competitive eating Archives • Choosing Figs

The Wisconsin State Fair World Cheese Curd Eating Championship

Val Bromann — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 20:08:17 +0000

I can’t remember the last time, outside of Nathan’s Famous on the Fourth of July, that I saw such a large crowd gather to watch an eating contest. Fire marshals walked the aisles to clear the path of stragglers. Families were sitting on each other’s...

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The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on the Fourth of July

Val Bromann — Sun, 08 Jul 2018 18:36:24 +0000

I used to watch the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on TV every Fourth of July. For some people, Independence Day meant fireworks, barbecues, parades. But, for me, it meant sitting in front of ESPN and watching a row of gurgitators consume as many...

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Women eat too, you know.

Val Bromann — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 14:09:15 +0000

Every Fourth of July the best eaters in the world congregate at Coney Island and go head to head in the world’s greatest hot dog eating contest. Half of those eaters are women. You might not know that from the media coverage of the contest....

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On traditions, the Fourth of July, and a hot dog eating contest.

Val Bromann — Wed, 13 Jul 2016 12:02:07 +0000

Joey Chestnut and Matt Stonie took their prime spots at the center of the table and, from the moment the clock started ticking down, they were both fully focused on the win. For the first few HDBs they were neck and neck but, by two minutes in, Joey Chestnut had eaten to a steady lead. As the minutes ticked down and more hot dogs were eaten it was no longer a question of who would win, it was a question of whether the record would or would not be broken.

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Ribmania.

Val Bromann — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:50:57 +0000

In a week I leave for a long Fourth of July weekend in New York. If you know me at all or if you’ve followed my blog even remotely closely, you can probably guess the primary purpose for the trip: the Nathan’s Famous hot dog...

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Five competitive eaters, a 40-pound goat, & a Cubs curse.

Val Bromann — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 07:51:27 +0000

Every so often a dream team comes together. The Million Dollar Quartet. The 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team. The cast of The Breakfast Club.

For all we know the 1945 Chicago Cubs could have been a dream team too. And maybe they could have gone on to be a dream team in 1946 and '47 and '48 or any other of the years in between then and now. And maybe they could have won the World Series that year and the next and the next.

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Every Dog Has His Day.

Val Bromann — Fri, 10 Jul 2015 12:58:45 +0000

On July 4, 2007, at the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, Joey Chestnut ate 66 hot dogs to Takeru Kobayashi's 63.

It was a historic feat: no one had ever out-eaten 6-time champion Kobayashi in hot dogs and some speculated that no one ever would. That day, Joey Chestnut did the impossible. He out-ate the man who couldn't be out-eaten. He brought the victory back to America.

I watched this all go down that morning on the TV set in my parents' living room, wishing I was there, in person, to witness that historic event. Most people may think of fireworks or parades when they think of the Fourth of July, but that contest was the epitome of the holiday for me. It had become a yearly tradition ever since the first broadcast, to watch the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest on TV. It became a yearly tradition to watch Kobayashi win.

July 4, 2007, was a day that changed Joey Chestnut's life. And, it was a day that changed mine.

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A New York Minute.

Val Bromann — Tue, 07 Jul 2015 12:39:49 +0000

It was in bar in Sevilla, Spain, many years ago now, when a fellow backpacker asked me what I liked most about traveling. I paused for a moment before saying, “When you’re home and wake up the first thing you think is, ‘what do I...

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How not to prepare to compete in an eating contest.

Val Bromann — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 12:36:42 +0000

Step 1: Don't Sign Up for an Eating Contest
The first step to not preparing to compete in an eating contest is to not sign up to compete in an eating contest. I suppose you can apply this logic to most anything you might (not) want to train for: marathons, SATs, dog-obedience. Whatever. Just don't sign up and you don't have to prepare.

Easy.

For instance, I didn't sign up to compete in the Ribmania ribs eating contest at Ribfest Chicago this past Friday. To be fair, I might have tried to sign up for it if I hadn't have been been in this funk that had me ignoring almost everything in life and missed that registration had even been announced. But I tried last year and didn't get in anyways because it's a popular contest, there aren't many spots, and, apparently, my ability to eat three whole hot dogs in 10 minutes doesn't exactly put me in the rankings.

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Brains.

Val Bromann — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 15:22:53 +0000

Every time Molly Schuyler does something, I can count on at least five people sending me a link to it. Which probably says something about both my reputation and hers. There was that time she ate 363 chicken wings in 30 minutes. And that time...

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