July is Rib Month, All You Can Eat

As Chestnut, Erik The Red and the Pork Slayer prepare for battle in Oregon this weekend they can benchmark ribs easily by looking at recent events.

On July 7th in Cherokee, North Carolina, Harrah’s hosted its annual rib eating challenge with $5,000 in prizes on the line. Sonya Thomas took first place with 5.45 pounds of rib meat eaten in 12 minutes. In second was Eater X with 4.28 pounds and in third was Dale Boone, the Hindi music video impresario, who consumed 3.92 pounds. Super Paul Barlow and Mike Wilkerson also competed.

On July 3rd in Memphis, www.GoldenPalace.net displayed its mobile museum of oddities that features the Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese, the Abe Lincoln French Fry and William Shatner’s kidney stone. Beale Street revelers were most shocked, however, by Dale Boone who downed 2.93 pounds of rib meat in eight minutes. Bubba Yarbrough placed second with 2.5 pounds and the Legend came in third with 1.75 pounds.

After the event Boone began to belittle Bubba and the Legend, but contest official Charles Hardy was quick to remind the Mouth of the South of a few eaters not in attendance: Chestnut, Thomas, Bertoletti, Simpson, Janus, LeFevre, Shoudt, Booker, Philbin, Denmark, Subich, Conti, Seaver, and Goldstein.