Secret Santa For Competitive Eaters, 2014 Style

Secret Santa is a game where a mysterious benefactor gives you a gift to commemorate Christmas. I suppose you can play the game anytime, since Santa is losing his sectarian spirit. Sorta. But when competitive eaters play it, you know there's gonna be a twist.

The competitive eating community on YouTube has played a mass Secret Santa game for two years running. The brainchild of Tracy Goode, a frequent competitor on the Major League Eating circuit, the game allows a wide array of eaters to gift each other with ridiculous (secret) parcels of food that must be revealed and consumed on camera. The mystery element makes this project a winner. 

Of course, not all participants have a mean streak in them. Some players choose to send nice things, such as boxes of chocolate and jars of Nutella. A few eaters will receive truly nasty nuggets of noxious nefariousness, but that's all in good fun. And the winner is you, the viewer, who gets to see the stunned reaction of the person trying to eat the weird food at hand. 

Molly Schuyler, All Pro Eating's #1 ranked eater, played the game this year. Though she holds world records in speed eating normal foods, the weird side of the aisle is not something she typically relishes. She does relish the fact that Secret Santa exposes eaters to things they wouldn't normally try. At least, that's the gist of what I got from an off-hand comment. And I totally agree. 

For me, this year's Secret Santa game offered a moment of sweet revenge. I sent "Cardboard" Shell two bottles of tamarind syrup. Seems like a good offering after the 24 century eggs she sent me last year. And again, the winner is you - the viewer. Disgusting eating makes for wonderful viewing. Just ask the boys over at Wreckless Eating, who've practically made a living off puking on camera. 

If you want to see what this year's smackdown was all about, feel free to check out the YouTube playlist here: Competitive Eater Secret Santa 2014 Collab Playlist!  (for those who don't know, a collab is short for collaboration. In Youtube lingo, it means that several people with YouTube accounts all worked together on a similar project to help gather traction for all their channels) 

And if you're a written list kinda guy or girl, the full list of names and respective videos is found here, posted in the order I received the links.

Naader "Freak8r" Reda: 

Wayne Algenio:

Deadly Sins:

Chuck From the Bronx: 

Matt Cohen: 

Cardboard Shell: 

Frohungry:

Badlands Booker: 

Yo You Hungry: 

Juan Rodriguez: 

Andrew The Bear:

Jon Bello: 

Stephanie Torres: 

Miki Sudo: 

Molly Schuyler:  

Whew, that was a lot of typing. Remind me never to do anything like that again. Another winner in this project was the US Postal Service, who had the professional pleasure of delivering all of our wonderful crates of cuisine. 

I know one thing for sure - I'm playing the game again next year. You'd better come and watch :)

One Fair Day

Last Wednesday, I decided I needed to go back to the OC Fair in Costa Mesa.

The Fair isn't really my favorite place to go. It's crowded, everything's expensive, and all of the food on hand seems to be covered in floury batter and deep-fried.

You can get it all deep-fried: frog legs, bacon, chocolate candy bars, turkey drumsticks, ice cream, avocado, and, oh yes.... butter. Thats right, deep-fried butter. I guess you can never take in too much saturated fat!

So if this place made me feel so.... out-of-place, why was I here?

Revenge. That's right. Sweet, sweet revenge.

Last year, at the OC Fair 2009, the Mexican Funnel Cake Stand offered up an incredible eating challenge: if you could devour a huge plate of their funnel cake in 20 minutes or less, they would give you your money back. It was a unique challenge, given the fact that most of the time I'm attempting mammoth burgers, oversized burritos, or exaggerated sushi rolls.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do pull it off....  That didn't really sit well with me, especially since I rarely fail an eating challenge. I decided I needed redemption.

I thought things were looking easy when I strolled to the Fair last week. The time limit for the challenge had been raised to thirty minutes, and I was told that no one had yet completed the challenge during the Fair's stay in Orange County. This could be a moment of glory!

Things didn't look so rosy when the massive dessert plate emerged from the concession stand. Designed to feed six, this Jumbo Mexican Funnel Cake (estimated at 5 lbs) looked even bigger than last year's! It looked like it was stacked much higher, with more whipped cream and strawberries than before. The carnival attendant told me that there's really no set size, it's just up to the creativity of the preparers in the back.

This was not going to be a cakewalk after all.

Challengers must stand at a separate table before the passersby, who might see the festivities and decide to cheer,  wretch in disgust, or try the challenge themselves.

I started with aggression, determined to get through the sugary pile before me. Mexican funnel cake is really just churros, and as my experience reminds me, it's not the easiest food to eat quickly. It was crunchy on the outside, doughy on the inside, incredibly sweet, and greasy as heck.

I relied upon a three-plate strategy, unpacking the churro mountain into workable chunks among the three plates. I used the whipped cream and strawberries to create a varied experience, but for the most part the taste of cinnamon and flour was overpowering.

Lots of chewing, lots of water to help get it down.... I actually found a decent strategy of squeezing the grease out of the dough (they held a lot - I could see large puddles forming on the bottom of one plate), then soaking the dried churro paste with water. It was like eating cereal.

 
At the 26 minute mark, the attendant called a victory and told me to stop eating.... she said she didn't want to see me physically finish the entire plate. I guess it's kind of gross to see someone eat all that grease and sugar. I felt incredibly wired from the 20 minute mark, but I kept pressing because I had to get this thing.

I achieved a small measure of glory, becoming the first person at the 2010 Orange County Fair to successfully devour the 5 lb Jumbo Mexican Funnel Cake.

Having $19.50 back in my pocket wasn't so bad either!