02.03
If one were to believe the Travel Channel and FoodTV channel (US Cable), every restaurant in the US has some speciality that leads to over eating in some eating “challenge”. Usually eat it all (whatever “it” is) and it’s free!
“It fills you up!”
Largest burger in the world ? There’s one of those in every state (Usually a 6-10lb burger. With toppings)
Hottest chicken wings in the US? Every large college town seems to have one of those now.
Largest burrito/taco? Must be one in every state in the Southwest US.
Biggest steak? We’ve got ‘em out there also.
Biggest bowl of Soup X? That too.
Desserts? Those also.
The things that bug me about this? Besides there being a tv show devoted to this idea?
The peasants/people who appear on these tv shows, trying to eat a week’s worth of food (a month’s worth if you’re a farmer in China) in an hour? They seem so proud of their gluttony (That’s a Biblical/Classical term for the non-Christians out there.). They don’t seem to care how foolish they look stuffing their faces on camera.
Somehow, each show devoted to this topic always, always ends up in some college town where a bunch of frat-boy-esque students try to prove their testosterone level by eating as many extremely hot (in a jalapeno kind of way.) chicken wings as they can stand. (Or something else equally inedible.) With their “friends” cheering them on. It isn’t pretty.
I guess it could be worse. They could have contests to see who can drink the most $1,000 bottles of scotch in one sitting.
Can you tell I don’t find conspicuous consumption like this (or any) endearing?
Two things, one, jalapenos are not really hot. Habaneros are hot (but not in the site’s dictionary). Two, I actually have a (or perhaps an) Hundred dollar bottle of Bunahabhain 18 year old scotch in my cabinet which I certainly hope will last me for the next several years. I’ve been in pubs in Scotland where they had the thousand dollar bottles, hundred dollar shots but have refrained from indulging (haven’t won the lottery yet) People who don’t bother to taste the scotch they are drinking or, even worse. mix it with anything other than H2O or soda, i.e.coke, should be classified as mentally incompetent. Personally I use neither water nor soda with my single malts.
Other than that I totally agree with your position on conspicuous consumption.
Dave
Hmm… guess it’s off to the wiki. I thought Habaneros were just a variety of jalapeño – with a heavy quantity of whatever makes them hot? The wiki says not – Same genus, different species. Plant biology isn’t my speciality. Jalapeños are plenty hot for me. I like spicy food but not so hot you can’t taste the favor (I’m not a fan of condiments on most meats for the same reason. I like being able to taste steak.)
I’ve never really developed much of a taste for expensive liquor. No matter how many shows I watch on tv about it. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $30 for a bottle of anything. Ever. (But it at least needs to be in a glass bottle.) A bottle of “whatever” usually lasts me months.
Ran across this which pretty much goes above and beyond proving your point. The Heart Attack Grill (http://www.heartattackgrill.com/index.html) in Chandler AZ is suing (http://www.abc15.com/content/news/southeastvalley/chandler/story/Popular-Chandler-restaurant-grills-Florida-rival/6zp2GuQWGU-hZjRSC808Zw.cspx?rss=1979&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter) the Heart Stopper Sports Grill (http://theheartstopper.com/index2.htm) in Del Ray FL for copyright infringement.
Now are the links that I copied in going to work? or should I be using html a href’s?
Dave
(The links work fine — though having so many in one comment triggered the Spam detector I have running so I had to manually approve it.)
That first restaurant? It actually looks like one of the ones on a tv show (on the Travel Channel) that triggered the original post in the first place
In my previous response I should have said that the link for heart stoppers is not necessarily safe for work, unless everyone you work with has a bit of a sexy nurse fetish, also it starts talking to you without prompting.
Dave