tips removed)
1 tsp. garlic salt
1 tsp. onion powder
1 12-oz. can cola
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 Tbsp. soy sauce

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
• Spray a shallow casserole dish with cooking spray or coat it with oil.
• Put the chicken wings in the dish and sprinkle them with the garlic salt and onion powder.
• Stir together the cola and brown sugar, and pour the mixture over the wings.
• Bake the wings, covered, for 2 hours, turning every half hour.

Dill Weed Dip
Courtesy of Tom and Anne Coerver

² ? ³ cup sour cream
² ? ³ cup mayonnaise
1 tsp. dill weed
1 tsp. Spice Islands Beau Monde Seasoning
1 tsp. minced onion
1 tsp. parsley

• Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl and chill for several hours.
• Serve in a hollowed-out round loaf of rye bread with torn pieces of the bread, crackers and raw vegetables, if desired.