Eat, Pray, Shove

Our waitress warns Ramsey Hilton, in a dire tone, about the lettuce, onions, pickles, and tomato. He has to eat them, too. “Do you know the rules?” she asks. “Everything but the plate.”

On a sunny Saturday in May, we’re at Uncle Linny’s Restaurant—a Pontoon Beach, Ill., eatery that doesn’t serve alcohol and plays Christian music at a volume that borders on pushy—so Hilton can take on the Triple Linny Burger Challenge.

It seems silly, making such a fuss about the toppings. But imagine some irate customer, bloated, queasy, sweating. He’s just stomached three one-pound patties, the pillowy bun, and a full pound of fries in the allotted 40 minutes, only to be told it was all for naught, because he didn’t down the garnish.

“Do you think you can do it?” the server asks.

“I will give it my best,” Hilton answers with a smile.

“Don’t barf.”

For breakfast, around 8 a.m., he ate a bowl of cereal. Then he ran 10.5 miles to work up an appetite. He took a few swings at the driving range while skipping lunch. Now it’s approaching 6 p.m., and he’s starving.

He wears his signature outfit: athletic pants with an elastic waistband, a Missouri Tigers shirt, and an American flag bandana that covers his blond hair. On our way in, the hostess asked about the handkerchief: “Is that for a case of the meat sweats?”

The waitress makes it clear that it’s not too late to back out. Hilton asks that the meat be cooked medium rare. I order a normal-size wrap, while Hilton’s friend Spencer Absher sticks with a diet soda.

“I think you can do this,” the waitress says, sounding less than confident. “If you don’t pull it off, you don’t.”

“She has no idea what you’ve done before,” Absher whispers.

When a runner brings the burger, I do a double take. It’s the size of Hilton’s head, and the pile of fries is so large, it requires its own plate.

Hilton lets the burger sit for five minutes. “If it’s too hot, it hurts,” he explains. When a waitress walks by to witness, he starts the timer on his phone and digs in, removing the top bun to go straight after the meat.

Having lost his oversize utensils in Texas a while back, he uses none. Quickly, his hands are covered, grease running down his forearms. Hilton is known among friends and eating comrades as The Mantis. He took the name as a jocose reference to Mantis Toboggan in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but it’s an apt descriptor for his eating style. He forms his hands into pincers and uses them to shovel large hunks of meat into his mouth until his cheeks are bulging. He shakes left and right to shimmy the food down.

“Holy crap,” says a woman at a nearby table.

Soon, his violent technique renders the original sandwich unrecognizable, turning it into a messy heap. Two minutes in, he’s probably eaten a pound of ground beef.

“It’s good,” Hilton mumbles through a full mouth.

Just after the 7-minute mark, he finishes the last of the meat and fixings, then moves on to the bun, smashing it into a blob. To this point, he’s been drinking water every few bites, but now he switches to lemonade.

I realize why Absher didn’t order any food. Watching Hilton work, while oddly mesmerizing, isn’t appetizing. Words such as “gross” and “disgusting” are used; it’s visually disturbing. Less than 10 minutes into the challenge, he polishes off the bread. Hilton moves to the fries, grabbing them up in his hands and smashing them together into a potato-shaped log. He shoves nearly the entire thing into his mouth. The staff crowds around.

“I got to see this,” one waitress says. “Oh my gosh. Oh my.”

“And he’s got the vegetables down, too?” another waitress asks in disbelief.

“A nice sprint to the finish here, Ramsey,” Absher cheers.

A patron from a nearby table walks past. “This is crazy,” she says. “Shake it down, babe. Shake it down.” Their meals complete, some customers loiter, wanting to see Hilton finish.

“Not yet,” a server says, “he’s got to swallow it first.”

He does so, and then lets out a celebratory “Aaaaaaaahhhhh.” Hilton consumed the full 4 ½ pounds of food in 12 minutes, 58 seconds.

The meal is free, though he leaves a $5 tip, and he wins an Uncle Linny’s hat. A manager offers congratulations. “I got to take a picture with you,” he says. “That’s the record time.”

As he basks in the glory of his triumph, I ask Hilton what’s next. He’s considering a challenge at Eros Eclectic Greek Taverna in St. Charles. It’s a giant gyro with a side of fries, weighing in at a hefty 10 pounds. If Hilton beats it by himself, he’ll win $500. If he does it with a partner, they each get $50. The meal costs losers $40. Hilton plans to try it solo. If he fails, he’ll return with a partner.

“You just ate the three-pounder in 13 minutes, plus an order of fries?” a large man at another table interrupts, incredulous.

“It was tasty,” Hilton answers.

“You ate the onions and tomato?”

“Yeah, a big pile of onions and tomatoes.”

“I have to say, I’m impressed.”

Nothing wows the fine people of Pontoon Beach like a man who eats his vegetables.

***

While working on his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at Mizzou, Hilton participated in a charity event at Quinton’s Bar & Deli in Columbia. Six brave souls attempted to defeat the Quintonian, a 3-pound, quadruple-decker Dagwood sandwich, surrounded by 6 pounds of loaded nachos, with a one-hour time limit. As the menu puts it, “THIS AIN’T YOUR MOMMA’S SANDWICH.”

Absher, whom Hilton recruited, ate about 1 ½ of the 9 pounds. Randy Santel, another competitive eater from St. Louis, came up about a pound short. And Hilton, with time running down, had a chance. He jumped repeatedly to force food down his weary throat and into his engorged belly. The crowd was chanting his name. Close to the end, he lost control of his gag reflex. He threw up. But he caught the regurgitated sludge in his mouth and forced it back down.

He swallowed the final bite with two minutes left, then threw his head back, flexed his arms, and let out a long, primal yell. “I was in such pain,” he says. “I was delirious by the end of that one.”

I mention that few competitive eaters likely have doctorates. “As far as I know, there are only three people who have 100 or more food-challenge wins,” he says. “I’m pretty sure I’m the only one with a Ph.D.” He laughs. “Those are no longer mutually exclusive categories.”

***

His first unofficial food challenge was in 2007, as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, where he was a regular at a place called BTB Burrito. One day, having previously eaten two of the restaurant’s “giant” burritos in one sitting, he decided to try three—6 pounds of food. “It was tough, but I just barely beat it,” he says. “The woman behind the counter, she was so impressed that the next time I was there, she gave me a free burrito.”

In 2009, Adam Richman of Man v. Food, who’s responsible for making restaurant eating challenges a national curiosity, visited St. Louis’ own Crown Candy Kitchen, where he attempted the malt milkshake challenge. It’s been on the menu since 1913. Richman sucked down four of the five 24-ounce malts before running to the restroom. A few months later, Hilton knocked out all five in just under 25 minutes.

But he didn’t get serious about competitive eating until after he got serious about exercise. For Christmas 2010, his sister bought him a marathon registration. While training, he lost 35 pounds on a diet of salad, rice, and beans. After the race, junk food called his name. “I can’t keep living like this,” he thought. “I need to eat greasy foods. I need to live a little.”

He developed an exercise regimen that would allow him to stay in shape while satisfying his cravings for ice cream and burgers. He runs 11 miles per day, six or seven days per week. During the week, he sticks to the strict rice, beans, and vegetables diet. But then, on the weekends, he goes all out, doing a restaurant challenge or sitting at home and scarfing a pizza. “I’ve cracked the code, I guess you could say,” says the 6-foot-2 Hilton, who weighs in at less than 200 pounds.

In 2011, he and a friend took on the two-man Pointersaurus pizza, a 28-inch, four-topping, 10-pound pie. They beat it, with Hilton doing roughly three-fourths of the eating. They won $500. “That set something off in me,” he says. “I was like, ‘Wow, this could be a thing for me.’”

He worked to expand his stomach. At Mizzou, he’d duck out of the chemistry lab for a 10-minute break, during which he’d plow through two heads of lettuce and a gallon of water. These days, his training sessions involve chugging water “until I just feel a stretch.” (Here’s a don’t-try-this-at-home disclaimer: Drinking that much water can cause dilutional hyponatremia, a potentially fatal condition.)

Can the pain of winning these eating contests be worth the pain of training for them?

“I get such a thrill from it,” he says. “I don’t even know why. I love the shock value.”

Compared to the average competitive eater, the humble Hilton does shockingly little self-promotion. (“I’m kind of lazy,” he explains, though his running indicates otherwise.) Because he’s neither fat nor famous, restaurant owners tend to see him as an easy mark. Often, waitresses will warn him, “A guy twice your size was in here the other day, and he couldn’t even finish half.”

“I’m like, ‘Well, then this should be very difficult,’” he says sarcastically. “Then I destroy it. To me, nothing compares to that feeling.”

***

The food challenge loss that haunts Hilton’s nightmares happened at Stadium Grill, in Columbia. For its Hail Mary Challenge, contenders must eat the Unnecessary Roughness, a sky-high sandwich loaded with five pounds of burgers, bacon, and pulled pork, plus three cheeses, onion rings, and fried eggs, all between a crusty bun. There’s a pound of fries, too. If you beat it in 60 minutes, which no one ever has, your meal is free, you get $50 of food every month for a year, and the owners will rename the sandwich after you.

Hilton lived in Columbia for four years, from 2009 to 2013. Last year, he stayed in an apartment about 100 yards from the restaurant, where the monstrous sandwich is often on display. “It just taunted me,” he says.

He’s conquered more massive meals, but “quantity isn’t even what gets you,” he says. “The dryness is what really makes it tough.”

Hilton finished about 70 percent before he threw in the towel. Santel, the other St. Louis eater, got through about 80 percent. Yahoo! included the Hail Mary in a list of the five most daunting undefeated food challenges across the country.

“I tell people I might try the next time I’m in Columbia,” Hilton says, “but, uh, I don’t know…”

***

As of this writing, Hilton’s beaten 122 restaurant challenges, totaling 695 pounds of food. He beat 51 in the first six months of 2014 alone, more than Richman beat in three seasons of Man v. Food. And while Richman won about 60 percent of his TV challenges, only seven have gotten the best of Hilton, giving him a nearly 95 percent success rate.

He’s developed a consistent strategy for summiting edible mountains. He eats the meat first, saving bread and potatoes for last. Starch tends to expand in the stomach, so eating it early spells doom. Plus, he says, “if you’re already feeling full, a big two-pound slab of meat is about the last thing you want to eat.” He tries to limit liquid intake, switching from water to lemonade to cola whenever he’s feeling fatigued from the flavors.

“When I first started, I was pretty messy. I’d like to think that I’ve cleaned up my act a bit,” he says. “But yeah, there is still a bit of a gross-out factor.”

He keeps a spreadsheet listing wins. Most of the challenges are burgers, pizza, or burritos, but he’s also eaten a pig-shaped bowl of biscuits and gravy, a heaping plate of spaghetti with a 2-pound meatball, tall (and wide) stacks of pancakes, humongous sushi rolls, and a few oceanic vats of pho. He’s beaten three challenges with “bypass” in the name and chewed his way through four 72-ounce steaks.

In his chart, 10 of the entries are marked with the words “first winner,” while “new record” appears with 30 more, including the Triple Linny Burger. He ate a 2-pound burger and drank an 84-ounce boot of beer in 4 minutes, 50 seconds. He swallowed 5 pounds of nachos in 7 minutes, 30 seconds. He overcame the Boonville Bellyache, 5 pounds of ice cream and cookies, in 10 minutes, 30 seconds. During a run of five challenges in five days, he ate a 7-pound breakfast burrito in 7 minutes, 25 seconds.

Once, he beat two challenges in the same day, downing 10 tacos totaling 3 ½ pounds in Lee’s Summit, then driving across town to eat a 4 ½-pound burrito 37 minutes later.

He and Santel, who’s actually beaten even more challenges than Hilton, have teamed up on a few, demolishing a couple of colossal pizzas. But their most impressive feat came in January at Lunchbox in Staten Island, N.Y., where they took out The Motherload, a 10-pound sloppy Joe, in less than 15 minutes.

Along the way, Hilton’s amassed quite a collection of T-shirts. Among the cringe-worthy slogans are “I beat the Meat!” and “I am a Pho King Champion!” He’s recently expanded his competition wardrobe to incorporate a second Mizzou shirt. He wears the black one as a home jersey, for competitions within the state of Missouri, and the white one elsewhere, with a couple of exceptions. He ate a mammoth cupcake in a dress shirt and Pillsbury Doughboy tie, and he wore the black shirt for a California challenge, because the white one “had a huge burrito stain on it.”

Hilton spent two years planning a cross-country road trip for after graduation. He’d couch-surf from state to state, running and eating along the way. Before he wanted to leave, he suffered a leg injury that kept him from running, cutting the engine of his eating. Luckily, it healed just in time. “Everything seemed to fall into place perfectly,” he says.

He left his dad’s house in Manchester on December 27, 2013, and returned on March 1. Over those 64 days, he attempted 39 eating challenges in 21 states from coast to coast, winning 37 and losing two. “I probably put on about 20 pounds during the trip, and I was just exhausted,” Hilton says. “It was pretty awesome.”

Is Hilton concerned about the long-term health implications of his binge-eating? Ever the academic, he says there isn’t enough data on other competitive eaters to draw a conclusion. Takeru Kobayashi, possibly the most famous eater of all time, has been competing in the sport for more than a decade, and aside from one serious jaw injury, he seems to be fine.

***

When Hilton visited Boston’s Eagles Deli & Restaurant in May 2013, well over a thousand people had attempted the Eagle’s Challenge, a whopper that includes 6 pounds of burger, 24 pieces of bacon, 24 slices of cheese, 5 pounds of fries, and a pickle.

At the time, just four people had ever emerged victorious: famous professional eaters Joey Chestnut, Pat Bertoletti, and Furious Pete Czerwinski, as well as some guy named George. Hilton wanted to be No. 5.

He ate the burger patties one by one, dipping them in a cup of water to help cut through the grease. A kid called out, “He has one hour to eat all that? That’s impossible!”

“Not for the Mantis,” one of Hilton’s friends called back.

He made it through the burger in less than 20 minutes. His face was bright red. He apologized to the room after a never-ending belch. After about 45 minutes, only a few handfuls of fries and three-quarters of the pickle remained. Hilton stood, shifting his weight from leg to leg, his cheeks and belly bloated. Those in the crowded dining room cheered loudly, chanting, “You can do it!” then “Mantis! Mantis!”

Near the end, he raised his shirt just for a moment, revealing what appeared to be a bulging pregnancy, a 10-pound burger baby trying to kick its way out. With five minutes left, he choked down the final wad of fries and the last sliver of pickle, looking wobbly, uncomfortable, and on the verge of puking. Then he unleashed a guttural cry that lasted for several seconds, joined by applause and celebratory hurrahs from dozens of exuberant diners. He raised his arms above his head, possibly on the brink of tears.

“Mantis strikes again!” he bellowed.

It was the greatest win of Hilton’s eating career.

***

You can watch that Eagles Deli triumph on Hilton’s YouTube channel (youtube.com/user/sorenlarrington), along with videos documenting his at-home eating stunts. A famous one is the Gallon Challenge, in which a person attempts to drink a gallon of milk in an hour without hurling. While standing in a parking lot, Hilton emptied a jug in less than 2 minutes. He swears he kept it down.

If you’ve seen the movie Cool Hand Luke, you know that “no man can eat 50 eggs.” But Hilton, like Paul Newman, is no ordinary man. “I ate 50 of them in 17 minutes,” he says, “and then I ate another 10 just for the heck of it.”

He’s attempted two feats involving bananas. Once, at a family gathering, Hilton’s cousin, also a big eater, approached him with a dare: Betcha can’t eat 50 bananas in 12 hours. He got cocky and tried to do it in one hour. He had 47 ½ in his stomach when they came back up.

Another common YouTube trick involves eating two bananas and drinking a liter of Sprite. “Just because of the way the bananas are, the Sprite really foams up,” Hilton says, “so you want to let it all out.” He ate 11 bananas and drank a two-liter, no problem. “I sort of take it to the extreme.”

Hilton’s talent is more capacity than rapidity. He has trouble with 15-minute time limits. And he tends to avoid challenges where the difficulty comes from heat, rather than size. At this point, he can eat 3 or 4 pounds without any lasting physical effect. It feels like a regular meal. Not so after ingesting ghost peppers. “The thing about these spicy challenges is that for at least 24 hours, you’re going to feel horrible after them,” he says. “Every hour, it just feels like a different part of your digestive tract is burning.”

Given his preference for tests of eating endurance, Hilton says other eaters do better in the sort of contests that you see on TV, professionals racing each other to eat the most spinach or pie or corned beef in a short period of time. The pros can down dozens of HDB (eating lingo for hot dogs and buns) during the 10-minute Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. But if you gave them an hour, Hilton thinks he could stay strong while they slowed down, making it a fairer fight.

Even so, he twice has won the July 4 hot dog–eating contest in Jefferson City. His best result came in 2012, when he ate 20 franks.

A few days after our trip to Uncle Linny’s, Busch Stadium hosts a Nathan’s qualifier, but Hilton doesn’t participate, despite encouragement from Absher and me. He worries that if he won, he’d be required to sign a contract with Major League Eating, the governing body for professional gluttons, which might require him to limit restaurant challenges. Besides, if he advanced past the local contest, he’d almost certainly finish near the bottom in the big show at Coney Island.

“If I were confident enough that I could be one of the top dogs, at least finish in the top five, I think I would go for it,” Hilton says.

Lame rationalization, we say.

“I’m just making excuses,” he acknowledges.

With Hilton not in the field, a ringer from Pennsylvania named Sean Gordon wins the local event, eating an impressive 27 ½ HDB. We hatch a different plan: Hilton and I will team up for the Trojan Horse challenge at Eros, for which he had already been preparing. He makes eating look easy, and I have quite a bit of experience—three meals a day. My parents always told me I had a hollow leg, because as a kid, I never stopped eating but never gained weight.

Maybe I’ll be a natural.

***

The dictionary defines a professional as “a person who engages in some art, sport, etc. for money, especially as a means of livelihood, rather than as a hobby.” By that definition, Hilton is no professional eater. Sure, he won $300 for eating the Triple Gibby Burger at a now-closed restaurant in Eureka. (Perhaps giving such lucrative prizes precipitated its demise.) He and a partner got one of those jumbo checks for beating a pizza challenge in California. But on the whole, he’s not making a living.

Still, some restaurant owners don’t welcome accomplished eaters. The average restaurateur puts a challenge on his menu to attract attention and to take money from macho guys whose eyes are bigger than their bellies. Hilton is bad for business.

In June 2012, he beat the Gorilla Challenge at Wheat State Pizza in Pittsburg, Kan., eating a 24-inch pizza in record time. The restaurant advertises that winners get $500, but there’s a catch: no professionals. At the time, Hilton had beaten fewer than 20 challenges. He didn’t think he counted as a pro.

The owner said a check would be in the mail. It never came. Eventually, he emailed to say that after some Web research, he determined that Hilton was an experienced eater and was therefore disqualified.

“I really think that challenge is like a Catch-22,” he says. “If you’re a professional, you cannot win the $500. How do you define a professional? Well, if you can beat the challenge, you’re a professional.”

***

We meet at Eros on a stormy Saturday afternoon in late May. Hilton wears his customary uniform. I’m in a red polo shirt and blue cargo shorts. I decided to forgo a belt.

The manager explains what we’re up against, the Trojan Horse, sounding like a referee explaining ground rules before a prize fight. A French loaf resembling a canoe holds five pitas, 2 pounds of gyro meat, 2 pounds of meatballs, spicy tomato sauce, thick tzatziki, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, and giardiniera peppers. Two pounds of steak fries sit on the side. And if that’s not enough, we each have to drink either a pint of Pabst Blue Ribbon or take a shot of ouzo. We opt for the shot, since it takes up less space.

I’m getting nervous, which has my stomach upset, and we haven’t even started. My wife, Rachael, and my buddy Brian are here for moral support, as are Hilton’s dad, Tom, and Santel.

Compared to the reserved Hilton, Santel is a more stereotypical competitive eater. He’s fit but huge, a body builder. His “totally revolutionary” website, randysantel.com, offers tales of his greatness, each punctuated with two exclamation points. There are shirtless photos of Santel, who uses the stage name Atlas, everywhere. Hilton is helping him with FoodChallenges.com, which they hope will supplant EatFeats (eatfeats.com) as the go-to online eating-challenge database.

Whereas Hilton sees my participation today as amusing, Santel views it as an insult to competitive eaters everywhere. He asks how I’m feeling.

“I’m feeling good about Ramsey eating almost all of it,” I answer.

“Don’t give me that,” Santel says. “I’ve had to deal with that before. First of all, you got to get your confidence up. Did you train at all?”

“No.”

“Ugh!”

Hilton and I are seated at a table in the restaurant’s front window. When the chef brings out the metal tray of food, I’m intimidated. I doubt I could lift it, so how am I supposed to eat it? People on the sidewalk peer in the window, shaking their heads and laughing at the absurdity.

“That’s a lot of food, huh?” I say.

“It’s a monster,” Hilton agrees.

In this moment, I’m irrationally certain that we’ll win.

We begin.

We dig into the meat, pulling off large hunks of meatballs and lamb, our hands slathered in sauce. The meat is spicier than I expected, and just a few minutes in, I’m already burping between bites. Hilton eats quickly, shoveling in fistfuls and leaving me behind. “He makes it look sexy, doesn’t he?” Santel jokes.

“Keep going!” the manager cheers. According to the staff, no one has ever beaten it. But when the waitress mentions that to Rachael, the manager cuts in: “I only want encouraging words for these champions!”

About eight minutes in, it feels like there’s a traffic jam in my throat. I try to adopt Hilton’s technique of shimmying from side to side. I’m starting to breathe heavily. Hilton has turned his side of the sandwich into a disgusting mess of dough and sauce. I finish the last of the meat, and ask whether I should eat a pita or some fries next. Why would anyone put two layers of bread on a sub?

“I think it’s the pita that’s going to get them, and the fries, too,” Brian says. “That’s a lot of starch to contend with. But I got faith.”

“You’re doing well, Bill,” Rachael lies.

After I slowly consume one pita, Santel recommends I switch to fries. The manager brings emergency ketchup packets as I start in on a 1-pound pile. At about the 20-minute mark, I’m slowing significantly. Each fry takes longer to chew than the last. Between bites, I moan. “He’s struggling,” Rachael says. Still, I feel confident. We’re only one-third of the way through the hour.

A bar crawl descends on the restaurant. “It’s huge!” a woman says. “Was that a sandwich?”

“It was a gigantic gyro sandwich,” Brian answers. “They’ve eaten all the meat and all the toppings. It’s pretty much just the bread now.”

“Good luck, boys.”

Near the midway point, I’m feeling uncomfortably full. I’m breaking the fries in two, working them between my teeth until they turn to liquid, then forcing them down. My abdomen burns. After each swallow, I put my hand over my mouth to keep from gagging. I need to take the shot soon, if I have any hope of keeping it down. Worry sets in. No matter how much he eats, Hilton’s pile of bread doesn’t get any smaller.

The manager brings the shots. The ouzo tastes like black licorice, and it instantly turns the contents of my stomach into choppy seas.

Hilton divides the remaining bread into five piles. He’s going to eat four of them, giving him seven minutes for each, and I need to eat one.

“Is this the most attracted you have ever been to him?” Santel asks Rachael. She begged me all week not to do this. Proving her wrong keeps me chewing. I hope Hilton is about to save me, but he’s struggling now, too.

I try to take a bite of the bread, but it’s coated in the tzatziki, and the flavor kills. “I’m hurting,” I admit.

I stand up, praying the change in posture will help. I’m grunting like a tennis player. I gag down another half fry. The manager tries to rally us with a cliché line about seizing victory from the jaws of defeat. But Hilton’s made it through just one pile, and I haven’t even touched mine.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Santel advises.

“What do you think, man?” Hilton asks me, with about 12 minutes to go.

“I don’t think,” I say. “If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen.”

“I’m rooting for you,” the manager says, still optimistic, but neither of us is going to take another bite. I ate about 2 pounds, maybe a little less, while Hilton ate 7, maybe a little more. A pound or two remains.

Once we accept our fate, I don’t feel obligated to follow the stay-at-the-table rule and sprint to the restroom. For the past few minutes, saliva has been rushing to my mouth, a universal sign that food might be about to exit through the wrong door.

I will spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say, puking out 2 pounds of food is proportionally worse than puking out a normal-size meal.

Back at the table, Tom tries to take the tray of mush away, but his son stops him. Hilton lives his life by adhering to a strict set of self-enforced rules. The discipline he displays in running and eating is almost scary. So when he made a New Year’s resolution not to waste food, he meant it.

He doesn’t let any of the groceries he buys go rotten. He hasn’t vomited after a challenge in more than a year. When a pho challenge didn’t require him to drink the broth, he slurped it anyway. And now, he boxes up the bready slop.

***

Two days later, after we’ve both had time to recover, I call Hilton to apologize. Neither of us ate as much as we had hoped, but he got through more than half. It was my fault we lost.

At Eros, a little old lady had come over to say that she could easily eat the whole Trojan Horse. I had been convinced that I could eat a few pounds of food, until the mighty gyro cured me of that delusion. These restaurant challenges are impossible for mere mortals, and yet people try them all the time. The average middle-aged guy probably doesn’t think he could play in the NBA or NFL, so why does competitive eating seem possible?

“I’ve thought about that a lot,” Hilton says. “Hunger is such an emotion. Some people feel like they are so hungry that they could eat a horse. I watch challenge videos online. Every other comment is something like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look too bad. I’m sure I could do it.’ It’s like, ‘Well, let’s see.’” I ask about the leftovers.

“Of course, at the time, they seemed nasty, but then 24 hours later, I was happy to have them,” he says. “There was still like a hint of tzatziki sauce on all the stuff, so it was kind of tasty.”