The chili cheese fries eating contest held at the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA was the most lucrative IFOCE event on the west coast in 2006 and 2007. The good news for the future of that contest is the recent emergence of the contest site from bankruptcy after selling to a group of investors called “Save Our Queen.” The bad news is the new owners might have different priorities for the marketing budget.

PermalinkComments (5)

Gal Sone recently appeared in a program in which she sampled and ranked curries from 47 Japanese prefectures: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Mainichi reports that the curry from the Tottori prefecture selected by Gal Sone as her favorite became sold out in many stores and the company producing it was flooded with mail orders.

R Suzuki blog entry

PermalinkComments (2)

The online schedule for Spike TV now extends to December 26 and the third installment of the trilogy recorded in Las Vegas which features ham and hard boiled eggs eating contests does not appear on it.

Spike’s programming for Christmas and Christmas Eve consists solely of James Bond movies and reruns of “Star Trek: Voyager” and “CSI”.

update BestOnCable reports that the ham & eggs contest will be televised on December 12, but other schedules do not corroborate this.

PermalinkComments (9)

The Washington Post has an interesting article on the rise of Japanese blogging. The article reports that more blog entries are written in Japanese than in English, even though there are about 8 times more Anglophones than Japanese speakers. Japanese blog entries are more likely to be based on everyday life than on the opinions or expertise of the writer.

Kana Kanisawa’s blog, which consists of over 8600 entries which are phonecam pictures with brief captions, exemplifies this characteristic.

PermalinkComments (1)

David Metz, who examined Tim “Eater X” Janus on “The Science of Speed Eating”, has published a paper with three other researchers called “Competitive Speed Eating: Truth and Consequences” in the American Journal of Roentgenology. Access to the paper requires payment of $10, but an abstract is available which concludes:

Our observations suggest that successful speed eaters expand the stomach to form an enormous flaccid sac capable of accommodating huge amounts of food. We speculate that professional speed eaters eventually may develop morbid obesity, profound gastroparesis, intractable nausea and vomiting, and even the need for a gastrectomy. Despite its growing popularity, competitive speed eating is a potentially self-destructive form of behavior.

PermalinkComments (9)

A meatball eating contest was held at the Tropicana casino in Atlantic City the previous three Decembers. An article in nj.com reports on some of the issues facing that establishment which might have resulted in the contest not being renewed in 2007:

In a rare move, the state’s top casino prosecutor yesterday asked the Casino Control Commission to renew Tropicana’s license for one year — instead of the typical five — and impose seven-pages of restrictions to a gambling parlor that has grabbed headlines for its massive layoffs and patron complaints of vermin, unsanitary conditions and lousy service.

The casino was sold to a new owner, William Yung, early this year and has experienced a 10% drop in revenue.

PermalinkComments (1)

Four videos of the UEPa’s attempts on the Niner Diner challenge can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/SweetJillStoler

PermalinkComments

An announcement about Badlands Booker’s fourth album is available after the jump
Read the rest of this entry »

PermalinkComments (4)

Gal Sone’s latest blog entry is about her appearance at a buzzword award ceremony. Mycom reports that representatives of the top 10 buzzwords received awards and Gal Sone represented the term oogui (big eating / gluttony) Pink Tentacle has a list with descriptions of the 60 buzzwords that were candidates for the top 10. “Food Fighter” was one of the buzzwords that failed to make the cut.

In the picture on the left, Gal Sone is between bathing suit wearing comedian Yoshio Kojima whose catchphrase is “Sonna no kankei nee” (“What does that matter?”) and transvestite Ikko, who is famous for the exclamation of surprise “dondake?!”.

Today is Gal Sone’s 22nd birthday. She already celebrated the occasion with a cake bearing her likeness.

PermalinkComments (6)

Jill Stoler says she will be competing in Japan with several other AICE eaters from December 13 to December 19 on her myspace page.

AICE news has possible matchups. One of the American eaters is “Baby Doll” Deptkowitz.

PermalinkComments (4)

The new poll asks what month you think the next IFOCE contest will take place that is not related to the Wing Bowl or Nathan’s hot dog contest.

PermalinkComments (4)

Electric Sheep Magazine has a list of the top 10 gluttonous scenes in movie history.

PermalinkComments (1)

According to the eatfeats database, last month was the first month since March 2003 in which no IFOCE/MLE contests were held.

PermalinkComments (10)

The University of California at Davis dedicated their halftime show to SJSU student Joey Chestnut when they played at San Jose State University in September.

PermalinkComments (1)

Hungry & Focused 4 is now available for purchase on Badlands Booker’s myspace page. Paul Barlow made the artwork above for the CD. A T shirt with the above image can be purchased on Paul Barlow’s zazzle page.

PermalinkComments (2)

CBS2Chicago.com has a video clip of a turkey eating contest between Pat Bertoletti and Tim Brown held to promote their appearance in the Turkey Bowl. The news anchor refers to that contest as the “MLS Showdown”

PermalinkComments (2)

Video from the first Wing Bowl qualification stunt is available on philly.com’s Wing Bowl page. The “Reincarnation of Smarty Jones” attempts to eat three cheesesteak sandwiches from three different restaurants.

PermalinkComments (20)

BeautifulBrian reports that El Toro makes a guest appearance on a track on Badlands Booker’s new album, which can be listened to on on El Toro’s myspace page

El Toro is not the only rapping Hispanic competitive eater. “Nurse” Caterina of the Heart Attack Grill is also trying to develop a hip-hop career. Caterina will appear in the upcoming movie “Midnight is the Darkest Hour”

PermalinkComments (2)

(from Joey Lee) Clips from the turkey eating contest between Tim “Eater X” Janus and Juliet Lee from “The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet” can be viewed online.

PermalinkComments (9)

An English transcript of Tomoko Miyake’s dumpling eating contest against the Korean boy band Super Junior has been entered in the comments of that video by intplife.

PermalinkComments (4)

The fake ad from the Nathan’s finals episode of “Cheap Seats” starring David Cross (“Tobias” from “Arrested Development”) as a diet supplement pitchman can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D5TVfMi-LU

PermalinkComments

FritoLay.co.jp reports that snack foods endorsed by Nobuyuki Shirota and Tomoko Miyake were released today. Shirota and Miyake also designed and endorsed snacks for Frito Lay last year.

PermalinkComments (3)

There is currently a poll on MSNBC asking the question “Are competitive eating contests harmless celebrations of gastronomic greatness or sheer gluttony?”

The choices are: 1) Lighten up, people! They’re a belly-full of innocent fun. 2) With a third of Americans now obese, these contests are in bad taste. 3) I don’t know

The anti-CE voters are currently leading 51% to 44%

PermalinkComments (18)

Joe Menchetti appears in an ESPN.com article about fans of the University of Connecticut traveling to the Gulf Coast for the men’s and women’s Final Fours in 2004:

Another stroll down River Walk, and I run into “Big Red,” a really loud fan who always starts the crowd cheering “U-C-O-N-N!” He gives me the cell-phone number of a Joe Manchetti, another Huskie-maniac who is on the road somewhere between New Orleans and San Antonio.

“I flew on Friday from Hartford to Baton Rouge, and drove to San Antonio,” said Joe. “Took me about seven hours. We were tired. After the Saturday games, we walked back to the hotel — for about a mile. I took a shower and a power nap for a few hours. Totally forgot about Daylight Savings Time.

PermalinkComments

All clips from The Daily Show are now free, including several about competitive eating: 2001 segment about Don Lerman by Stephen Colbert, report on 2005 Nathan’s finals, interview with Ryan Nerz to promote “Eat This Book”

PermalinkComments (7)