Deep Fried Asparagus - Stockton 4/25

Deep Fried Asparagus Results:

10 Minute Contest

1 - Pat Deep Dish Bertoletti (2) - 7 lbs 5.81 oz, $1500
2 - Joey Jaws Chestnut (1) - 7 lbs 2.81 oz, $750
3 - Eric Badlands Booker (13) - 5, $500
4 - Erik the Red Denmark (15) - 4 lbs 14 oz
6 - Nasty Nate Biller (19) - 4 lbs 12 oz
7 - Jason Erbivore Erb (33) 3 lbs 4.78 oz
8 - Wild Bill Myers (31) 3 lbs 2.17 oz


Badlands rapping pre-contest next to "Britney Spears" - the best mascot name ever


Check out the jumbo tron - it's amazing! Nathan's needs to borrow one

Pat was finally able to overtake Joey in this contest. Joey has won this contest 4 years in a row and he is loved in Stockton. I think Joey was feeling a bit sick with flu-like symptoms and his pace was a bit off in the beginning but Pat had the early speed and would have been tough to beat no matter what on this day.

Although I do and will always love this contest, this result was rather frustrating for me. Even though I only barely ate more than I did last year (4.75 lbs) I was on such a better pace this year than years past. I had 3 lbs down in close to three minutes. But the fourth plate kicked my butt. Deep fried asparagus is a great contest food (in my opinion) but every once in awhile you get a plate of huge stocks that are a bit overcooked (or maybe undercooked?) and the asparagus becomes very stringy. Stringy asparagus is difficult to swallow because it gets stuck between your mouth and throat. Early in the contest it is much easier to get through a plate like this because my jaws are stronger and swallowing bigger chunks is no problem. But at this time of the contest I couldn't get through the swallowing bigger chunks. I was very carefully chewing and swallowing and taking up huge chunks of time, it took me nearly five minutest to finish my fourth plate. Nasty Nate who was eating next to me at a great pace as well was also struggling with his fourth plate so maybe it wasn't just me.

Anyway, I finished my fifth plate (which was much easier than my 4th plate) completely stuffing in the last two spears at the buzzer. Badlands had passed me and moved just on to his 6th plate but he had accumulated some debris which brought his total down to 5 pounds even. All 5 of my empty plates were weighed which equaled 2 oz and that is where my total comes from, I guess I should have eaten the plates. I would have liked to see an eat off for third since it was so close and that was the last payout spot but in reality I know that I should have gotten through my 4th pound much faster and that is what cost me. It was great to see Badlands on the west coast and he did very well for his first trip out to Stockton so he deserved 3rd. Nasty Nate also improved greatly this year with only two spears left on his 5th plate.

After the contest, I knew I needed to eat something to forget about that 4th plate. So, we headed out to Bear Silber's Santa Clara Pizza Party joint to try the Belly Buster Challenge (Badlands and I) and to defeat Joey's 3 year old record of 17 minutes. It's a consolation no doubt but it did make me feel better - you can read about my (successful) attempt by clicking here