Gluttony a deadly sin? Try telling these "athletes."
Mmmm, tamales. Twelve Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory tamales piled per plate to be exact, two plates at each table setting. No, this isn't lunch hour at the factory; this is the start of the first world tamale eating championship, courtesy of the International Federation of Competitive Eating and the city of Lewisville.
Daniel Baer, a quirky guy in a navy blue blazer and straw hat with a blue and red ribbon (the uniform of IFOCE announcers) and director of global expansion for the IFOCE, takes the microphone to introduce the "athletes," as Baer likes to call them.
"It is the fastest-growing sport in America," he says before the tamales have been set out. He has a grin on his face like even he can't believe it. "We will do over a hundred contests in 2005. We have four this weekend alone, the most important of which is the world tamale eating championship right here in Lewisville."
Baer runs back and forth in front of the stage where the competitive eaters will soon take their marks, trying his best to hype up the crowd in the middle of the festival surrounding the Bass Master Tournament on Saturday at Lake Lewisville. It works, partly because there are only about 15 people waiting to see what all this commotion is about.
"I'd like to take this moment to introduce the only female competitor...Emily Dwyer," Baer yells. The crowd responds with claps and a few catcalls, most of which come from Dwyer's pal and filming partner, Bunny Watts. The two are doing research for their movie More, "a narrative about two slacker dykes, one of whom isn't good at anything, and then we realize that she is great at eating," Dwyer says.
Baer moves down the list. Each time an eater takes the stage, Baer motions to one end of the table or the other, trying not to be too obvious that he is saving the two prime seats in the middle of the stage for the biggest, baddest eaters.
"And now, all the way from Denver, Colorado, ranked 40th in the IFOCE, Donavon Busta!" Baer screams into the microphone. This time he gets the response he wants, and the crowd goes nuts.
Busta, a tall guy with a big build and a belly that doesn't quite match his ranking, calmly takes his spot at the table. He looks around at his competition and the tamales in front of him.
This is when Baer gets excited. He starts to run faster, he speaks in a more hurried voice, he announces Levi Oliver from Austin, 39th in the IFOCE ranks. Looks like we have a rivalry on our hands.
Oliver jumps onto the stage with a power yell to the audience. The guy is big; well over 6 feet tall and heavyset. He gets comfortable behind his plates of tamales.
Now Baer goes over the rules. There are 12 tamales on a plate, and each eater will clear as many plates as possible in 10 minutes. Oh, and if anyone needs water, make sure to get a bottle from a volunteer.
Baer turns to the crowd and asks for help counting down from five. There might be about 22 or 23 people standing around now. Five, four, three...The instant Baer says go, it is easy to spot Oliver's moral support. There are five of them, all of whom drove with him from Austin for the event.
"Last night, on the way here, we stopped at Chicken Express in Waco," Oliver says with a look on his face like he wishes he had saved some of his meal. "I had 18 livers, two thighs and a gallon of sweet tea. Just for training. Still, I feel like my weakest link is capacity."
Some might not agree. Oliver's first foray into competitive eating came in the summer of 2001. He describes it as if he can still taste the food.
"I was in Texas Outdoor Musical Drama in Amarillo, and they've got the 72-ounce steak challenge all over the place, like advertised everywhere," he says. "I've always been a mind-over-matter kind of guy and a big eater. So I gave it a try and did it in 42 and a half minutes; four and a half pounds of steak, dinner salad, shrimp cocktail and a roll. It was rough, but, man, it was awesome."
Only a minute and 40 seconds into the race, Busta is already on his second plate. Maybe Oliver should be worried about his chewing speed; the quiet competition always packs a hard punch.
Busta doesn't have quite the cheering section that Oliver has. Actually, his cheering section consists of a few people who probably like Busta's quiet and composed demeanor. But that is fine with him; he has great support when he is back home in Denver.
"My mom and dad live in South Dakota," he says. "They drive down every year for the weekend to watch me eat chicken wings. And my son loves it. He just eats it up." He talks about eating at a Chinese buffet a couple of years ago with his son and watching him pile his plate with chicken wings. Back at the table, the then-6-year-old lined up the wings just like Dad and went at them like he was in competition. Busta is fine with his son following in his footsteps.
"Who knows," Busta says, smiling at the thought of it, "it could be huge by the time he wants to get involved."
Just before the halfway mark, Busta moves onto his third plate. Oliver picks up the pace, trying hard to catch up but also concentrating on not losing what is in his mouth and stomach.
"On the competitive eating circuit, this is what we call the meat sweats," Baer says with delight.
The nationally ranked eaters start to drain their water bottles. The crowd, now at about 30 people, takes a communal step back as Oliver covers his mouth and dusts the table with a fine spray of water and chewed-up tamale. Busta eats on, slow and steady. During the last seconds of the race, Oliver crams a tamale in his mouth and spits it out just as Baer calls time.
As the crowd disperses, Baer examines the plates. Both eaters downed 33 tamales, and now a three-tamale eat-off will decide the winner.
After a brief break, Busta and Oliver take the stage. Again, Baer tries to excite the crowd, but most of the people left are either members of Oliver's entourage or the press. Baer directs his attention back to the eaters. Five, four, three...
Both men stuff tamales in their mouths with a newfound zeal. In the end, only one can claim the $1,000 prize. If Busta wins, "it'll be a good night in Dallas," he says. If Oliver wins, he is "going to Shreveport." Either that or he'll get new tires for his truck.
It comes down to the wire, or rather, the mouthful. Baer declares Oliver the winner. His party jumps and screams. "We're going to Shreveport!" screams one of Oliver's friends.
Busta steps off the stage.
"I don't know how that tie ended up happening," he says. "I was fairly convinced at the end of the first round that I had it cleared. I had fewer on my plate. I know I did. I looked," Busta says in disappointment and defeat.
A gentleman from the crowd comes up to him.
"You were robbed," he says. "I can't wait to see the picture of both of you showing your mouths at the exact same time." --Kelsey Guy
Liberal Libations
Tom Marking lifted the pint glass and drank with obvious relish, if not for the beer, then for the convivial scene around him at the Stoneleigh P. His group had now topped a dozen, gathering around a growing amoeba of small round bar tables pushed together. Many in the crowd were strangers to each other, but the welcome was warm and the conversation lively. If George W. Bush had arrived to indulge his old vice in this company, however, he would've needed to show up with a pitcher in each hand.
"As Will Rogers said," Marking observed as he dabbed a bit of beer foam from his graying moustache, "'I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.'"
The Thursday event marked the first in-person Dallas gathering of a progressive online group called Texas Kos, an offshoot of the popular blog community Daily Kos. Marking organized the gathering under the aegis of Drinking Liberally, www.drinkingliberally.org, a spirituous, spirited social phenomenon started in 2003 in New York that now has more than 80 chapters.
Coming out to meet online friends in person for the first time didn't seem to trouble anyone present, but coming out as a liberal in Texas is another matter. The identities used on Kos, such as "catte nappe" and "sees differently," were admitted freely, but many were leery of sharing their full names with a reporter. "I work at a very conservative institution," explained one.
In keeping with the philosophy of Drinking Liberally, the atmosphere was far from militant. "Some of these people know way more than I do," said one woman, "but it was drinking and Democratic, so I thought I'd come."
Cynthia Smith helped Marking publicize the event on other popular left-wing blogs such as Eschaton. Their efforts paid off with a crowd that eventually reached 20, mostly white, members, evenly divided between men and women.
"I'm not sure anybody needs this as much as I do," said Smith, a full-time mom from Allen. "Collin County is a hard place to be a liberal."
Especially enjoying the gathering was Melody Townsel, the woman who blew the whistle on U.N. nominee John Bolton and whose story was detailed in the Dallas Observer on May 5. Everybody wanted to talk to Townsel. What they had to say surely made a welcome change from the deluge of derision she endured from detractors such as Rush Limbaugh.
One bearded man attracted several listeners as he quoted Texas Republican strategist Royal Masset: "By 2008, Masset said, there would be no elected Republicans in Dallas County." But no matter how bright the future for Democrats in Dallas, they still have to live in the present. When the speaker was asked his name, he gave a weak grin and said, "Just call me 'Paul'." --Rick Kennedy
