Ok, imagine you saw an event on Facebook that was so cool you couldn't possibly pass it up. Well apparently that's what happened in East Sussex, England. There was to be a movie style pie fight, in which participants were encouraged to dress up and hit each other with whipped cream filled pie pans. The brains behind the operation were out to break the British record for pie fighting, which is currently at 70 people.
Unfortunately, it was so cool that too many people wanted in on the action. Over 1200 people indicated that they would be there for the pie fight. The local police were worried that they'd be unable to control the crowd if things went wrong, and they wouldn't be able to prevent non-participants from being hit.
The East Sussex police do have a sense of humor though. They told the original planners that a properly organized pie fight would be fine, so it's back to the drawing board for now. I know there's a record for everything, but pie fighting sounds like fun. I know I'd sign up if I saw it on Facebook. What would you do?
Tiny Uruguay has made off with the world record for the biggest barbecue, grilling 26,400 pounds of beef in a Montevideo sports field. 1,250 cooks in chefs' white hats and aprons went through 6 tons of charcoal, using 1,500 metal barbecue stands. The barbecue was so big the fire department was called to light the grills and make sure the flames stayed under control. At least 20,000 hungry citizens paid the $3 entry fee to help eat the finished product. The April 14 barbecue, held to promote the Uruguayan beef industry, beat the previous record of 17,600 pounds, set in Mexico in 2006.
If Uruguayan beef is anything like Argentinean, then I'm sorry I couldn't have been there.
Retail lobster prices have hit an all time record high of around $15 or more a pound. In Maine, due to a combination of weather, water temperature, and the timing of fishing seasons have all come together to make it all but impossible for lobster men to fish for the lobsters. The high winds make it difficult to work the waters, and the cold water temperatures make the lobsters less hungry. This means that the lobsters don't go into the traps. Now, if the high price per pound was getting back to the lobster men that would be great, but since they are catching hardly any lobsters this translates to an exceptionally hard winter for them financially.
Thankfully now that spring is here and warmer weather is around the corner, the lobster catch should improve. The warmer water will make the lobsters come out of their winter slump and they develop an appetite. Also the Canadian lobster season is about to open which means more lobster will be available, helping to lower prices.
A Mexican man, Manuel Quiroz, loves chilies with a passion. Perhaps disturbingly so. Not only can he "down dozens of Mexico's spiciest chilies," but he can "rub them on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without so much as blinking." Why on earth anyone would want to do that on a regular basis - or how they came up with such a bizarre idea in the first place - remains to be seen, but Manuel to showcase his unusual... talents. He believes that he can eat more chilies than any person on the planet and wants to prove his claim with a title. Unfortunately, there are no contests to crown the "World Chili-eating Champion" just yet, so Manuel will have to wait. With the popularity of eating contests, however, he many not have to wait long. The International Federation of Competitive Eating (IFCoE) seems like they are always keen to add new events and if they can get any of their current champs to agree to participate, you can bet that they'd be willing to sponsor such a contest.
Chef Domenico Crolla has cooked up what could turn out to be the world's most expensive pizza, and is probably already the priciest for its size. The 12-inch pizza is worth about $2,800. Dubbed the Pizza Royale 007, it has an organic crust with a sunblush tomato pizza sauce, smoked salmon, venison medallions, cognac-marinated lobster and champagne-soaked caviar. The whole pie is topped with 24-karat edible gold.
Crolla, who is from Glasgow, worked with the British Pizza, Pasta & Italian Food Association and will auction off the pizza to raise money for the Australian Fred Hollow's Foundation, a nonprofit group that works to "prevent curable blindness in developing countries." It will be sold on eBay, where both Crolla and the BPPIFA hope that it will make at least $3,800, which would apparently break the world's record for most expensive pizza, currently held by the white truffle pizza at Gordon Ramsay's Maze Restaurant in London. Whoever wins the auction can either have the pizza prepared in one of Crolla's restaurants or have it prepared in their home.
I haven't posted anything about competitive eating in a while, but, for a number of reasons, this is too good to pass up. A recent post to the International Federation of Competitive Eating website mentioned next weekend's World Posole Eating Championship at the Sky City Casino in Acoma, New Mexico. I'm a big posole fan, but I never knew it was something that was eaten competitively. If you've visited the IFOCE site in the past, you might be familiar with competitive eater Rich "The Locust" LeFevre. Rich will be competing next weekend, but it turns out that his wife Carlene (right) was the star of the competition two years ago, when she became the "world posole champ" by eating almost 110 ounces of of the spicy pork and hominy soup in 12 minutes. Her husband finished with about 10 ounces less than that. Carlene won't be competing this time around, but her husband Rich will, along with competitive eater Pat Bertoletti.
Pernod Ricard is launching a new champagne at a price that will make Cristal and Dom Perignon look like two-buck Chuck, as $400 per bottle price tags seem small when compared to this one. The wine and spirits group said that it would be launched under their Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque brand and it will be priced at $1,270 (€1,000) per bottle. This makes it the most expensive champagne in the world. Unfortunately, aside from the price tag, the company was fairly quiet about the other details of the release, though chairman Patrick Ricard did say "We won't do many cases and won't be offering it in France."
The group is actively pursuing ways to increase the perception of their brands as very upmarket, so perhaps this will be the first of many releases from the company. Regardless it will certainly set a benchmark in the champagne industry.
For once, it's nice to see that we have a world record in something that doesn't involve a giant hamburger or someone eating their weight in brats. The British company Duerrs is celebrating their 125th anniversary with the release of world's most expensive marmalade. The special edition preserve is a one-off product, made with Seville oranges, 62-year-old Dalmore whisky, vintage Pol Roger champagne and enough edible gold to give it a tantalizing gleam. It tastes "more tangy than usual and distinctly boozier." The 1 kg of the marmalade has been packed in a crystal jar, specially designed to hold the product and will be auctioned online to benefit the Manchester Kids charity. The estimated value of the product is at least $9,500.
And if you're going to eat marmalade - the most expensive or even an everyday brand, Duerr's has a bit of advice on hot to properly enjoy it: (1)it must be on white bread, not brown (2) and spread with butter, not margarine.
We already heard about the world's largest pizza party, but this gallery has pictures of some of the biggest pizzas in the world. It's not complete, since we don't know what some of you are doing in your homes when the record keepers aren't there to measure your creations, but it definitely gives you a reference point the next time you walk into a pizzeria that serves unusually large slices.
The world's record for largest pizza belongs to a 122.6-ft. pizza that was made in Norwood, South Africa in 1990. This monster pie used almost 10,000-lbs. of flour, 3,968-lbs. of cheese, 1,984-lbs. of tomato puree and 200-lbs. salt. For perspective, 4 cups of flour is the equivalent of one pound, and that would make plenty of dough for a large pizza. That means that the record setting pizza could have fed a slice or two to at least 40,000 people.
A 13-year-old girl in the U.K. beat several grown men in a corn-on-the-cob eating contest this week, setting a British record in the process. Emily Cotterill consumed 26 ears of corn in 20 minutes, watching while "male opponents began vomiting and dropping out." Her parents seemed proud of their daughter's achievement, and her father even remarked that he considered entering the contest, but did not think he would stand a chance against Emily.
Emily said that she felt a little ill after the competition, but it soon passed. She also noted that she probably wouldn't be eating corn again anytime soon, but did not make a comment indicating whether or not she was interested in pursuing a career as a competitive eater in the future.
At least she was eating something relatively healthy, and not brats or hot dogs.
I guess I had s'mores on the brain after writing about them yesterday, since I was inspired to look up the record for the world's largest s'more. The Guinness Book of World Records lists a s'more made in 2003 as the largest. It was constructed in California from 20,000 marshmallows, 7,000 Hershey's chocolate bars, and 24,000 graham crackers. All totaled, it weighed about 1,600-lbs.
The Guinness category was retired, however, which means that an even larger s'more made this year went unrecorded!
The current largest s'more measured 1,936-sq feet and was constructed to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Virginia State Parks. It was made with 8,000 Hershey's chocolate bars, 40,000 marshmallows and 55,000 graham crackers - nearly double the size of the previous record holder, though it didn't use quite as much chocolate.
When President Ronald Regan declared July to be National Ice Cream Month back in 1984, he also said that the third Thursday Sunday of the month (today - July 16th) would be National Ice Cream Day. In honor of this, how about some ice cream facts?
The top five most popular ice cream flavors are: vanilla, chocolate, neapolitan, strawberry and cookies n' cream, in that order, with vanilla comprising about 1/4 of all sales!
The US produces more than 1 billion gallons of ice cream every year.
It takes 50 licks to finish a single scoop of ice cream.
By federal law, regular ice cream sold in stores must have at least 10% milkfat. "Reduced fat" ice creams have 25% less fat than regular ice creams, "light" has 50% less fat, "low fat" has a maximum of 3g fat per serving and "nonfat" ice creams must have less than .5g fat per serving.
Australian actor/comedian Paul Fenech (Fat Pizza) recently made a 12,000-mile pizza delivery, from Austraila to New Zealand, via Spain and South Africa. The three-day trek was done to raise money for 13-year-old Niko Apostolakis, a non-hodgkins lymphoma sufferer in Wellington, New Zealand, and to raise awareness for CanTeen, a youth cancer charity group. To make getting through customs easier, the pizza was cheese-free. Apostolakis didn't have to eat the three-day-old pie once it arrived, Stuff reported. Fenech apparently took down a slice upon delivery, however, according to NineMSN. Oddly enough, the previous record was held by another T.V. show, Neighbors, for a London to Australia delivery.
Sonya Thomas, a.k.a. "the Black Widow," has just set a new record in her chosen sport of competitive eating. Yesterday, at a competition during the 16th Annual Virginia State Harley Davidson Owners Group Rally, Thomas ate 60 ham biscuits in 8 minutes, beating out 11 other competitors.
A ham biscuit is a simple, popular Southern snack that consists of a fluffy biscuit, split in half, and filled with ham and butter. The biscuits used in the competition look more like hamburger buns than real Southern biscuits, but that might have made them easier to eat, since the "gurgitators" dunk them in water to soften them up and make chewing easier.
Sonya has another trick to help her get the food down, which is hopping up and down during the final moments of the competition. You can read her account on her website.
The US Army celebrated its 231st birthday with cake. A very, very big cake. The ingredient list included 540 eggs, 100 pounds of flour, 30 pounds of butter, 30 gallons of milk and 30 pounds of sugar and it took 17 chefs about 1 week to create. How did it work? It was constructed from layered individual sheet cakes - 50 of them, to be precise. 35 gallons of icing were used to cover and decorate the cake. The finished product was 8.5 feet long by 3 feet wide and weighed more than 250 pounds. It was served at the Pentagon June 14th to approximately 1,500 people.
Elsewhere in the country, individual divisions had their own celebrations with even morecakes.
Granted, this cake - which is still very impressive - doesn't come close to rivaling the world's largest birthday cake, which was built last year in Las Vegas and used 30,000 half-sheet cakes and 40,000 pounds of frosting. The end result was a cake which weighed in at 65 tons.
There is one more cake close-up after the jump, as well as a picture of the world's largest birthday cake.
Ok, imagine you saw an event on Facebook that was so cool you couldn't possibly pass it up. Well apparently that's what happened in East Sussex, England. There was to be a movie style pie fight, in which participants were encouraged to dress up and hit each other with whipped cream filled pie pans. The brains behind the operation were out to break the British record for pie fighting, which is currently at 70 people.
Retail lobster prices have hit an 
A Mexican man, Manuel Quiroz, loves chilies with a passion. Perhaps disturbingly so. Not only can he "down dozens of Mexico's spiciest chilies," but he can "rub them on his skin and even squeeze their juice into his eyes without so much as blinking." Why on earth anyone would want to do that on a regular basis - or how they came up with such a bizarre idea in the first place - remains to be seen, but Manuel to showcase his unusual... talents. He believes that he can eat 
Chef Domenico Crolla has cooked up what could turn out to be the world's most expensive pizza, and is probably already the priciest for its size. The 12-inch pizza is worth about $2,800. Dubbed 
I haven't posted anything about competitive eating in a while, but, for a number of reasons, this is too good to pass up. A 
Pernod Ricard is 
For once, it's nice to see that we have a world record in something that doesn't involve a 
A 13-year-old girl in the U.K. beat several grown men in a corn-on-the-cob eating contest this week, setting a British record in the process. Emily Cotterill consumed 26 ears of corn in 20 minutes, watching while "male opponents began vomiting and dropping out." Her parents seemed proud of their daughter's achievement, and her father even remarked that he considered entering the contest, but did not think he would stand a chance against Emily.
I guess I had s'mores on the brain after 
When President Ronald Regan declared July to be National Ice Cream Month back in 1984, he also said that the third 
Australian actor/comedian Paul Fenech (Fat Pizza) recently made a 12,000-mile pizza delivery, from Austraila to New Zealand, via Spain and South Africa. The three-day trek was done to raise money for 13-year-old Niko Apostolakis, a non-hodgkins lymphoma sufferer in Wellington, New Zealand, and to raise awareness for CanTeen, a youth cancer charity group. To make getting through customs easier, the pizza was cheese-free. Apostolakis didn't have to eat the three-day-old pie once it arrived, 
Sonya Thomas, a.k.a. "the Black Widow," has just 
The US Army 
DIY Foods: Making homemade sausage
Cakes so amazing they'd be hard to cut into
Fruit juice: An invitation to diabetes?
