Watching the eating contestants devour bowls of dumplings at painful speeds -- and even, in some cases, to messy, unfortunate results -- did nothing to quell the appetites of visitors sampling dumplings from around the world at the sixth annual NYC Dumpling Fest. The fest paid tribute to the global bundle Saturday in a event featuring a competitive eating contest, a dumpling how-to class, author appearances and food stands serving edible representations from around the world.

The Lower East Side function supported the Food Bank for New York City with sales of the usual Asian dumplings and a smattering of dumpling cousins: Polish pierogi, Chinese bao, Italian gnocchi, Mexican tamales, Asian pot stickers, Malaysian kuih koci, Indian idli and Filipino palitawa.

Chefs Wai Hon Chu (co-author of "The Dumpling: A Seasonal Guide") and Jaden Hair (author of "The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook: 101 Asian Recipes Simple Enough for Tonight's Dinner) did book signings, but the obvious highlight of the event was the eating contest.

Forty contestants, largely male, of all shapes and sizes showed up to voraciously dive into bowls of whole-wheat dumplings at varying speeds. Judged by a panel including city councilman John Liu -- who quipped about the dumpling, "All those ingredients in one little package, what more could you ask for!" -- the gustatory athletes were an amusingly motley bunch.

More on the eating competition, after the jump.

"Coney Island Elephant." Photo: Theremina/Flickr

In a result that shocked ... no one ... elephants defeated humans in an eating contest at Brooklyn, N.Y.'s Coney Island on Friday afternoon. The trio of animals, whose names sound like second string Golden Girls (Bunny, Susie and Minny) beat the people eaters by nearly 3 to 1 -- 505 to 143 hot dog rolls, in case you were counting.

The animals are in their 40s, and moved at what one reporter called a "leisurely" pace, compared to human counterparts who utilized strategies like dipping two buns in liquid, then stuffing them in their mouths.

Ironically enough, when Slashfood reported this story last week, our source at Major League Eating, George Shea, said, "really, the strategy of ... whether or not the elephants will understand they're in a contest: Will they begin as quickly as the eaters? Will they eat in a leisurely fashion?"

It didn't seem to matter. The results, declared organizers, were a "setback for humanity."

Competitive eaters v. Ringling Bros. elephants. Photos: Getty Images

Man versus beast. That age-old test of wills is being revived once more, and this time it's about who can pack down more hot-dog buns.

As a prelude to the annual hot-dog eating contest at Coney Island, three professional eaters will go up against three Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey elephants on July 3 in Brooklyn, N.Y., an organizer confirmed to Slashfood.

"The animal kingdom in general is oppressed -- many would say -- by the dominance of the human species, and if they were to win this battle, in a way it could signal a rise of the animals," George Shea, chairman of Major League Eating, tells Slashfood. "Or at the very least, a confidence booster."

Get the details on this pachyderm pack down after the jump.

Philadelphia Magazine writer Jason Fagone spent one year profiling some of the most divinely outsized personalities in the world of competitive eating. While Akron house painter Coondog O'Karma makes a midlife grab at glory via rapid-fire pizza consumption, Bill "El Wingador" Simmons attempts to reclaim Wong Bowl supremacy from 90lb Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, and day trader Tim Janus dons the mantle of the mysterious Eater X, it all comes down to one shared hunger. They all want to win the Mustard Yellow Belt of International Hot Dog Eating Supremacy back from the Japanese who'd dominated the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest nearly every year since 1997.

Back in July of 2001, that would mean beating the record of 25 1/8 set the previous year by Kazutoyo "The Rabbit" Arai.

That was before Takeru Kobayashi's 50 Dog Day.

Read an excerpt from Jason Fagone's Horsemen of the Esophagus on AOL Food

Who says there are no injuries in the world of competitive eating?

Sure, they might not have to deal with torn cartilege or a twisted ankle or a blown out knee, but what about jaw injuries? Takeru Kobayashi, the king of the annual Nathan's Famous July Fourth International Hot Dog Eating Contest, has arthritis of the jaw. He can't even open his mouth more than the size of a fingertip, but he's still going to enter the competition this year. Last year he ate a little over 53 hot dogs in 12 minutes.

Kobayashi isn't limited to hot dogs either. He once ate 97 hamburgers in eight minutes. The hell?

Already the master of hot dog eating, competitive eating superstar Takeru Kobayashi set a new world record with a different kind of sausage: bratwurst. He ate 58 bratwursts in 10 minutes, smashing the previous record of only 34 1/2 brats. He said that he really liked the brats, but they were a little harder to eat than hot dogs are, most likely this is because the dogs are eaten with buns, while the brats involve more chewing. Joey Chestnut, considered to be one of the up and coming stars of the sport, came in second with only 45 brats. The IFCOE has a breakdown of the prize money from the contest, revealing that Kobayashi took home $8,000 for his work.

And for anyone who's counting, the 160-lb Kobayashi ingested 16,820 calories, 1,450 grams of fat, along with 19 days' worth of the recommended (minimum) daily amount of sodium.

A masters student at UC Berkeley, Mike Wooldridge, started thinking about the relatively young "sport" of competitive eating and noticed that there were many records, but no way to compare performance results across food groups. He set out to see if he could normalize, or standardize, the results from all types of eating contests and make it possible to compare the performance of the eaters across different foods.

Mike analyzed 23 records and converted them into a rate of ingestion (ROI), resulting in a kilograms per minute value for every food.

The blue bars are the average ROI of given foods (easier foods have higher bars) and the yellow bars are the eaters' records. The big spikes are some of world champion eater Takeru Kobayashi's records, but you can see that, because the rest of the yellow bars are approximately equal, the eaters mostly perform up to the same standards, despite the food involved in the challenge.

[via Trencherwomen]

This week, competitive eater Pat Bertoletti set a new ice cream-eating world record by consuming 1.75 gallons in eight minutes. The ice cream used was vanilla from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.  Bertoletti, fourth in eater rankings,  also holds the records for key lime pie, chocolate and corned beef and cabbage.

It is possible to image eating almost any food quickly, even if you can't really conceive of doing it yourself. Ice cream, on the other hand, is not an easy food to eat because of the risk of brain freeze, the intense headache that results from consuming cold foods too quickly. Some of the eaters appeared to be affected by the cold, but Bertoletti ate the ice cream as though it were no colder than a pile of warm mashed potatoes. I'm not sure if "impressive" fully describes the performance, but watch the video to see for yourself.

In all likelihood, quite a few people who are on the competitive eating circuit have blogs, but the blog of Skinnyboy is the first that I have come across. Ranked at #28, he blogs his training and various other food-related undertakings. Some of the posts are about his "stretches," which involve eating massive of foods like pasta, pudding and water, but many of the recent posts are geared towards one event: the May 18th Las Vegas qualifier for this year's annual Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest. The hot dog eating contest is something like the world cup of competitive eating and Skinnyboy is practicing. In fact, you can even watch a video clip of some of his sprints, but I think that just the shot of his refrigerator is enough to give you an idea of how serious he is about his sport.

I would be interested to see the blogs of any other competitive eaters, just for comparison. Anyone know of any?

Salon.com currently features an interview with Ryan Nerz, author of Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit. The book chronicles Nerz's experiences and observations from having emceed several eating contests over the course of a year. What's even better is that there's another book out on the subject, entitled Horseman of the Esophagus. Incidentally, both have hot dogs on their covers. In the Salon interview, Nerz talks about some of the more hotly contested subjects in the world of competitive eating, namely the "belt of fat" theory, which tries to explain why thin people have better luck in eating competitions than larger folks.

Updates from the world of competitive eating never fail to make me chuckle. Today, professional "gurgitators" will be competing at the GoldenPalace.net Valentine's Day Chocolate Massacre, stuffing down heart-shaped chocolates for their share of $5,000 in cash.

Last Saturday, famed competitive eater Sonya Thomas racked up yet another win in the Weinerschnitzel World Chili Cheese Fry Eating Championship in Long Beach, California. The victory was a narrow one, however, with Thomas edging out Joey Chestnut by only one ounce of cheesy goodness. When the dust settled, Thomas had eaten 8 pounds 2 ounces of chili cheese fries in 10 minutes and Chestnut had eaten 8 pounds 1 ounce. The total purse for the event was $10,000.

The outcome of last week's Hot Springs International Corned Beef Eating Championship have sent shockwaves through the competitive eating community, according to a recent release from the International Federation of Competitive Eating. The underdog victor of this Arkansas event was a young Chicago upstart named Patrick Bertoletti, who edged out veterans Sonya Thomas and Joey Chestnut by taking down 11 Oaklawn corned beef sandwiches in 10 minutes. Thomas and Chestnut, the second and third ranked competitive eaters in the world, tied with 10.75 sandwiches each and Chestnut eventually won second place in an overtime match. Bertolleti took home $3,000.

Maybe it’s because I just happened to catch the 50 eggs scene from Cool Hand Luke on TV last night, but I figured I’d post a link to the IFOCE or International Federation Of Competitive Eating. Upon first visiting their site, I was drawn immediately to the records section. Interested in finding out how to become an IFOCE member or learning about their safety standards? That’s fine. Me? I just want to know the record for competitive mayonnaise eating. Oleg Zhornitskiy apparently ate four 32-ounce bowls (yes, bowls) of mayo in eight minutes. Oysters? Sonya Thomas, competitive eating’s “black widow” took down 46 dozen in 10 minutes. Ms. Thomas is credited with several other eating records, including taking down a nearly eight-pound turducken dinner in 12 minutes. It’s good to have a hobby.