Seahawks chow down on southern comfort food after every home game

During the week the Seahawks eat lean and clean. Old school Flintstone-sized slabs of meat have been replaced with anti-oxidant packed smoothies and meals garnished with buzz words like organic and local. But after a game, after a game is a different story.

“Barbecued ribs. They love their catfish, they love their jambalaya and macaroni and cheese. And their tiger sauce. They love their tiger sauce for dipping,” says Jemil Aziz, chef owner of the Jemil’s Big Easy food truck.

Jemil feeds the Seahawks his New Orleans cooking after every home game. He says the players are usually exhausted and battered from the game, so they pile their plates high with food and hop in their cars for home. And no matter how much he’d love to tinker with the menu, to get creative, to feed the players his crawfish etouffée, the team requests the same menu week after week.

I playfully wondered if Jemil’s cooking was the inspiration for Steve Raible’s now famous, “Holy catfish!” exclamation, during last year’s Seahawks win against Houston.

“He might have been talking about it because a lot of players are southerners and transplants up here because of this football team. But a lot of them love catfish.”

Jemil was born and raised in New Orleans, but he’s actually been a Seahawks fan since he was 13 years old.

“I have been a Seahawk fan since 1976 when I saw them for the first time. Seattle is a far, far, far cry from Louisiana but I always saw it on a map, thought it was pretty interesting with mountains and water surrounding it. Then I saw the the Saints play the Seahawks in 1976. Saints beat them 51-26. I’m not trying to make friends on that one. But just to see Jim Zorn play for the first time, I was amazed this left handed quarterback is zooming the ball. So I became a big fan of the uniforms, they were kind of cool with the three stripes in the 70’s and the helmets were cool.”

Which leads Jemil to one of his greatest moments serving the Seahawks.

“I met Jim Zorn and it was like the grooviest thing because he was like, ‘Jemil, let me get my picture with you!’ So that was amazing because he was like a hero to me when I was a kid. For him to ask me to take a picture with his camera was really cool.”

Some of the players are such big fans of Jemil’s southern cooking, they have him cater their holiday dinners.

“Some Thanksgiving things. Smoked turkeys and fried turkeys and lots of greens and cornbread dressing. From the pie to tears in your eyes, after you get through eating. A lot of them already put their orders in for Thanksgiving.”

Jemil is very aware of of the players’ six-day-a-week nutritional restrictions, so he’s beyond happy to be the icing on the cake.

“They work out all week, it’s a reward after doing so good for the whole week, making weights and everything else Then you get to eat some soul food, some comfort food.”