An episode of Man vs. Food was recorded in Minneapolis last weekend. A picasa gallery of Adam Richman attempting a meter long sausage challenge at Gasthof zur Gemütlichkeit is available.

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Like Apollo 18, it appears that plans for the eighteenth episode of the initial season of Man vs. Food will not come to fruition. A twitter update from the official Man vs Food twitter page announces that there will be 17 episodes in the first season. The 18th episode was to have been recorded in Minneapolis / St. Paul later this week.

Pat Bertoletti (or someone impersonating him on the Travel Channel message boards) had hoped to meet up with host Adam Richman in Minnesota.

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Andrew Zimmern’s blog for MSP Magazine reports that Man vs. Food will be filming in Minneapolis / St. Paul from February 5 to 8. Restaurant locations are not listed, but one of the foods will be a juicy Lucy burger.

A UNC scout.com forum thread has the following information about Raleigh / Durham locations:

I have a friend that is a producer on the show and they are coming to Chapel Hill/Durham for a show. Thus far they have chosen the Roast Grill (hot dogs) and The Pit for barbeque and they are thinking about Mama Dip’s but are worried that the portions are not big enough.

They looked at Sutton’s and Time Out but they were too small and didn’t have large enough portions. THe sad thing about the area is that the food that is true to North Carolina doesn’t usually come in a challenge type of serving.

A twitter update from December says that Man vs. Food will record at the Roast Grill sometime in January.

The Krispy Kreme Challenge appeared to be a possibility for the North Carolina challenge, but Man vs. Food will be in Minnesota on the February 7 race date.

update BeautifulBrian.com has a review and a clip from Man vs. Food

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A video about a quartet of diners’ attempt to finish the 54 inch square pizza from Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizzeria in Los Angeles has been uploaded to youtube. Captures from the video can be viewed after the jump.

A youtube page about the pizza has been set up. One of the captions of the videos says that a team of five that finishes the 54 inch pizza in under two hours will receive $1000.

The pizzeria is located on 5051 Hollywood Boulevard. (Van Halen fans might know that 5150 refers to a section of the California Welfare and Institutions Code allowing for involuntary confinement of the mentally ill.)

Another new team pizza challenge for four diners is available at Premier Pizza in Oakdale, Minnesota.

Read the rest of this entry »

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The creators of some giant burgers are not satisfied with having hamburger as the only type of meat in their sandwiches. The Hawkins House of Burgers (several Los Angeles area locations) Special Burger contains 3 eight ounce hamburger patties, 2 hot links, bacon and pastrami along with 3 fried eggs (picture). The Gangster Burger, offerred by the Rice Street Deli in Saint Paul, Minnesota, contains two half pound hamburger patties, three 6 ounce steaks, a half pound of Italian beef and a half pound of gyro meat. Neither restaurant appears to offer any award or recognition to diners who successfully complete one of their huge burgers.

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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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• Ex-“Monster Garage” star Jesse James (Sanda Bullock’s husband) won a pie-eating contest at the Tennessee Valley Fair. The contest might be seen on James’ Spike TV show
• More on the Japanese version of the MLE video game
• Phillip Jones, who cancelled the University of Iowa 2007 corn eating contest, is fired
• The Bottle Inn, host of the nettle eating championship, will close but its contest might outlast it
• Minnesota State cheese stick eating contest
• $50/hour available for a woman willing to vomit on camera during an eating contest
• Hot dogs at the Philadelphia Phillies ballpark are responsible for a bomb scare The packages of hot dogs were detonated.

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• Video of bacon eating contest from Super Paul Barlow
• Video of a recent Pat Bertoletti practice session
• amNY article about Badlands Booker
• Video promoting upcoming “Hungry & Focused” apparel from Badlands Booker
• Synopsis of upcoming “Hurl” episodes on G4
• Crazy Legs and Eater X make the cover of the current Village Voice (from Liz K) – a gallery from their article
• MSNBC on extreme July 4 meals
• 2 for the price of 1 Nathan’s online coupon
• Slideshow of Henderson, MN sauerkraut competition
• Fox News article about Nathan’s
• Krystalist announces Krystal Square Off V
• Megamunch emails the following request for an upcoming Baltimore Examiner story:
  

  Are there any long-term health effects of competitive eating? What about just short-term effects? Should people take certain precautions if they are competitively eating? Are there warning signs someone should look out for if they compete frequently? Contact: Sara Michael, smichael@baltimoreexaminer.com

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Patrick Vandam, runner-up in the most recent Nathan’s qualifier, answers some questions on TwinCities.com. Vandam is planning to compete in Saturday’s Nathan’s qualifier in Chicago.

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• Minnesota qualifier ABC News video
• Apparently no one was able to register for the Dallas Nathan’s qualifier after the food blog for D Magazine announced the contest (Nathan Biller and Jason Erb did get in)
• Video of “Furious” Pete eating 8 McD’s double cheeseburgers in 2.5 minutes for bodybuilding.com contest (thread #1, thread #2)
• Some pictures from last year’s Nathan’s finals on mosesnews
• 10 woman team attempts 15 pound Denny’s Beer Barrel Belly Buster
• Megamunch’s office cereal contest
• Mike Fitzgerald, the Apple Valley, MN 3rd place finisher, won last years amateur Sheboygan bratwurst contest
• Blog entry about Amos Wengler, the “Coney Island Songwriter”
• Wing Tut’s 5k race report
• Kobayashi leaves Japan for a while
• Cruise for Takuya Yamamoto and fans (Yama3’s event report)
• Blogger will vote for presidential candidate who will ban competitive eating

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Galleries of the recent Nathan’s qualifiers held in Las Vegas and Apple Valley, Minnesota are now available. Captions for the Las Vegas gallery report that Rich LeFevre ate 32 hot dogs and not the 31 in the official report.

The Las Vegas Sun has an article containing a picture of Rich LeFevre and Sarah Jane from one of the galleries. Sarah Jane was the only female competitor and previously auditioned for “American Idol”. Like Ron Koch, she works as a casino photographer. She finished with 8.5 hot dogs, which puts her in the company of 8 females who are known to have broken the 8 HDB mark:

39 Sonya Thomas, 2007, 12 minutes
28 Juliet Lee, 2007, 12 minutes
25 Carlene LeFevre, 2005, 12 minutes
22.25 Takako Akasaka, 2000, 12 minutes
18 Miyuki Iwata, 2004, 12 minutes
12 Melody Andorfer, 1972, 5 minutes
9.5 Birgit Felden, 1984, 10 minutes
8.5 Sarah Jane, 2008, 10 minutes

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From IFOCE.com via the Sicilian:

1) Pat Bertoletti 41 HDB in 10 minutes
2) Patrick Vandam 30
3) Mike Fitzgerald 23.5

update KARE11.com has a short article with a video

update #2 StarTribune.com also has an article

update #3 May 19 – Pat Bertoletti has posted a blog entry to his YardBarker blog about the contest

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StarTribune.com reports that Fatso’s will celebrate its grand opening in downtown Minneapolis by holding a burger eating contest. The restaurant offers a 4.5 pound burger, but the article does not say if that size will be used in the contest.

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A gallery of the Nathan’s qualifier held at the Mall of America is available at nathansmoa.com

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Liz has an interview with Crazy Legs Conti from after his victory at the Mall of America qualifier in Minnesota

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Mall of America results from IFOCE.com:

1. Crazy Legs Conti, 24 HDB
2. Mongo Marquez, 20 HDB
3. Justin Mih, 18 HDB
3. Nathan Biller, 18 HDB

update Twin Cities has an article. Other competitors were Russ “The Mad Stork” Witzke, “Big Al” Scaletta, Bill “The Hungry Hungarian” Roth and Jim “Hammer” Hamrick. Crazy Legs Conti will compete in the strawberry shortcake eating contest.

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The archives for Time Magazine have an article with a paragraph about the 1933 corn eating contest held in Ortonville, Minnesota, where an AICE contest will take place this year:

At the Ortonville, Minn, harvest festival last year Mrs. L. W. Lindstrom munched hard for the women’s corn-eating championship, finished second to Pauline Lewis who set a women’s record of 25 ears. Ed (“Korn King”) Kottwitz won the men’s championship with a world’s record of 37 ears. Last week at the festival, with two dozen waitresses rushing supplies from steaming boilers chocked with Golden Bantam corn, Mrs. Lindstrom, 71 and every tooth her own, beat Pauline Lewis, 22, by one ear with a new women’s record of 45 ears. Ed Kottwitz kept his championship by chomping down 50 ears.

Mrs. Lindstrom’s performance is the best performance by an eater over the age of 70 I am aware of.

It is surprising that an eating contest would be held during the trough of the Great Depression.

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A website for the Nathan’s qualifier to be held at the Mall of America has been set up at nathansmoa.com. There is a gallery of last year’s qualifier.

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(from Dave Chrisinger) A napkin autographed by all 5 members of the Central Lakes Eating Team has been put up for sale on ebay. The current bid is 99 cents and the auction ends Friday.

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The Central Lakes (Minnesota) Eating Team has a page on myspace at http://www.myspace.com/centrallakeseatingteam Their heros are Takeru Kobayashi, Joey Chestnut, Sonya Thomas and Eater X. Could this be the start of UEMN?

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twincities.com asks several members of the Minnesota Vikings how close they could come to Kobayashi’s mark of 58 bratwurst in 10 minutes. (Sonya Thomas destroyed the best eater on the Washington Redskin’s, Randy Thomas, when she had a shrimp eating contest with him)

Kobayashi has returned to Japan and has written a blog entry about the contest.

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Liz has an interview with Pat Bertoletti after he was upset by Chip in the Mall of America Nathan’s qualifer, who had the second-best American result (38 HDB) of all time.

updated 6/20 1:11 am – changed Chip Simpson to Pat Bertoletti

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The Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN) has an article about yesterday’s Nathan’s qualifier at the Mall of America won by Chip Simpson with 38 hot dogs.

Updated 6:27 pm – Brian Seiken has commentary

7:13 pm – a volunteer judge has a myspace blog entry about the contest

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