7 World’s Craziest Food Competitions

Human are by nature very competitive. We love running, jumping, throwing objects, etc., all that to show off our superiority. But sometimes playing regular sports just isn’t challenging enough and people start coming up with the wildest, most bizarre combinations, like hurling haggis, trying to catch raw eggs or cooking roadkill meat!

Annual Chili Pepper Festival

Let’s start off with a blast!

How many flaming-hot chili peppers would you be willing to ingest to win a gold coin? If it’s anything less than 50, you may as well just give up right away. Tang Shuaihui from Hunan, somehow managed to down 50 peppers in 68 seconds, which allowed him to win the main prize – 24-carat gold coin. I do not want to find out what his toiled looked like after that ordeal.

Cherry Pit-Spitting Championship

Welcome to the Tree-Mendus Fruit Farm in Eau Claire, Michigan, where once a year you can get a black eye from a cherry pit. Since 1974 the locals and visitors have been gathering here to see who can spit a cherry pit the farthest. The 2018 winner, 64-year-old returning champion Rick “Pellet Gun” Krause, obliterated the competition by hitting 41’ 8-3/4”. That’s over 12 meters, for all you normal people!

Haggis Hurling

What’s a “haggis”? It’s an old traditional Scottish food – sheep stomach stuffed with nasty bits like liver, heart, onions, oatmeal and other disgusting ingredients. The goal of this fun game is not only to throw your haggis the farthest, but also do your best to stick the landing without bursting into millions of pieces upon hitting the ground. Current record holder is the 2011 champion Lorne Coltart, who chucked the thing 217 feet (66 m)!

Roadkill Cook-Off

Somewhere in the West Virginia there’s a place where people do annual cook-offs involving the discarded carcasses of animals they found on the side of those country roads: squirrel gravy, turtle stew, teriyaki-marinated bear and so on. Well, actually, I lied, the meat doesn’t need to come from an actual roadkill, but the types of animals remains the same: deer, squirrels, opossum, an occasional skunk, etc. The winner takes home $1,200 and of course, the bragging rights!

Pancake Racing

Who doesn’t like pancakes, am I right? Especially, when you have them on a skillet, while running like a wounded chicken. The legend has it, there was this baker in 1445, who had to run to the church while flipping the pancake on the hot frying pan. Something tells me this never happened, but at least it looks fun!

Small Foods Party

It’s true what they say “the tinier the food, the more of it you can fit in your belly”. What, only I say that? Shame. Well, at least I’d feel at home at the Baltimore’s Small Foods Party, where people have been shrinking all kinds of foods since 2006. Some of these snacks look like they were ripped straight out of the Gulliver books!

Beer Tölt

Now this is a game for me. It involves horseback riding and drinking a lot of beer. In a nutshell the less you spill while trotting, the more you can drink if you win! It’s a great way to test how skillful the rider is, while showing off the tölt (the horse’s unique gait). And there’s also a kids version of this Icelandic “sport”, only they don’t get to sip beer afterwards. It’s usually some non-alcoholic beverage, but still a fun little activity!