As a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, I don’t have a stake in this year’s Super Bowl.

I might forgo the whole event if Sunday’s matchup didn’t involve the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens give me an excuse to ask my husband to make Baltimore pit beef sandwiches. Those sandwiches feature thinly sliced medium-rare beef stacked on a roll slathered with horseradish sauce. They are so delicious that I will risk the wrath of the Steelers nation if it means cheering for Baltimore via my plate.

That’s the good thing about the Super Bowl – beyond the commercials. The game gives you an opportunity to taste-travel the country. Food stories this time of year offer regional recipes to cheer on your chosen team. In recent years, you could cook clam chowder to support the New England Patriots, make jambalaya or muffuletta sandwiches for the New Orleans Saints or tackle my recipe for a homemade Primanti Brothers’ sandwich for the Steelers. (To see that last recipe, go to goo.gl/TuMCK.)

I was initially stumped about what San Francisco fans might serve for the big game. I know San Francisco is the birthplace of Rice-A-Roni and the epicenter of California cuisine, but I wasn’t sure what San Francisco dishes might work as game-day fare.

So I called chef Charlie Deal, a Bay-area native who owns Jujube in Chapel Hill and Dos Perros in Durham.

Deal says his Super Bowl menu will include cioppino (pronounced che-PEE-no), a fish stew attributed to Italians who migrated to San Francisco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Deal compared this fish stew to North Carolina’s Brunswick stew, a staple at community fundraisers.

Only in San Francisco, as Deal said, it is “old Italian dudes” serving up cioppino to raise money for a church or fire station. “It is an old-school San Francisco thing,” he said.

He’ll be serving that stew with plenty of sourdough bread – another San Francisco staple. But he notes: “We will not be eating Rice-a-Roni.”

To see printable versions of the recipe, click on the names below:

Quick Cioppino

Baltimore Pit Beef

Weigl: aweigl@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4848