Upcoming New York City eating contests
(All New York City eating challenges and contests in database)
Melody Andorfer – Nathan’s 1972 Labor Day champion
In the 1970s, Nathan’s held hot dog contests at times other than the fourth of July. The winner of the 1972 Labor Day weekend contest was Melody Andorfer, who ate 12 hot dogs & buns in 5 minutes. The AP did an article on her victory which was printed by several newspapers in the Google News archive:
Nathan’s 23rd annual hot dog eating contest separated the women from the boys at Coney Island Saturday. The woman went to the top. “I can’t believe I ate that all” said the winner, a 105-pound brunette, after she finished 12 seven-inch hot dogs in five minutes, rolls and all. Eighteen-year-old Melody Andorfer, of Astoria, Queens, who belongs to the National Organization for Women and several other liberation groups, drank three large colas with her male runner-up after she beat seven other women and eight men in the contest. Then she had a sandwich for lunch. The runner-up, 260-pound Gary Silverman, 19, Brooklyn, asked the winner for a date after he managed to devour 10 hot dogs during the event. Miss Andorfer, who said she did not feel queasy after the contest, asserted she had ham and eggs, coffee, and orange juice for breakfast. Asked why she entered The contest, Miss Andorfer said, “I’m determined not to let those male chauvinist pigs dominate us any longer.”
No other reports of Ms. Andorfer defending her title or entering another contest can be found online. (A 1973 Coney Island Labor Day weekend hot dog contest was converted to a corn contest due to lack of beef):
Throngs of people flocked to Coney Island on Saturday and some of them found they beat the heat only to encounter another problem: the beef shortage. Because of the lack of beef, a hot dog eating contest was turned into a corn-on-the-cob eating contest. The winner downed four ears of corn in less than three minutes.
After her victory, Melody Andofer does appear on the front pages of two newspaper modeling swimwear at Coney Island:
Charleston Daily Mail Thursday, July 05, 1973
PATRIOTIC DISPLAY- Melodie Andorfer displays a stars and stripes bikini Wednesday at New York’s Coney Island. She was one of thousands who migrated to the beaches on the Independence Day holiday.
The Chronicle Telegram June 1, 1974, Elyria, Ohio
Displaying the Colors One of Melody Andorfer’s lesser known attributes is her ability as a seamstress. Here she models a swim suit she put together for the opening of Coney Island, New York’s summer playground.
Bronx black & white cookie eating contest
A black & white cookie eating contest will be held at the Jerome Avenue & Gun-Hill Festival in the Bronx on September 29. This craigslist posting has more information.
Nathan’s crowd photograph
New York led has a good photograph of the audience at this year’s Nathan’s finals at http://www.flickr.com/photos/new-yorkled/719179402/ You can see some people wearing hot dog hats (probably Don Lerman & friends)
Kolache & cannoli IFOCE contests Sept 14
The Kolache Factory World Kolache Eating Championship will be held in Houston after an Astros game on September 14. The purse will be $10,000 and registration is now open. The cannoli eating contest at the Feast of San Gennaro will also be held that day. Registraton for the cannoli contest opens August 24.
Dragon Boat Festival dumplings article
AsiaWeek has an article about Sunday’s Chef One Dumpling Eating Contest in Flushing, Queens, on Sunday. The third place finishers are not mentioned.
Bloomberg.com on Coney Island redevelopment
Bloomberg.com has an article about redevelopment plans for Coney Island which quotes Mike DeVito:
Michael Devito, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. vice president, has a special attachment to Coney Island. He’s a three-time winner of the Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot-dog-eating contest and loves the all-beef franks.
“The big draw has to be the original Nathan’s,” said Devito, 45, whose last victory was in 1994, when he downed 20 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes. “If I’m anywhere near that area, I always shoot over.”
Queens Dumpling contests video
CheapAssFood.com has a video from the women’s and men’s dumpling eating contest at the Dragon Boat Festival in Queens, NY Sunday. Floria Lee’s technique is quite impressive.
Dragon Boat Festival dumplings results
Please place results from the dumpling eating contest at the Dragon Boat Festival in Queens, NY today in the comments to this post. BeautifulBrian reports that Dale Boone competed in the contest, which is not an AICE contest, but has had AICE eaters compete in previous years.
This blog entry reports that the women’s winner outate the men’s 43 dumplings to 41. I will be very interested to learn who the female winner is if that is the case.
update results from Joe Menchetti
Men
1. Joe Menchetti, 60
2. Chris Yee, 41 1st ever eating contest
3. Dale Boone, 39
Women
1. Floria Lee, about 43
2. Tang Na Way ?
3. ?
ESPN.com column: Nathan’s is highlight of summer
Bill Simmons (the Sports Guy) of ESPN.com lists Joey Chestnut’s victory as one of the few high points in a bleak summer for sports:
It’s impossible to rank these events from most depressing to least depressing, so I won’t even try. Making matters worse, the enjoyable moments have been few and far between. Basically, it’s been Joey Chestnut’s toppling Kobayashi, Stephon Marbury’s surreal Mike’d Up appearance and the actor who played Reggie Jackson in The Bronx Is Burning’s inadvertently looking like C. Thomas Howell in Soul Man.
Coney Island knish contest Sunday
From a press release by the Coney Island Cyclones minor league baseball team:
KNISH-EATING CONTEST: Want to test your skills at competitive eating? To entertain fans on Jewish Heritage Night, the Cyclones have teamed up with Gabila’s Knishes, and will be holding a knish- eating contest on the field before the game. The fan that eats the most knishes in 4 minutes will win a prize pack and a trophy! If you’re interested in competing, please contact Rebecca at rebecca@brooklyncyclones.com before Sunday.
Kobayashi on the P’Zone promotion
Kobayashi has a report from the P’Zone eating exhibition in New York which includes praise for one of his rivals (automatically translated)
[sonia] (the woman hood fighter the greatest in the world) with the goal of, when it keeps persevering from now on, the [tsu] [te] you thought.
“Zen” release party
From crazylegsconti.com/plate.php
In conjunction with the DVD we have a couple great events that you may be interested in. On July 24th at the DVD release will will screen some scenes in Taste-O-Vision, where what you see me eat on screen, the audience gets to eat (color coded jelly beans for hot dog, oyster, butter, etc). It is also a feature on the DVD.
…
Tuesday, July 24th DVD release screening in Taste-O-Vison, Millennium Theater 7:33 PM (66 East 4th street between 2nd ave Bowery). After-Party @ Coyote Ugly (1st ave and 9th street).
Conti also reports that he broke Sonya’s popcorn record from the 2005 MTV movie awards contest at the Las Vegas Home Media Expo and that Corey Feldman will be the head judge at Saturday’s pie eating contest.
Kobayashi visits MoMA, steakhouse & Booker concert
Kobayashi has continued his New York travelog with blog entries about a visit to the Museum of Modern Art, the Peter Luger steakhouse and a performance by Eric “Badlands” Booker. He does not mention the size of the steak he ate.
Kobayashi visits Coleman’s Bar & Grill
Kobayashi has a blog entry about his visit to Crazy Legs Conti’s apartment, where a poster of Conti in the style of an old-time circus poster hangs.
Kobayashi also writes about his trip to the NY Natural History Museum with several pictures of dinosaurs.
Kobayashi visits Eater X’s pizzeria
Kobayashi has posted a blog entry about his trip to the pizzeria Tim Janus works at.
Kobayashi reports from Coney Island
Kobayashi has posted a blog entry with some pictures about his experience at Coney Island with
NYTimes profiles Coney Island policeman
An NYTimes article about a policeman whose beat is the Coney Island boardwalk has a sad footnote to Joey Chestnut’s Nathan’s victory:
Joey Chestnut, 23, established a world record by eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes in the annual Nathan’s contest. Officer Nevandro posed for pictures with the new champion.
Then, at 4:11 p.m., a 46-year-old man on the beach approached a lifeguard, shouted, “Call 911!†and pulled out a .38-caliber pistol and shot himself in the face. Officer Nevandro had been talking with workers at Astroland, the amusement park, and when the call came across, he rode his golf cart to the scene. The lifeguard and the police tried to revive the man, who was from Pennsylvania, but he was pronounced dead a short time later.
Brooklyn Paper post-Nathan’s coverage
The current issue of the Brooklyn Papers has an article by Gersh Kuntzman about his experience as Kobayashi’s judge and an interview with the Frankster mascot.
Queens, NY dumpling contest August 5
From Gothamist:
So it’s only in the interest of each borough having its own event that we bring you this next story- the 4th Annual Dumpling Eating Contest, taking place on Sunday August 5th as part of the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival in Flushing. For all of those who watched Joey Chestnut eat 66 weenies last week and exclaimed, “Hell, I can do that,†here’s your chance: the Dumpling Eating Contest is accepting registrants until the end of the month.
The contest is two minutes long with prizes of $1000, $500 and $300. Last year’s festival had separate contests for men and women with equivalent prize money for both genders.
Erik the Red reports from Coney Island
Erik Denmark has written a report about his experience in last week’s Nathan’s finals which includes some interesting information about Joey Chestnuts counters:
I heard from someone who was watching Joey on stage that he was eating from multiple plates at the same time. This was more than likely a ploy to make it difficult for Kobayashi to determine where Chestnut’s actual numbers were at. This was a brilliant tactic by Joey because not only did it confuse Kobayashi, the judges totally messed up his count as well. Joey maintained at least a 3-5 hot dog lead throughout the competition. Joey’s counter was off by as many as 5 hot dogs for the entire second half of the contest when it looked like Kobayashi was catching up. The contest was never tied, not even close. Joey cleared his mouth with amazing ease in about 10 seconds after his final stuff, partly because he was so infuriated with his judge for screwing up his count, he wanted to tell him. If you read Joey’s lips he can be seen clearly telling his counter that his count was off by five repeadtedly when he clears his mouth at the end of the contest.
P’Zone exhibition results
A press release about today’s P’Zone exhibition is available.
Chestnut, the #2-ranked eater in the world, consumed 4.82 pounds of P’Zones, six times the amount eaten by Marivic Stewart, the upstart rookie, who could only stomach ¾ of a P’Zone, or .8 pounds. Marivic won the right to compete against Joey, as well as an all-expense paid vacation to New York, after submitting photos and an enthusiastic essay to Pizza Hut’s “Dare You to Still Be Hungry†contest in mid-June.
Kobayashi served as judge. Tim Janus was also present.
Liz reports from Coney Island
Liz K has posted her report from the 2007 Nathan’s finals from Coney Island. Arturo Rios, Jr. received the 2007 IFOCE Rookie of the Year award before the contest. There are also galleries from the weigh-in and contest.
Kobayashi post-Nathan’s statement
Kobayashi has a bilingual blog entry about his second place finish in Wednesday’s Nathan’s finals:
I believe that the satisfaction one feels in competition is not purely derived from a result of victory or defeat. I can say that I am happy to have challenged a seventh consecutive win. From today on I will focus on treating my condition without getting too anxious. And I will definitely go for the next world record. Even if the pressure of it all crushes me.
Beautiful Brian behind the scenes
Brian Seiken has written an article about his thwarted quest for a higher level pass at the Nathan’s finals Wedneseday.
Deadspin reports from Coney Island
Will Leitch, the blogger for Deadspin, has posted a long report from the Nathan’s finals. Leitch accepted a press pass for the first time. There is also a gallery, which includes a picture of Don Lerman with a mystery friend.
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