As everyone was gathering around the ol’ telly for the game of all games, I too felt a warm up was in order for a different kind of competition: Chicken Bowl. My editor for NPR’s Song of the Day Stephen Thompson (and founder of The Onion AV Club) played host to a mortal man’s competitive eating contest to end all. Now in it’s eleventh year Stephen thought he’d bring the binge eating and excessive drinking with him to DC.
To prep for the affair we watched Fox’s Glutton Bowl 2002 presentation, a disgusting display of large and sweaty men wolfing down meats and bowls of mayonnaise for a frightening crowd of onlookers. It seemed few had the ambitions nor the results of Kobayashi, but with 160 pieces of Popeye’s chicken in front of us, we this was no small feat.
Here are the rules as he laid out in the invitation:
1. CBXI will work according to a point system: Breasts are worth 1.5 points, thighs 1 point, legs 0.5 points, and wings 0.5 points.
2. Keep chicken bones and discarded skin and viscera out of reach of the small children in attendance.
3. Only Popeye’s-brand chicken may be consumed in conjunction with this event.
4. All binging, no purging. If you vomit, you¹re done.
5. The Heimlich maneuver may not be performed at any time during this event. Those performing the Heimlich maneuver will be disqualified.
As you can see this was a serious affair. As with any competition, we had to weigh strategy and technique. All out assault or slow graze over the course of the game? All breast pieces or more smaller pieces? Luckily he also thought to include some tips:
1. Pace yourself: This is a marathon, not a sprint. (See Rule #4.)
2. Take a lesson from Thanksgiving: If you starve yourself leading up to a big meal, your stomach will shrink, and will therefore accommodate less chicken. Starting several days in advance, begin a regimen of high-impact gorging, using a funnel and plunger if necessary.
3. Bring lots of delicious beer. We stocked up on high-quality Wisconsin beer during a recent trip to the Holy Land, but it won’t be enough to keep every gullet well-lubricated throughout the event.
So how did I place? Well once the food stopped tasting delicious and once I was more full on beer than chicken I knew I was done. I finished with two breasts, two thighs, two legs and a wing. Not great but certainly a strong rookie effort with 7.5 points. Someone wise once said “Better to try and fail than not try at all.” I don’t think it was Mike Ditka.
Side note: Gotta hand it to Prince for making the Halftime Show less a joke and more or less relevant again for the first time in years. Below is Prince in all-out rockstar glory playing “Purple Rain” in the rain. Couldn’t script that any better.
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UPDATE: 2\23 — You can watch a short little doc my friend Ben shot of the festivities… sadly I get more exposure than I should have. Enjoy.
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