A little while ago, on a weekend afternoon, I passed by Harvard Stadium and witnessed a truly funny scene. Even though the game was still a while away, smoke was already rising from the parking lot.

They had lowered the back door of a truck to use as a table, with sausages and pots of chili lined up on top. The inside of the stadium was quiet, but the parking lot was a festival.

I couldn't help but wonder: when did Americans start eating in parking lots?

Upon researching, I found that the history is more complicated than I expected. There are several places claiming to be the original, and after hearing them all, it feels a bit like a local restaurant rivalry.

The most commonly mentioned story is from November 1869, during a game between Rutgers and Princeton in New Brunswick, New Jersey. This match is often referred to as the first college football game in America.

It is said that fans arrived by horse-drawn carriage and grilled sausages at the tail end of the horses. However, there are no solid records to back this up.

There's also an earlier version. In July 1861, during the First Battle of Bull Run, residents of Washington brought picnic baskets and rode in carriages to watch the battle.

Going to watch a war like it was a picnic is more bittersweet than funny. Historians often view this as an example of "the idea is right, but the location is wrong."

There's also a cowboy lineage. Some say that the chuckwagon, created by Texas rancher Charles Goodnight in 1866 by modifying a military wagon, is the ancestor of tailgating.

When you lowered the hinged panel at the back of the chuckwagon, it became a cooking surface, which is very similar to the action of lowering the back door of a pickup truck today. This theory sounded the most plausible to me.

In fact, the term itself has that background. Tailgate originally referred to the hinged panel at the back of a cart or farm wagon.

As this panel transitioned to station wagons and pickup trucks, it took on the meaning of a party happening in front of the back door of a vehicle. Merriam-Webster traces the first use of the term "tailgate party" back to the 1950s.

There's also a famous story that fans of the Green Bay Packers coined the term in 1919. However, even the Packers' team historian has stated that there's no evidence to support that claim.

His comment was quite something. He said, while they might not be the first, they do it the best. With that level of confidence, it seems okay to concede the original debate.

What about this area? There's also a claim from Yale that it started around 1904 during a game against Harvard.

However, even the Yale historian admitted it's hard to pinpoint the exact starting time, as people had been bringing food to games long before that.

One thing is clear, though. Harvard Stadium, which opened in 1903, was one of the first large stadiums built with reinforced concrete, and its front yard has been a picnic spot for over a century.

With the advent of cars, the scale must have expanded significantly. While it was a basket in the carriage days, now the trunk of a car can hold grills, coolers, and folding chairs.

In my view, the essence of tailgating isn't really the food. Inside the stadium, you have to sit in your assigned seat, but in the parking lot, you can go up to any car and strike up a conversation.

That day, a stranger handed me a hot dog and asked which team I was cheering for. Before I could answer, he offered me a beer, and I just laughed.

It feels a bit like mixing the vibe of a chicken line in front of a baseball stadium with that of a highway rest stop in Korea. The difference is that the scale is much larger, and everyone brings their entire kitchen.

Of course, not everything is perfect. Due to issues with excessive drinking, many schools strictly regulate the times and locations for tailgating.

So, if you plan to go, it's a good idea to check the official website of the school or stadium for parking lot opening times and drinking regulations. This can vary significantly from school to school.

This year, there's a particularly interesting matchup. The 142nd meeting between Harvard and Yale, known as The Game, will take place on Saturday, November 21, at Fenway Park.

Football at a baseball stadium? Given the tight parking situation in the heart of Boston, I suspect that this time, a nearby pub might take on the role of tailgating instead of the back door of a car. So, I'm even more curious about it.

In summary, no one can say for sure who the original tailgater is. It seems the most honest answer is that it's a result of the horse tail, chuckwagon, and station wagon passing the baton in succession.

I personally don't care who the original is. Even if I forget the game score the next day, the taste of the chili I had in the parking lot lingers for quite a while.

I'm planning to grab a bottle of sweet hot sauce and sneak in front of someone's trunk this year. Even if the game is lost, as long as I win in the parking lot, that's what matters.