(from BlessYouBoys) The blog for mlive has an entry about the food fair the West Michigan Whitecaps held to test possible new foods for the upcoming season. One of the items was a 5 / 3 pound burger with Spam, sausage gravy, fried eggs and a pickle. The burger’s weight was chosen to promote the holder of the Whitecaps’ stadium naming rights: Fifth Third Bank.

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Some free newspapers have been added to the Google News archives. One article describes Lynda Kuerth’s (spelled Linda Querth) victory in the 1977 Olivet College banana split eating contest. Ms. Kuerth’s mark of 13 banana splits doubled her closest competitor’s total, but was two less than the amount she ate in 1976. She did not starve herself before the contest but instead ate 6 slices of meat loaf for dinner before having the banana splits for dessert.

Lynda Kuerth’s victory came to the notice of contest organizers at Jim’s Steaks in Philadelphia which resulted in her travelling east to compete there and becoming the record holder at that restaurant for the remainder of the 20th century.

An image of the article is available after the jump.
Read the rest of this entry »

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(From the Consumerist) The website for ABC News has an article about restaurants’ eating challenges. The reporter, Scott Mayerowitz, attempted the 50 pound Mount Olympus burger from the Clinton Station Diner in New Jersey with “King” George Van Laar. According the the article, $1000 will be awarded to a five person team that can finish the Mount Olympus in under three hours.

Other eating challenges mentioned:

• The Pancake Challenge from the Seiad Valley Café in California
• Dare to be Great Sundae from The Parlour in Jackson, Michigan
• 76 Ounce Steak, J & R Steakhouse in Long Island, NY

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TwinCities.com reports that the 5-8 Grill in Maplewood, Minnesota created a 145 pound “Juicy Lucy” burger on Saturday containing a 100 pound beef patty filled with 50 pounds of cheese. (100 pounds must be the pre-cooked weight since the sum of the beef and cheese weighs less than the listed sandwich weight.)

The burger was submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records under the assumption that the current record holder is a 78.5 pound sandwich created by Bob’s BBQ and Mexican Grill in Thailand. Denny’s Beer Barrel and Mallie’s Sports Grill & Bar in Michigan have requested Guinness recognition for larger burgers. Mallie’s website reports that it created a 164.5 pound burger in August, beating the giant Juicy Lucy by almost 20 lbs., which will appear in the next edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.

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• Santa Clarita, CA hard boilded egg eating contest Sunday, $250 first prize
• George Shea to be honored at Coney Island benefit November 3
• Mini-documentary about the Garlicky Greens contest
• Video of 3 pound burger attempt at the Cottage Cafe in Traverse City, MI
• Yogurt Eating contest for breast cancer research

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• Pat Bertoletti practices for Krystals: video 1, video 2. Pat says the contest in the Czech republic he will compete in will be an hour long.
• Birmingham, Michigan cupcake eating contest August 15
• Furious Pete seeks input on an eating contest to be held at the Mr. Olympia expo
• Suggestion on prize to be included with Joey Chestnut baseball card
• Aurora, OH burger challenge increases by a half a pound when somebody successfully completes it.

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• Beautiful Brian has commentary on the new IFOCE rankings and “Stick to Blogging” sales
• Elliott “Wing Tut / The Savage” Maruffi-Cowley section in philly.com Inqlings column
• Christian “Musk Ox” McCarthy article
• Battle of the Bone week 4 results and videos
• Blog entry about Long Island eating challenges
• Frederick Kaufman (“American Stomach”) interview. Interviewer claims Dale Boone weighs 400 pounds
• Man completes all 28 monster burgers on menu over 2 years
• WNBA’s Detroit Shock to offer all you can eat tickets
• Gizmodo meetup at Coney Island with possible hot dog eating contest
• “Dirty” eating in Gluttonous Queen 2008 criticized
• update Richard Shea interview in NOLA.com
• update – Registration for 3 Brothers Pizza opens at 1 pm eastern today

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Beautiful Brian has a new home for his music with a full version of “Black & White”
Domenico Alesi has his predictions for the upcoming IFOCE contests.
“Humble” Bob notes that it has been 8 months since IFOCE rankings were released
pro wrestler Ric Flair judges a wing eating contest the same night he has a match (go to Brian Yandel)
Video from the Des Moines bacon contest by Mr. BaconPants
Video of the “burgerettes” (see picture) at the Canadian 18 pound burger contest,

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Freep.com reports that Mallie’s Sports Grill & Bar in Southgate, Michigan unveiled a 134 pound hamburger on Saturday. The restaurant will apply for Guinness world record status for the sandwich as the largest commercially available hamburger. The current holder of that title is Denny’s Beer Barrel Pub’s 123 pound burger. A picture of the Guinness certificate is available at Denny’s home page.

The burger will sell for $350 and must be ordered a day ahead of time.

Freep.com video clip

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The segment containing diners’ attempts to break their personal bests in Blimpy Burgers from last night’s episode of “Diners Drive Ins & Dives” on the Food Network has been uploaded (7MB about 3 minutes)

The record holder, James Rocker, appears but does not try to break his mark of 40 patties. Rocker has an account of his record attempt on his live journal.

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Tonight’s episode of “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives” on the Food Network, titled “Burgers, Rings and Fries”, closes with Lauren Lobert of the University of Michigan’s women’s hockey team eating 21 burgers. She mentions her eating ability on her hockey team page where she says she has the female record for eating Blimpie Burgers. The episode will rerun at 1am (10pm Pacific) and I will try to record it and upload the clip. (For anyone keeping track, today is the third anniversary of Kate Stelnick’s appearances on Good Morning America and the Tony Danza show.)

update A video clip of the Blimpy Burger challenge segment has been uploaded.

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The Michigan Daily reports that University of Michigan running back Mike Hart, considered a top 5 candidate for the Heisman trophy, competed in in a wing-eating contest at Buffalo Wild Wings to raise money for the UM Stars charity.

In the interests of balance, here’s a gallery from the “Chicks Eat Chicks” women’s only wing eating contest held at Ohio State University

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(from AICE news) Pastrami Joes’ Reuben sandwich contest, 8 minutes

1 Gentleman Joe Menchetti 5 sandwiches
2. Jake “The Butcher” Casey (last year’s amateur winner) 4.6 sandwiches
3. Chris “The American” Schlesinger with 4.5
4 Mark Lyle “the Human Vacuum”
5 Chuck “The Chomper” Davidson

update The Battle Creek Enquirer has an article about the contest

East Boston Italian Festival sausage results from Derek “Wing Tut” Payne
1st – Tom “Goose” Gillbert – 4.84 New World Record!
2nd – Ian “The Invader” Hickman – 4.38
3rd – Nate “The Nibbler” Gayman – 2.78
4th – Jared Kaiser “Roll” – 2.39
5th – Tim “Chomps-A-Lot” Brien – 2.00
6th – Bruce “Captian RU” Sinclair – 1.83lbs
7th – Tim “Im Not Tom” Crews – 1.47lbs
8th – “princess” Diana Boro – 1.39lbs
9th – Mikey Canoli Saffie – 1.26lbs
10th – “big” David gore – 1.17lbs
11th – Jim “the Heater” Fallon – .87lbs
12th – Pat capagreco (pres I.U.) – .86lbs
13th – Jeff “big show” freeman – .83lbs

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MLive has a blog entry (for June 26) about the attempts to break the Rockford Corner Bar’s chili dog record last year:

Wolfe has tried to get Janus (who is ranked No. 7 by the IFOCE), Chestnut and others such as Patrick Bertoletti and Hall Hunt to come back and compete again, but it hasn’t come together.

“They are under contract, so it’s not that easy,” he said.

So, if Nathan’s Famous contest only lasts 12 minutes, and the Corner Bar allows four hours to eat your chili dogs, how long did it take for Janus to eat 43 1/2 of them?

“It took him the whole four hours,” Wolfe said.

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The Battle Creek Enquirer has a preview of Saturday’s Reuben sandwich eating contest. Some of the expected entrants are:

Among those who will be competing are “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti of Wallingford, Connecticut, Pat “Dr. Delicious” Bruss of Cincinnati, Ohio and Chris “The American” Schlesinger from Bohemia, New York. “Gentleman” Joe Menchetti is considered by some to be the best money eater in the country.

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(Pictures taken by Mac Girl)

Downtown Trini’s in Sparta, Michigan has the most visually appealing restaurant Wall of Fame I have seen (It’s actually more of a pizza slice of fame than a wall) The record as of February 2006 was held by Tommy “Too Tall” Thompson at 37 tacos. (If somebody broke approximately 45 tacos, would they write on the ceiling?) Eating at least 13 tacos is required to appear on the Wall of Fame. The restaurant does not offer a free meal if a minimum number of tacos are eaten, but an all you can eat taco special is offered on Thursday night.

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On March 13, 1982, Sharon Scholten (now Sharon VanDuinen), a petite 5’3″ and 110 pound 25 year old, broke the chili dog record at the Rockford Corner Bar by eating 42.5 chili dogs in four hours. That record would last for almost 24 years and only Tim Janus and Balinda Gould have been able to better that performance.

The archived article about Ms. Scholten provides some interesting background information about her feat:

Saturday looked to be a normal day until her brother-in-law Jimmy Scholten suggested that she try for the record

That was after she had eaten lunch – a Mexican pizza for two, a half order of nachos, four baskets of chips and an enchilada.

But she thought she’d give it a try. After all, she met the woman’s mark two years ago by swallowing 20 franks. And there wasn’t much else to do that night.

“We were just talking about it that afternoon,” she said, “It wasn’t something I planned. I didn’t think I could do it. But Jimmy told me he had bet $600 that I could do it so I thought I’d better try.”

It turns out Jimmy had no money riding on her meal, but his white lie was enough to get Sharon to break the record.

“I was upset,” she said. “I thought I had all this money coming. He told me I’d get 75% of the profit.”

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Rio Wraps is holding the Burrito Bowl, a contest similar to Moe’s Burritos for Life. 14 restaurants in Michigan will host a first round contest later this month and the winners of those events will advance to the Burrito Bowl finals in Dearborn, MI on February 2 to compete for a $7,500 prize package. 5 contestants for each preliminary contest will be chosen at random. The contest rules ban eaters ranked by an eating organization for a mininum of one year.

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The website for the Rockford Corner Bar has been retooled. The hot dog “Hall of Fame” has been updated to list Tim Janus’ record breaking performance from March, but only three names are listed on that page. Janus is listed as the professional record holder while Balinda Gould is the amateur champion. Sharon VanDuinen’s (Scholten) 23 year reign is mentioned, but the article about her has been removed.

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A team of three Michigan police officers has accomplished what Kobayashi could not in the Man vs. Beast Fox TV Special. The Lenawee Connection reports that the policemen finished 15 chili dogs before a bear named Lakota did. A team of three firefighters also competed. The bear was apparently not very interested in the chili dogs.

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The Ionia (upstate Michigan) Sentinel Standard has an article about Thursday’s Chili Dawg Challenge. A 15 minute chili dog eating contest will be held during that event. The entry fee is $10 and no prizes are mentioned, but proceeds will go to benefit the Big Brothers / Big Sisters.

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from mlive.com Old Burdick’s Bar & Grill in Kalamazoo, MI has apparently copied Don “Moses” Lerman’s idea for a team rib contest. On Friday a 3 minute contest for 2 person teams will be held. Entry fees are $20 and proceeds will go to charity. The winning team will receive a catered party worth $300.

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The Kalamazoo Gazette has a report on last weekend’s Reuben sandwich eating contest held at Pastrami Joe’s in Marshall, MI. That newspaper also has an interview with Jason Fagone.

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The Battle Creek Enquirer has a report on yesterday’s Reuben Sandwich Eating Championship, won by Mark Lyle.

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