Everyone knows about the famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. It may be one of the most well-hyped, but it’s hardly the only eating competition out there. In fact, there’s probably an eating competition for just about any food you can think of. Here are the best performances from 10 of them.
1. 4.99 pounds of crawfish in 12 minutes, Dave “US Male” Goldstein.
2. 11 pounds of cheesecake in nine minutes, Sonya “The Black Widow” Thomas (pictured—she weighs about 100 pounds). Thomas holds several records, including nearly five pounds of fruitcake in 10 minutes, but I think it’s notable that she totally trounced Washington Redskins player Randy Thomas in a shrimp eating contest. The football player is known for his appetite, but The Black Widow just crushed him by eating 6.5 pounds of shrimp in 10 minutes to his 1.5 pounds.
3. 34.75 ears of corn on the cob in 12 minutes, “Crazy Legs” Conti.
4. 1.75 pounds of butter in five minutes, Donald Lerman.
5. 51 Bhut Jolokia chilis (the hottest pepper in the world) in two minutes, Anandita Dutta Tamuly. Tamuly is so hardcore, she rubbed the seeds of the chilis in her eyes before chowing down.
6. 46 latkes in eight minutes, Pete Czerwinski.
7. 141 pieces of Nigiri sushi in six minutes, Tim “Eater X” Janus. Eater X and Crazy Legs Conti are roommates, by the way. Can you imagine hitting up a buffet with them?
8. 47 slices of pizza in 10 minutes, Pat “Deep Dish” Bertoletti.
9. 49 glazed doughnuts in eight minutes, Eric “Badlands” Booker (pictured). This isn’t Badlands’ sonly talent, though – he also has held records for eating matzo balls, cannoli burritos, candy bars, corned beef hash, onions, peas, pumpkin pie, and Hamentaschen.
10. Four 32-ounces bowls of mayonnaise in eight minutes, Oleg Zhornitskiy. And I have to throw in that this is the one that grosses me out the most. That’s 714.1 grams of fat!
Most of these are just utterly incomprehensible to me—how do you even eat one stick of butter, let alone seven of them in five minutes? Ugh. But I confess, I could probably hold my own in a mint chocolate chip ice cream eating contest. Could you give any of these competitive eaters a run for their money? What food would it be?
More from mental_floss…
6 Food Challenges for the Super Competitive (or Super Hungry)
*
Margherita Pizza, Nachos & Other Foods Named After People
*
The Nautical Roots of 9 Common Phrases
*
Toilet Paper History: How America Convinced the World to Wipe
*
9 Muppets Kicked Off Sesame Street
*
13 Bizarre Stipulations in Wills
*
31 Unbelievable High School Mascots
The butter has the mayonnaise beaten. 1.75lb of butter is almost 800 grams. I remember watching that guy set that record on Fox’s “Glutton Bowl.” Not only did he consume the most mayonnaise (by far), but he used two fingers to scrape far more out of each bowl he emptied. He finished more than one and left clean bowls, while the next closest one was far behind. There isn’t enough Immodium in the world to undo that.
ReCaptcha: the rumbles, as in what his digestive tract did for the next 3 weeks.
posted by Dave on 1-11-2010 at 3:27 pm
Gimme a shot at Rocky Mountain Oysters. Love ‘em!!
posted by Jim on 1-11-2010 at 4:21 pm
my stomach hurts.
posted by Nathan on 1-11-2010 at 4:33 pm
My dad met Badlands in the matzo ball eating contest here in New York (Badlands took home the championship title, my dad happily settling for tops in the Educator division, an appearance on the then-WB11 morning news, and a full stomach). Nice guy, that Badlands Booker.
posted by Daniel Pecoraro on 1-11-2010 at 5:03 pm
By any chance was “Black Widow” in Orlando on December 26?
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 1-11-2010 at 5:07 pm
Interesting that this was posted today. I just finished reading Dear Abby in today’s paper and there was a letter from someone in NY wanting Abby’s opinion about the morality of TV shows with food contests in which “mounds of food are piled in front of each contender, who then wolfs down enough to feed five or six people.” She wondered whether the contestants or producers of these shows ever thought about the millions of people who are starving. Abby finds them “more obscene than any X-rated movie will ever be.” I have to agree.
posted by Wendy on 1-11-2010 at 5:27 pm
I could take anybody in a Chicago-style Italian beef sandwich eating contest, on the condition there’s a cardiologist on the scene.
Or cereal. I could eat a metric ton of cereal.
posted by Chicago ExPat on 1-12-2010 at 1:01 pm
I’m hungry…
posted by Xin on 1-12-2010 at 6:41 pm