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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Monday, September 13, 2010
Burrito Binge Makes for Respectable Bellyful
By Phil Parker
Of the Journal
Minutes before it was time to start cramming, my mind's eye visualized tanks unleashing awesome firepower on giant burritos. It wasn't Josh Harris who in second grade called me "P.P." incessantly and dumped my milk on my head in front of the other kids, it was a burrito. Burritos had insulted my sister, keyed my car, hit on my girlfriend, kicked my dog.
I hated them.
I was a coiled cobra, famished for justice and ready to strike. I turned my head left and eyed Joey Chestnut, the world's No. 1 competitive eater, three plates away. I turned my head right, to the imposing figure beside me, a brawny guy with a shaved head who looked just like the wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin. He and I bumped fists and nodded.
I closed my eyes, switched off the reasoning center of my brain. What I endeavored to do to my body was borderline Satanic, necessitating raw stupidity. So long, frontal lobe!
Then, the crowd counted down from 10. It was on.
I was one of the 10 super athletes in the Garcia's World Burrito Eating Championship at the New Mexico State Fair on Saturday. The rules were simple: Whoever ate the most 4-ounce Garcia's Kitchen burritos (beef, beans and green chile) was the winner. The top four finishers got paid, from $250 for fourth place to $1,500 for first.
Being too full is a wretched feeling, and my training ("training") for the event had been an ordeal of awful buffet binges and large pizzas being single-handedly destroyed in about five minutes. I scarfed. Devoured. Wolfed. I could eat boulders. If I met you in the last week and you stuck your hand out to shake hello, you were pulling back a stump. Chomp!
Every time I tested my stomach's tensile strength, I would regret it and wonder how in the world I could ever fit enough food for three families into my one single belly (last year's winner had eaten 33 burritos, more than 8 pounds).
I stretched my stomach by guzzling water the night before, and I inhaled a giant salad. I needed to be hungry going into the contest, so I ate nothing on Saturday until showtime.
Employing a strategy I've wittily dubbed "Don't stop" — always be either biting, chewing or swallowing — I ate 13.5 burritos in 10 minutes. That's more than 3 pounds and, considering I didn't finish last, not too shabby. The rest of my day was uncomfortable.
Chestnut ate 47 burritos. Forty-seven. Almost 12 pounds. He scampered off the stage when the contest was over, off to catch a plane (be glad you weren't next to him for that flight). As he fled, his shirt was soaked in front by the bottled water he used to wash it all down. There were bits of burrito all over him.
I knew the man was freakish, but this is something to behold in person. Chestnut has been on Sportscenter highlights and gets coverage in Sports Illustrated. In separate 10-minute intervals, he has eaten 8.8 pounds of fried asparagus, 47 grilled cheese sandwiches, 19 six-inch Philly cheese steak sandwiches. Lest we think the green chile might give New Mexico eaters a home-field advantage, Chestnut can put away 118 jalapeno poppers in 10 minutes. His most famous showing was a record 68 hotdogs in 10 minutes, and he won $20,000 at this year's Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest by downing 54.
He's not a huge guy, 6 feet and about 220 pounds, but he's not skinny either. I never got the chance to pick his brain, but from what I could tell, his strategy was to take a burrito in his hand and almost use his fingers to chew before it ever got to his mouth. He would ball them up in a fist, squeeze them around, then put his hand to his face and just kind of swallow in big gulps. His head would jut forward and back as he did this, like a chicken's. He'd bounce around in place to help the food settle in his stomach. He took massive draws of water and didn't care a lick about being messy.
It was quite a display, and the crowd was rightfully impressed. To give an idea of just how dominant Chestnut is at burrito eating, the second place finisher Saturday ate 32.5. That was Chicago's Tim Brown, the ninth-ranked eater in the world. Before the contest, he was chatting with Chestnut about another upcoming food battle; I think they said gumbo. After the contest, I didn't envy either of them. Their cow stomachs are a curse.
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