If this blog entry is accurate, Kate Stelnick is no longer the only Delaware Valley female who holds an eating challenge record. kb of the phillycynics blog claims to have eaten 30 pierogies at Sugar Mom’s Church Street Lounge in Philadelphia, breaking the restaurant’s record by 5 Polish pastries. She wore a Lance Armstrong bracelet while accomplishing her feat as Ms. Stelnick did. kb received a t shirt as a prize for breaking the record. kb could be a possible contender to return the Wing Bowl crown to the Delaware Valley.

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Rona Conti, the mother of Crazy Legs, has just returned from Japan and submitted a comment on the Japanese competitive eating scene (or lack thereof). I have converted that comment into this post to make sure it receives the attention it deserves. Her comment follows:

While I know a great deal more about Japanese calligraphy than the Japanese Competitive Eating scene, having just returned from three months in Japan, I have some current information. The wanko soba noodle contest is, I believe, unrelated to “contemporary” competitive eating. If you Google “wanko soba” you will find that it relates to a part of the Japanese “food culture” in a specific region. I believe that one of the many many contests in the past in which Kobayashi and the “Food Fighters” participated was indeed wanko soba, but that is the extent of its’ significance. It is comparable to pie eating contests at “local” fairs. I am, of course, always very happy to be corrected.

As far as the competitive eating scene in Japan, it is, for the most part, moribund. Several years ago a middle school student who was imitating the “Food Fighters”, choked, went into a coma for several months, and died. At that time all of the extremely popular television programs and accompanying tours, magazine articles etc. ended. Thus it was that Kobayashi-san, Arai-san, Akasaka-san and the other competitors suddenly did not have the sponsorship of Tokyo television. While the Food Fighters tried on their own to continue, the FFA is now also, I believe, defunct.

Very recently there aired a new weekly television program in Japan. The “host” was Shirota-san for a few programs followed recently by a young woman. A friend will be sending to me the tapes of the programs so more information, if you wish, will follow.

However, it is my opinion that the history of competitive eating will follow the history of art. The center of the art world was Paris until the Abstract Expressionists, those brash Americans, exploded on the art scene after World War II. Suddenly the center became New York and remains so today. So it will be with competitive eating.

For many many reasons, I do not believe that the popularity and accompanying competitive eating contests in Japan will be repeated; nor will sponsorship come from Japan to the United States. Thus, past programs and performances by Japanese are all the more important to study. The Zen method may not be the whole story, but its’ American equivalent is Hungry and Focused. Eat All You Can.

Crazy Legs Mom

many many reasons I do not believe there will be a “repeat” of the Japanese competitive eating scene.

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Badlands Booker has emailed to inform me that he will appear on February 21 at 7pm eastern / 4 pm pacific on the G4 cable network‘s “Attack of the Show!”. The episode will be rerun at 3am eastern/ midnight pacific the following morning.

Competitive eaters will appear on national cable television on two consecutive days; Tim “Eater X” Janus will appear on MTV’s True Life the following day with other competitive eaters.

Badlands Booker now has a myspace site at http://www.myspace.com/badlandsbooker

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Donna of the andshewas blog attended Tuesday’s goldenpalace.net St. Valentine’s Day Chocolate Massacre and has a writeup, videos and a photo gallery of that event.

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The Long Beachcomber has an article about last Saturday’s Wienerschnitzel World Chili Cheese Fries Eating Championship at the Queen Mary. The article gives “El Toro’s” real name and also claims that a father & son duo (which the author probably mislabeled Joey and Paul Chestnut) competed in the event.

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Ray “The Bison” Meduna has sent me the following suggestion:

What would competitors think about having One on One grudge matches at
each major Eating Contest simular to the Beautiful Brian vs. Krazy Kevin .This would bring extra interest to the events and also could be done as a Charity Fund Raiser.

Please post any reaction to this idea in the comments.

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The site’s original comment policy has been restored. Comments by registered users are usually approved automatically, comments by unregistered users require approval.

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I have decided to turn off unregistered comments and require approval for all registered comments for an indefinite period of time. If Brian Seiken and No Mas would like to continue their debate, I would advise them to “take it outside” to the comments of Brian Seiken’s blog beautifulbrian.blogs.com .

No Mas registered using a business email address, and that company is not located in New York or Ohio, so it is virtually certain that he is not Chapman or O’Karma

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The Washington Redskins are no longer the only NFL team to have one of its members lose an eating contest to a thin woman if this live journal entry is correct. Unfortunately no details are provided about the contest or its participants besides the fact that the winner received $300.

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The Clinton Station Diner has added new challenges to its original offer of a free Zeus burger (7 meat, 12.5 lb. total) to diners who can complete that sandwich in under three hours. A two person Zeus challenge is now available with a time limit of 90 minutes. The west New Jersey eatery also now offers challenges for its burger containing 3 pounds of meat with a maximum of 2 hours for one eater and 45 minutes for a team. The diner increased the team size for its 50 pound Mount Olympus burger challenge to 5 eaters from four.

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Thanks to IFOCE.com for providing a full listing of chili cheese fries finishers along with amounts eaten. A prize money breakdown besides the $4,000 first place amount is still not available.

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The new poll question asks who should play the lead role in the upcoming Wing Bowl movie which I believe will be based on Bill “El Wingador’s” Simmons career. I can add other actors to the list of choices.

Another new poll question asking whether competitive eating should be included in the winter or summer Olympics can be found in the Whaler’s most recent blog entry. If competitive eating was added to the Winter Olympics, then eating contests could not be counterprogrammed against the Olympics, as the Glutton Bowl was aired the same time as the 2002 women’s figure skating finals (see also) I can make that question the next poll question if there are any requests for it (and the Whaler does not mind)

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Liz from urbanhonking’s digest has an interview with Pat Bertoletti after his victory in yesterday’s chocolate competition. February content has been restored to urbanhonking, so its article on the grilled cheese contest is now available.

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The Cincinatti City Beat has an article about Kevin Carr training by eating chili which resulted in his placing third in yesterday’s chocolate contest.

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The Penn State student paper reports The Are U Hungry? restaurant is having a “Fat Bitch” sandwich eating contest with a $1,000 first prize. The contest will have a tournament format, so it will be inconvenient for someone living outside the Penn State area to win. Potential entrants will be timed eating a sandwich and the 64 fastest eaters will make the field.

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results from the goldenpalace.net Valentine’s Day Chocolate Massacre in Chicago:

1. Patrick Bertoletti $2500
2. Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough $1250
3. Kevin Carr $750
4. Jim Hamrick (Springfield, IL) $325
5. Domenico Alesi (Chicago, IL) $175

Thanks to ifoce.com for quickly posting a complete list of money-winners

Updated 2/14 9:42 NBC17.com (in North Carolina) has a video clip and photo gallery

Updated 2/14 7:28 am The sun-times has an article about the contest.

Updated 11:11 pm ABC7 has a contest report which uses “Bertolitto” more than it uses “Bertoletti” and claims that Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough was the favorite.

A press release is also available.

Someone who went to high school with Pat has a blog entry.

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The Chicago Sun Times has a preview of today’s goldenpalace.net Valentine’s Day Chocolate Massacre which contains a profile of Pat Bertoletti. It is difficult to see how Bertoletti has rookie status if his first contest was the Bacci Pizza contest from 2004.

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Masahiro Kato from Shiroishi, Iwate Prefecture won a wanko soba noodle contest in Hanamaki, Iwate Prefecture on Saturday by eating 241 small bowls, equivalent to 24 regular sized bowls. 120 competitors entered the contest, which undermines the claim that the Japanese competitive eating scene is moribund.

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Angelo Cataldi has a Wing Bowl 14 FAQ on his website. He assumed that eliminating previous competitors would ensure that the victor would be from the Delaware Valley and that the Wing Bowl movie is several years away from a premier. Cataldi is considering a format change for future Wing Bowls.

phillyfuture has a blog entry with an eyewitness account of Wing Bowl 14.

phillysportsline has a gallery of Wing Bowl 14 (free registration is required to see the pictures)

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Ryan of the losanjealous blog has a writeup of yesterday’s chili cheese fries contest at the Queen Mary. He was asked by George Shea to help judge the contest. Several pictures are available.

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The Vallejo Times Herald has a rare pro competitive eating (or at least pro competitive eater) editorial praising local boy Joey Chestnut.

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Please post any results or other information about the chili cheese fries contest in Long Beach in the comments for this entry.

Updated 7:35 pm – Official results from IFOCE.com and SonyaTheBlackWidow.com:

Updated 11:02 pm – almost complete results from Loren “Bubba” Yarbrough

A breakdown of the $10,000 prize money allocation would be appreciated.

Sonya mentions on her website that she is going to cut down on the number of events she enters. I hope her reduction in contest frequency is her own choice and not the result of other factors.

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Justin Mih established a claim to being at least an honorary member of “The New Kids on the Block” with two money-winning performances last October. The only competitors the UC-Irvine doctoral student lost to were Rich LeFevre and Jed Donahue. Mih is probably a better student than competitive eater, as he was selected as a Fulbright scholar to study space biology in Russia in 2003-04. With the IFOCE’s return to Southern California for the Queen Mary chili cheese fries contest, Mih will have a chance to validate his status as southern California’s second best eater behind Donahue if he competes in that event.

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about.com has a Wing Bowl 14 article and captioned photo gallery. I agree with the article’s claim that Rich’s blonde wingette should have definitely been one of the 10 finalists. The captions say that one of the 10 finalist wingettes, Lisa Marie, was 6’5 (she should maybe consider entering Wing Bowl 15)

zwire.com has profiles of Timothy “Dr. Slob” Cusick and Bill “Robocop” Sampolski.

A Sports Illustrated blog has a fake quote from Joey Chestnut which a reader might not notice is bogus if s/he is not paying close attention.

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Syracuse.com has an introduction to IFOCE along with its eaters and records. IFOCE expects to sanction 93 or 94 events in 2006 (almost 2 per week) and an increase of about 20 from 2005.

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