<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Cooking as a sport</span>

By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com

LAFAYETTE, La. -- The time was just approaching 5 a.m., the sun had some two hours before it would rise, but Keith Guidry and his pals pulled into the Cajun Field parking lot anyway, knowing they had to get their pig started.

Surely they'd be alone.

"But we weren't," Guidry said in his thick Cajun accent. "Somebody else had a pig, too. So it was two of us, in the pitch black, cooking our pigs."

Their 150-pound pigs. Their 12-hours-to-cook pigs. Their remove-the-skin, dip-it-in-ice and later-re-attach-it pigs. And this was 16 hours before a 9 p.m. kickoff. The sun would rise and set before Louisiana-Lafayette would take the field against North Texas later Friday night.

But it didn't matter. That's because in these parts, food rules. It's a place where "hello" is replaced by "you hungry?" A place where crawfish boils are as common as chips and salsa. There's a reason the school's nickname, the stadium's name, is the same as a spicy style of cooking. Win or lose on the field, the Cajuns are undefeated off it.

Keith Guidry's tailgaters are well-fed.
"I love my wife. And I love football," Guidry said. "But there's nothing like the love for great food. And each of these games I get to show it off."

Guidry and 23 other pals have tailgated every game outside the main entrance to Cajun Field for eight years now. The tailgaters wear lanyards around their necks that each carry a number, 1-24. The numbers represent each individual's ranking. Burn the pig, spill a beer, waste an oyster and you go down. Deliver great food on a regular basis and you go up. Guidry is No. 1, close friend and fellow tailgater Brian Richard is No. 2.

"Your number is up every week," Richard said. "You mess something up and we'll just walk right up to you, take the number away and let you know, 'you're done.' It's not pretty, but you join by our rules, you play by our rules."

Richard then turns to one of his tailgating teammates. "What number are you?" he asks.

"Eight," the guy responds.

"Great," Richard says back. "I need another beer. Michelob Ultra."

The group calls itself "Jamais' d la vie," or "never in my life." The name came about when a group of old ladies visited one of the early tailgates, tried some of the group's food and commented, "Jamais' d la vie."

"Never in their life had they seen guys this young cook this good," Richard said. "It stuck."

The menu is enough to make Emeril proud. Beside the 150-pound pig, which takes 12 hours to smoke, there was grilled redfish with jumbo shrimp, chicken and sausage jambalaya, shrimp fajitas, venison sausage, two different types of oysters and the group's specialty, crawfish and corn machoux. The machoux, which itself takes five hours to cook, is a combination of crawfish and sautéed corn, onions, bell peppers served in a secret cream-based sauce. It goes over big with the 400 assorted friends, family and business associates who attend each tailgate.

<a href='http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/footballinamerica/news/story?id=1917320' target='_blank'>ESPN: Cooking as a sport</a>

Gotta love the way we cook. For me, I'm just a traditional tailgator. Give me an Old Smokey, some burgers, hot dogs, and of course, some ice cold beer. But I've got several family friends that I go visit on game days and man, these people know how to cook some meals. I'm talkin all out meals. You name it, they probably have it. If you ever get a chance to attend a home game at Cajun Field, please just walk around and try some of the food. People gladly let others sample their food. Thats just the way we are around here.

Hope some of you Troy fans can sample some of the tailgating this Saturday when y'all come on down. Any of you guys on here planning on making the trip to Lafayette?

Thanks for the invite. I'll certainly try and stop by. Where's a good place to park?