El Wingador is no more the Wing Bowl King

Cinzia Cuneo 6 febbraio, 2012

I must admit I had never heard about El Wingador until last Friday. That’s when a good friend of mine – who is fascinated by competitive eaters – pointed me to the 9-minute video that Oscar-winning filmaker Errol Morris made about Bill “El Wingador” Simmons. He is the best known competitive eater, having been the only contestant so far to achieve 5 Wing Bowl victories.

The Wing Bowl is a chicken wing eating contest held in Philadelphia once a year, on the Friday preceding the Super Bowl.

In this video, posted on the New York Times’ website just before the latest contest, El Wingador opens up about his eating habits and training regimen. He appears to be a very articulate person, fully committed to a certain kind of excellence — or at least, a certain kind of excess.

Alas, El Wingador did not win last Friday’s contest. The new winner is a surprisingly short and skinny Japanese guy, who shattered the all-time-record to take the crown, devouring 337 wings in 30 minutes. El Wingador came in third with “only” 251 wings.

Have a look at our recipe for Grilled Chicken Wings. It contains 340 calories and 30% of the daily amount of saturated fat per serving, i.e. 3 wings. That means that this year’s winner swallowed in 30 minutes some 38,000 calories and one month’s worth of saturated fat!

Autori

Cinzia Cuneo

Italiana di nascita e canadese d'adozione, Cinzia ha deciso di coniugare le sue competenze professionali e la sua passione per la buona tavola sviluppando un servizio per aiutare i numerosi «aventi bisogno» a riprendere il controllo della loro alimentazione. Così è nata SOSCuisine. Ingegnere di formazione al Politecnico di Torino, Cinzia ha conseguito un Master's Degree in scienze applicate all'École Polytechnique de Montréal.