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Competitive Eating & Drinking: A Sport For Debased Times?

Inspired by the OP, I just did a little research into eating contests and it seems the first documented one of the modern era was held 4th July 1916 at Coney island - Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest which is still held nowadays. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/06/origin-competitive-eating-contests/

ramonmercado said:
India's 'monster eater' retires
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Unfortunately, he didn't get time to lose weight or look after his elderly mother, he died a few months later in December 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theetta_Rappai#Death
 
His Extremely DeLux Self said:
When you're traveling on I-40, anywhere within two hundred miles of Amarillo, Texas you'll see signs advertising a world-famous (according to the signs anyway) steakhouse inviting the hungry wayfarer to stop and have a steak--including the house special, a 72-ounce steak (yes, that's four-and-a-half pounds!) cooked like you like it. If you finish yours in one setting, the promoyion promises, it's free!

I've never been tempted--I like pork, fish, and seafood way better than I like steak, and besides that I travel on a low (read almost nonexistent) budget. But I've spoken to people who have eaten there, including one guy who allegedly took the 72-ounce challenge, and they tell a tale of terror.

It seems that if one orders the great big steak, they are seated at a special raised table, with bells and horns and great hullabaloo to attract spectators. Moreover, the challenge is actually to eat the whole steak dinner--a week's worth of beef, with salad, rolls, and a side of fries or baked potato--and to eat it all in one hour. If you succeed in getting it all down (and keeping it all down), you not only eat free, but get some kind of award--a E-shirt, or a certificate of gluttony, or something like that. If you fail, of course, you have to pay for your meal like anyone else, and it costs in the neighborhood of $75.00!! That comes out to a dollar an ounce with spuds, salad and rolls covered by the remaining three bucks.

Methinks there's a little bet-hedging going on there...
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The steak on its own would be too much.
 
His Extremely DeLux Self said:
When you're traveling on I-40, anywhere within two hundred miles of Amarillo, Texas you'll see signs advertising a world-famous (according to the signs anyway) steakhouse inviting the hungry wayfarer to stop and have a steak--including the house special, a 72-ounce steak (yes, that's four-and-a-half pounds!) cooked like you like it. If you finish yours in one setting, the promoyion promises, it's free!

I've never been tempted--I like pork, fish, and seafood way better than I like steak, and besides that I travel on a low (read almost nonexistent) budget. But I've spoken to people who have eaten there, including one guy who allegedly took the 72-ounce challenge, and they tell a tale of terror.

It seems that if one orders the great big steak, they are seated at a special raised table, with bells and horns and great hullabaloo to attract spectators. Moreover, the challenge is actually to eat the whole steak dinner--a week's worth of beef, with salad, rolls, and a side of fries or baked potato--and to eat it all in one hour. If you succeed in getting it all down (and keeping it all down), you not only eat free, but get some kind of award--a E-shirt, or a certificate of gluttony, or something like that. If you fail, of course, you have to pay for your meal like anyone else, and it costs in the neighborhood of $75.00!! That comes out to a dollar an ounce with spuds, salad and rolls covered by the remaining three bucks.

Methinks there's a little bet-hedging going on there...
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I've was once in an ice cream parlour in Honolulu where you could order an item which essentially was a gigantic banana split called 'The Trough' which came in a trough.
While there, someone ordered it and all of these bells and horns went off and upon delivery to the table, much fanfare was made by the cavalcade of staff applauding its delivering to the lucky person.
You had a time limit to finish it in and if successful, it was free as well as earning yourself a place on their wall of fame and a free t-shirt.
We didn't stay long enough to see if they were successful or not.
I can eat a lot, but a number of competitive eaters I've seen on t.v are often rather slim people.
Where do they fit it all?
 
This sad incident has been mentioned on here before -

Cake eating competition kills man

A party-goer choked to death on fairy cakes when he took part in a contest to see who could eat the most. Five of the cakes became lodged in the throat of Adam Deeley.

Frantic efforts failed to clear the airway of the 34-year-old graphic designer, who was later confirmed dead in hospital. Police were yesterday investigating the death but say it was a ‘freak accident’.
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The headline is slightly misleading because the 'competition' wasn't an organised event. Rather, it was some (possibly drunk) friends playing around with leftover buffet food.

Mr Deeley crammed several cakes into his mouth and quickly choked to death. I'm surprised this doesn't happen in organised gluttony contests. The Guinness Book of Records stopped recording them many years for several reasons including safety.
 
Yea i saw him eat a huge platter of, was it lobster, he actually did it, he got the t shirt
 
Wasn't just lobster (or crab) - a foot-long sausage, five or six kinds of other stuff including an ice-cream scoop of suspect-looking mash (mashed potato should not look like that) on a plate three feet long - and then a bucket full of ice-cream for dessert. In Alaska, I think; it was moose sausage, locally shot, sorry, sourced
 
His Extremely DeLux Self said:
When you're traveling on I-40, anywhere within two hundred miles of Amarillo, Texas you'll see signs advertising a world-famous (according to the signs anyway) steakhouse inviting the hungry wayfarer to stop and have a steak--including the house special, a 72-ounce steak (yes, that's four-and-a-half pounds!) cooked like you like it. If you finish yours in one setting, the promoyion promises, it's free!

I've never been tempted--I like pork, fish, and seafood way better than I like steak, and besides that I travel on a low (read almost nonexistent) budget. But I've spoken to people who have eaten there, including one guy who allegedly took the 72-ounce challenge, and they tell a tale of terror.

It seems that if one orders the great big steak, they are seated at a special raised table, with bells and horns and great hullabaloo to attract spectators. Moreover, the challenge is actually to eat the whole steak dinner--a week's worth of beef, with salad, rolls, and a side of fries or baked potato--and to eat it all in one hour. If you succeed in getting it all down (and keeping it all down), you not only eat free, but get some kind of award--a E-shirt, or a certificate of gluttony, or something like that. If you fail, of course, you have to pay for your meal like anyone else, and it costs in the neighborhood of $75.00!! That comes out to a dollar an ounce with spuds, salad and rolls covered by the remaining three bucks.

Methinks there's a little bet-hedging going on there...
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I'm imagining a thirty-stone Jim Morrison here....

We're waddling down the roadhouse, gonna have a meal....
 
There's been an unfortunate death associated with a competitive (lamingtons) eating contest in Australia ...
Woman dies in Australian Day lamington-eating contest

A woman has died in Australia while taking part in a contest to eat as many lamingtons as possible.

The woman, aged 60, is reported to have had a seizure during the event at a hotel in Hervey Bay, Queensland, to mark Australia Day on Sunday.

Contestants had earlier been filmed speed-eating the lamingtons, a traditional sponge cake covered in chocolate and desiccated coconut.

She was given CPR at the scene and taken to hospital but later died.

Witnesses said the woman had crammed one of the cakes into her mouth when she appeared to get into difficulties. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51259819
 
Yithian said:
A 100-egg omelette in one sitting? 11,000 calories?

She fails but gets a damned sight closer than I would.

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I can just imagine the farts afterwards!
 
Yithian said:
A 100-egg omelette in one sitting? 11,000 calories?

She fails but gets a damned sight closer than I would.

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That almost sounds like a challenge @Yithian Let's see you and her, head to head, 50 egg omelette, your own sauce of choice. Who wants to be the bookie?
 
Lord Lucan said:
That almost sounds like a challenge @Yithian Let's see you and her, head to head, 50 egg omelette, your own sauce of choice. Who wants to be the bookie?
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I've actually eaten a very large 'Japanese-Style' omelette like that. It was a great big long thing and may have had eight eggs or so in its making.

They are often served in Korea as an accompaniment to alcohol, but I was very full afterwards and that beast is several times larger!

I leave her the battlefield and the honour.
 
I'm a fat dude, but I wouldn't attempt eating something so huge. I know my limitations.
 
Two words:

Adam Richman.

Viewable in Britain on The Food Channel. This is trash tv - and also weirdly compelling.
 
AgProv said:
Two words:

Adam Richman.

Viewable in Britain on The Food Channel. This is trash tv - and also weirdly compelling.
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Yes, it really is! He is very likeable and it is very interesting watching the food being made and people talking about family recipies and so on. Although most of the food is some sort of "fast food" eg burgers and such like, it is often made in a slow way.

You can also watch strongman Eddie Hall eating food in pretty much exactly the same format in Eddie Eats America. It is also really good. Eddie is also a likeable guy but with terrible food hygiene. He performs some sort of physical feat as part of each show too. Available on UKTV Play.
 
I feel I am a glutton, if I have a three-egg* omelette with cheese for lunch. It has to be cooked in butter and I can usually finish it - just about. After a while, the effect is likely to be mild discomfort which presages nausea, without reaching it. It soon passes. Eggs were often served to invalids on the mistaken grounds that they are easy on the digestive-system; I think they were recommended because they are a highly-concentrated food, which can be tolerated when the appetite is depressed. Lightly-boiled was the prescribed cooking method.

I see from this page, that one competitive eater devoured 141 eggs in 8 minutes. Surely they can't have been hard-boiled!

There is a genre of eating-videos, which may have been mentioned on the board, where dainty Oriental ladies tuck into challenging food-mountains. Some are said to watch these with quasi-erotic interest, as the sounds trigger their ASMR. Others seem geared to trigger shock and gross-out responses. The lady tucking into a whole crispy fried cat comes to mind! Its authenticity has been questioned but anyone capable of conceiving it is probably capable of doing it! :oops:

*The egg, as a unit, varies a lot. It was brought home to me, when frying a large one and a smaller one side by side. The yolk of the larger may have been more than double the size of the smaller! Adjudicating eating competitions is not a rôle I would relish, though!
 
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Great god, posted previously here on Adam Richman - must have forgotten I'd been here before!
 
Yithian said:
Old-school competitive scoffing:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1283393378734899201
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The way he sank that pint at the end was impressive too!

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New study suggests humans are nearing the limits of competitive eating:

"James Smoliga, a sports medicine specialist at High Point University in North Carolina who authored the research, described 84 hotdogs as “the maximum possible limit for a Usain Bolt-type performance”.

Improvement curves in elite sports ranging from sprinting to pole vaulting tend to follow a so-called sigmoidal curve, featuring an initial slow and steady rise, followed by an era of rapid improvement and finally a levelling off. “Hotdog eating has definitely reached that second plateau,” said Smoliga."

https://www.theguardian.com/food/20...dog-eaters-nearing-limit-of-human-performance
 
Oh, and so a study has been done on this?

Kondoru loves hotdogs and would never treat them with so little respect; though she does put on too much sauce.
 
This woman set a new record for chili dog consumption at a Michigan bar with a longstanding promotional deal for such competitive eating.
Yum! Woman eats 50 chili dogs in 22 minutes at Michigan bar

A competitive eater wolfed down 50 chili dogs in 22 minutes, setting a local record at a bar in western Michigan ...

Molly Schuyler showed up and just started eating Wednesday at The Corner Bar in Rockford while other customers watched ...

After 19 minutes, she had eaten 44 hot dogs.

“Brought her out six more dogs. In 22 minutes, she ate 50,” server Lisa Paavo said.

Another competitive eater, Tim “Eater X” Janus, ate 43 1/2 chili dogs at the bar in 2006. Anyone who eats 12 in four hours gets their name on the wall.

“It’s going on 6,000 names,” manager John Vanaman said. ...
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SOURCE: https://apnews.com/article/michigan-sports-oddities-2aaad28be5d7180ad7b465ff2db24738
 
I've seen Molly Schuyler before. She's thin and eats like a savage.
 
These competitive eaters, do they just go around to the places offering "eat x amount in some time and its free" and live on the free food. Do they just eat once a week or what?
 
kamalktk said:
These competitive eaters, do they just go around to the places offering "eat x amount in some time and its free" and live on the free food. Do they just eat once a week or what?
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Molly might, looking at how stick-thin she is.
 
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