Amy's Robot

Robot-on-the-Spot: The World Cheesecake Eating Championship

Forget Takeru Kobayashi and his lame hot dog eating record. The real champions are the ones who spend a hot Sunday afternoon shoving cheesecake into their faces at Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue Festival. As fans of both competitive and amateur eating, Amy's Robot congratulates 2004 World Cheesecake eating champion, Eric "Badlands" Booker, who ate over one and a half cheesecakes (that's seven pounds of sweet dairy goodness) in six minutes. Eric, who in his spare time is an amateur rapper and conductor on the 7 train line, also took the cannoli title last week at the San Gennaro feast, eating 16.5 cannoli in six minutes.

Competitive eating has enjoyed quite the renaissance lately, thanks to the tireless work of the International Federation of Competitive Eating. With a keen understanding of the gluttony that makes our country great, the IFOCE is making an effort to standardize rules and regulations in this fast-growing sport. The organization is also dedicated to making competitive eating as safe as possible, believing that "speed eating is only suitable for those 18 years of age or older and only in a controlled environment with appropriate rules and with an emergency medical technician present."

Of course, even that emergency medical technician can't always prevent the occasional accident. People, I'm here to tell you that you haven't lived until you've seen a a grown man eat cheesecake with his fingers

and then barf it down the front of his shirt.

If you're still interested in competitive eating, you should certainly subscribe to "Gurgitator", the IFOCE's newsletter, which will keep you up to date on all the latest competitions and rankings. And gentlemen looking for romance - the IFOCE's second highest ranking eater is the lovely and tiny Sonya Thomas. I'd suggest visiting your bank's loan officer before taking her to dinner, because this 105-pound cutie just might eat 11 pounds of cheesecake, 5 pounds of chicken wings, 65 hardboiled eggs, 23 pulled pork sandwiches, and 43 soft tacos. Sexy!

Update: Ordering information for our hero Badlands Booker's competitive-eating themed hip-hop album, "Hungry and Focused" is here. You can also listen to clips from the album.

categories: Culture, Health, NYC, Robot-on-the-Spot, Sports
posted by Emily at 10:32 PM | #