There Is No Game like THE GAME Between Yale and Harvard for Tailgating Fun

November 19^th is fast approaching and that can only mean one thing - The Harvard - Yale Game is scheduled for one more mighty confrontation of brawn and brain.

Since 1875, there's been a game. For years it was called either "the Yale - Harvard Game", if one attended Yale or "the Harvard - Yale game" if one went to Harvard. 

Then in the late 1940s, the famous sport columnist Red Smith wrote about the game as “The Game” and the name stuck. Why such praise?  

Because as one of the first games ever played at the university level, this annual contest of Ivy League will significantly defined the game of American football, making it ‘the” major college sport in the U.S. 

This legacy would continue through the years, leading to such memorable games as the 1968 contest when the battered Harvard team made a miraculous last-moment comeback, scoring 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie a highly acclaimed Yale squad. The next day the Harvard headlines read with justifiable pride, "Harvard beats Yale 29 - 29". 

This year The Game is at New Haven and Yale can’t wait to welcome the hardy Harvard Pilgrims (players, students and fans) down from Cambridge, near Boston.

Besides hoping to break a sad record of five years of straight losses, Yale students and alumni are also looking forward to enjoying another great tailgating event for which they are truly famous.   

And while the University administration has issued various 'rules of engagement' (no under 21 drinking, beverage ID wrist bands required, gas grills only and no glass bottles), that won’t stop the fun, given the combined IQ of both schools.

The joint student bodies are sure to enjoy beer and any other spirited beverage obtainable in the nearby vicinity. Food to hopefully balance the liquid intake is kindly being provided by Yale University’s College dining halls.

Those who have graduated have a far more elegant spread at their disposal be it from the assorted alumni groups or various association hospitality tents. Here the fare is far more gourmet and the beverages as memorable as the fabled ivy covered walls of Yale and Harvard.

If distance or duty keeps you from The Game, you can still enjoy the tradition and heritage of it all with these classic cocktails – ones sure to be enjoyed by many while waiting for The Game (and the fun) to begin. (Will M.I.T. appear and try another of their infamous pranks? Who knows).

Good luck all and remember classes (and work) commence once again, bright and early, on Monday morning.

Harvard Cooler

1/2 tsp. superfine sugar
2 oz. carbonated water
2 oz. applejack

Stir sugar and carbonated water together in a 12 oz. Collins glass. Fill with cracked ice and add applejack. Top off with more carbonated water, or ginger ale. Insert spiral of orange or lemon peel over the rim of the glass.

Yale Punch

1 tsp. sugar dissolved in a little water
1 or 3 dashes lemon juice
1 or 2 dashes lime juice
2 or 3 dashes raspberry syrup
2 or 3 dashes Bénédictine
1/2 oz. St. Croix rum (probably any decent dark rum will do here)
2 oz. brandy (the recipe specifies Hennessey)

Mix with ice in a glass. Garnish with mint. 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2011