The New York Times reports that Milton Parker passed away at the age of 90. Parker purchased a share of the Carnegie Deli in 1976 and handed control to his son-in-law, Sanford Levine, in 2002. While the Carnegie Deli hosts a pickle eating contest in even numbered years, the first eating competition it sponsored used a different food:

The Carnegie had opened in 1938; knishes came half a century later. In 1988, Mr. Parker placed them on the menu — but only after staging a publicity-seeking knish-eating contest.

The favorite was Jay Resnick, the 1985 Brighton Beach Baths knish-eating champion. The $250 prize went to Mark Litman, a soft-drink route salesman from Brooklyn who said he had never before eaten a knish. In 15 minutes, Mr. Litman downed four and half knishes. Each whole knish weighed in at one pound — an indicator of Carnegie deli portions.

A 1988 article about the knish contest is available in the New York Times archives.

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The PhillyDeal$ blog reports that philly.com received 4.1 million online readers on the day of Wing Bowl 17, more than twice the normal amount. The only other event to produce more traffic to the website was the Phillies recent World Series victory.

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The 2009 edition of Battle of the Bone, the Phoenix area wing eating contest sponsored by Native New Yorker and THE FAN AM 1060, is expected to begin this month. The initial qualifier is tenatively scheduled to take place on February 25.

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IFOCE.com announces that registration for the crawfish eating contest that will be held at the Showboat Casino in Atlantic City on February 24 will open tomorrow at 2pm eastern.

The contest has yet to be listed on the IFOCE contests list or the casino’s events page.

updateCrawfish notices the contest information has now been posted. The contest will start at 2pm and prizes have yet to be determined.

An expanded disclaimer appears at the bottom of the contest page, granting the IFOCE the right to reject any entrant and change any term of the contest.

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NewsObserver.com has an article about the filming of Adam Richman’s hot dog eating challenge at the Roast Grill in Raleigh for an upcoming episode of Man vs. Food. Richman ate at least 10 hot dogs, but it is not reported if he reached his goal of 17 hot dogs. Jason DiMambro attended the recording and had to sign a non disclosure agreeement that he would not reveal the results of the challenge.

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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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Pictures in galleries may not be safe for work:

• Philly.com’s Wing Bowl page has a new gallery
• Action Sports Pics has a gallery (from comment)
• Flickr galleries: Candyman | S. A. Margulies | freshhooker | damncoolpictures (from wire services)
• PASpider’s picasa gallery
• Picture of “Sloth”‘s reversal in Wing Bowl 9 on the video screen

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(From TBOBlogs) The Tampa Bay Rays website announces that Joey Chestnut will appear at the their fan forum on February 14 and will sign autographs and greet fans. This is the third consecutive year a top 10 ranked IFOCE member has appeared. Kobayashi appeared at the 2007 forum and Hall Hunt was present in 2008.

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update The episode commercial and a facebook gallery are now available

• Salvador Molly’s challenge restaurant
  home page | “Great Balls of Fire” challenge | “Great Balls of Fire” eating contest March 1
  reviews: yelp | citysearch
• Voodoo Doughnut
  home page | Tex-ASS doughnut eating challenge (Pat Bertoletti currently holds the record of 23 seconds)
  UrbanHonking blog entry about 4 Portland eating challenges, including the Tex-ASS doughnut challenge
  Doughnut eating contest held for Portland mayoral candidates last May
  reviews: yelp | citysearch
• Stepping Stone Cafe
  home page
  reviews: yelp | citysearch

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(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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(From Brian Dwyer comment) The Wing Bowl 13 documentary Swallow Your Pride is for sale on amazon.com at a price of $19.99. Angelo Cataldi, Al Morganti and Bill Simmons are listed as the stars.

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Willie McCovey’s restaurant in Walnut Creek, CA has a 44 ounce burger called the “521” in honor of the number of home runs McCovey hit during his career. The burger is mentioned in ESPN.com’s list of Baseball’s top 10 bars and grill and a video of it is available on youtube.

In other California burger challenge news, a youtube video documents the breaking of the 10 year old record for the Triple Bypass Challenge at 49’rs Tavern in Long Beach.

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The new poll asks if you think whether Kobayashi should receive a bye to this year’s Nathan’s finals and if he deserves travel expenses if you believe he merits an automatic invitation to Coney Island.

In more Nathan’s news, this column credits William “The Refrigerator” Perry’s participation in the 2003 contest with making the Nathan’s finals the Super Bowl of competitive eating.

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• NJ.com journal focusing on South Jersey entrants
• ABC News video
• Wing Bowl 17 videos on youtube
• Picture of Sloth’s reversal in Wing Bowl 9 on the video screen
• Competitor articles: Chicken Caesar | The Eating Machine | Caddilac Corrigan

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A wing eating contest will be held at the Atlantic City boat show on February 7. The first prize will be a flat screen TV. Call The Shark 103.7 FM to register.

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A list of DelawareOnline’s 8 most intriguing people of 2008 details the thwarting of Jeff “The Natural” Olson’s plans to compete in Wing Bowl 17:

At this year’s WIP Wingbowl, Jeff planned on qualifying with his stunt of eating three pounds of cottage cheese in three minutes. WIP rejected the stunt, however, saying it was a drinking stunt and not an eating stunt. (I’m not sure how the people at WIP consume their cottage cheese, but I certainly consider that a food.)

Apparently WIP had no such problems with the brand of cottage cheese Jon Squibb used, as he qualified by eating 6 pounds in 3 minutes after failing at his initial attempt

Other Wing Bowl links
NBCPhiladelphia credits the small size of the wings with the high total and has some additional Wing Bowl content

Yahoo has 2 videos and 15 photos, including a picture of Frank DeFraud’s disqualification

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update #2Philly.com has video – CBS3 has a slideshow and an interview with boxer Bernard Hopkins and El Wingador along with some soundless footage

Google Trends currently has “Wing Bowl 2009” as #10 in the list of hot trends and “Angelo Cataldi” and “610 WIP” are also in the top 20.

update CourierPostOnline.com has the official top 5:

Jon “Super” Squibb – 203 wings – his facebook page
Not Rich 180
Hank the Tank 153
Da Disposal 153
Cadillac Corrigan 132

Other 5 semi-finalists (results are from end of first round)
Officer Beast 90
Frank de Fraud 87
Stormin Norman 83
Obi Wing 83 (disqualified for vomiting in the second round)
Gluteus Maximus 79

The live blog of the radio feed follows after the jump:
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A list of the Wing Bowl 17 field along with their performances in previous Wing Bowls from the eatfeats database is available after the jump:

Read the rest of this entry »

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• Article about South Jersey Wing Bowl competitors
• Brian “Cadillac” Corrigan – the article incorrectly claims that Corrigan is the youngest Wing Bowl finalist ever. Alex “Lord of the Wings” Friedman was 15 when he competed in Wing Bowl 10. Friedman held the Jim’s Steaks record from 2001 to 2007 and retains the amateur record.
• Blog entry about Cadillac Corrigan
• Mike “The Eating Machine” Berger
• Nick “Chicken Caesar” Ventresca
• Richard “Cheesecake Beefcake” Souders
• “Gentleman” Jerry Coughlan

Philly.com has galleries of Wing Bowls 11 through 16

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A posting on craigslist has the following request:

If you have ever competed in a professional eating contest… we might want to book you on our new show.

The only other information is that no compensation will be provided. The name or other details about the show are not listed.

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The South Philly location of Chickie’s & Pete’s Crab House & Sports Bar will host the Wing Bowl weigh in at 5 pm today. The restaurant will also have a post Wing Bowl party at 9 am tomorrow.

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Philly.com has an interview with Adam Gertler, host of the new Food Network show Will Work for Food who has the following comments about his participation in the Famous Famiglia pizza contest in October:

Asked which of the taped episodes he likes best, he said, “They are kind of like all of my children. I think, though, I really like the competitive-eating segment.”

That one, airing Feb. 9, has Gertler gobbling pizza alongside some professional competitive eaters on a stage in Times Square in Manhattan. He downed 16 slices before throwing in the towel.

The episode will be televised at 8:30 pm eastern time.

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A emailed press release announces a March 1 contest at Salvador Molly’s in Portland, OR, the challenge restaurant in next week’s Man vs. Food:

So get out your habanero barbells and train your tongue…and your stomach…for this event, which pits contestants against each other to eat as many Great Balls of Fire as possible. The contest takes over Salvador Molly’s, 1523 S.W. Sunset Blvd., in Hillsdale on March 1st, 2009, and the winner gets a prize package from Salvador Molly’s, including a party for a table of 10 at the restaurant.

Diners who complete 5 “Balls of Fire” between January 31 and March 1 will qualify for this contest.

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The Denver Post has a report on the filming of a Man vs. Food episode in Colorado last week. One 7 pound burrito completed before Adam Richman started his challenge at Jack-n-Grill (from Skinnyboy).

Filming this week at the Roast Grill in Raleigh, NC has been moved to Friday and will apparently take place during normal business hours.

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The Mayor Of Wingville has information about a Boston area Wing Bowl:

Join us Thursday, January 29th from 7-9PM at Hooters on Route 1 in Saugus. Ten BCN listeners will compete for a chance to win some serious CASH! The first place winner scores $3,000. 2nd: $1,500 and 3rd: $500! Listen to Toucher & Rich mornings from 6 to 10 for your chance to compete for a place in the tournament

If you are not a Toucher & Rich listener, a slot will be awarded tonight to the winner of a “Wing Off” at Dockside Restaurant in Wakefield, MA

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