"Death By Chocolate"

“DEATH BY CHOCOLATE”

glut·ton·y

/ˈɡlətnē/

noun: gluttony

1. habitual greed or excess in eating.

I blame my parents. In fact I could probably blame all parents, mothers in particular. Sorry mom's, but you are generally the de-facto eating coaches of young kids. You all know the exhortations, “finish your food there are starving children in China”, “if you don't finish your dinner you won't get any dessert”, and “don't you want to be in The Clean Plate Club”? I did! In fact I would go so far as to claim myself the president of The Clean Plate Club. I was also the apple of my grandmothers eye. What a good boy you are, you cleaned your plate again she would say. Jenny, she would say to my mother, I have never seen such a good eater. How many young boys would polish off a plate of baked salmon and Brussels sprouts? Fact of the matter is I hated Brussels sprouts, I hated Salmon, I hated Liver. In fact I pretty much hated everything, but dessert. The only reason I cleaned my plate was that it got me closer to said dessert. Now my mother happened to be an excellent baker and it showed. She was not a svelte woman, and unlike Jack Sprat, my dad could in fact eat fat, but he too preferred sugar, and my grandmother? Fuggedaboutit! She was old world European; come on bubbie just one more bite and you'll get dessert. With my grandmother a world of cakes and cookies would appear the likes of which you usually find only in the Disney movie.

I grew up and worked my way through college at a variety of restaurants. I preferred being a dishwasher. It was hot work but I didn't have to deal with people, I had no real responsibilities, and if the restaurant was particularly good (most were) invariably some woman on a date would order Lobster and barely touch it for fear of looking like a glutton to her date. Similarly the guy would over order to show what a man he was, biting off more than he could chew, so to be speaking. And so more often than not that meant a nice treat for the dishwasher, moi! After a lackluster career in college earning the coveted liberal arts degree I found myself bouncing around remedial jobs usually centered around food where I could, because it's my first love, eat endlessly.

Now you might be thinking at this point that I was a hulking, sweating, 400lb behemoth. In actuality I was 5’-10” and 215 lb. In perfect shape you might surmise, unless you saw me naked. I was more like the Pillsbury Doughboy or the Michelin Man after gastric bypass surgery. I was what you would call doughy. I had no idea what kind of shape my guts were in. If I had to guess I would have suspected that my “muscles” were streaked like bacon and my veins ran gravy.

I guess my first eating contest was in third grade when Scott Clark dared me to eat his tuna sandwich along with Dustin Millers liverwurst sandwich and my triple-decker PB&J all at the same time. Actually my mother made me just a regular PB&J but I would sneak into the kitchen and add an extra slice of bread in the middle and a little bit of sugar. Well, Scott hated tuna and everyone in the world except Dustin's mother apparently, hated liverwurst! By polishing off everyone's lunch without hurling, my prize was Scott's cupcake. What did I care? I would have eaten a worm sandwich for a Hostess cupcake!

All the way through high school I was known as “Gene Gene the eating machine”, it didn't seem to matter that my name was Alan! I was just always eating. It seemed that there were always the odd and sundry eating contests at the fairs and picnics. Who in their right mind could turn down a pie-eating contest? I always won as I would always polish them off the fastest and I could suck down a chocolate cream pie in big slurps. Fruit pies took a little longer. They were sweet enough but filled with fruit, but they too weren't much of a challenge either, oh, but it was a free dessert.

In 2003 I first heard of the Coney Island hot dog eating contest on ESPN. Hot dogs are not my first choice but I saw the pro challenges as a way to make a name for myself in the world of professional eating contests. To paraphrase Dire Straits “get my food for nothing and my desserts for free”! I was good too. I entered every contest I could. If I could get there I would enter and more often than not win. Most of the challenges were dedicated to the Savory side though and as I said desserts were my thing. I was not a big fan of the restaurant challenges either. I couldn't care less about a T-shirt and getting my picture on the wall. Now I could polish off a Sundae made from two gallons of ice cream, a pint of chocolate sauce, a whole bunch, of bananas, a quart of whipped cream, and oh, don’t forget the 25 cherries! But I usually saved myself for the larger challenges. These were found at the carnivals and fairs where the cash prizes were generally large enough that they would pay my way to the next challenge.

It was in 2018 that I ran across the big one. It was the Choco-Fair in Reading Pennsylvania, home of some of the giants of chocolate candies and the best in Gourmet Desserts. The Choco-Fair featured the “Ultimate Chocolate Cake Contest”. The cake was custom-made for the contest and made from a rich fudge cake with assorted chocolates from the various chocolate companies in town. A base was made with 2 lbs of assorted creams and caramels, nut bars, cordials, pralines and ganaches. The cake was the famous “Chocolate Heaven Fork’ful”, 12 lbs worth! A rich chocolate fudge cake in 3 layers. The first layer was a white chocolate mousse, the second layer was milk chocolate mousse and the third layer was dark chocolate mousse. Topping the cake were more assorted chocolate candies chopped up and covered with a hard, dark chocolate shell. The entire cake weighed in at 14 lbs!

This was it! My Mount Everest! It was my raison d'etre, it was my Waterloo! There were six of us and the grand prize was a whopping $10,000 plus a lifetime supply of chocolate candy. This was going to be a walk in the park on a nice sunny day I thought!

To make it easier to eat, I crudely cut up the cake into large chunks. The Mousse made it difficult to pick up and shovel into my face. I found it easier to scoop the Mousses and suck them down like pudding and then shovel the cake pieces into my gullet. The candies were a little rougher as the caramels required extra chewing. However the competitors were nothing but amateurs, they were out of their league, I didn’t need to worry!

I cruised through the first half of the cake, but those damn caramels kept slowing me up. Chewing, chewing and more chewing! About 2/3’s in I started hit a wall, for the first time in my life. This couldn't be. How could my beloved chocolate turn on me like this? The fudge became cloying and felt like it was lining my throat. The ganaches filled my sinuses. This couldn't be happening! My mind started to get cloudy, brown fuzzy clouds. My heart raced from the sugar. The Cherry cordials were dancing rings in front of my eyes.

The headline in the Reading Examiner splashed across the front page and screamed “Death By Chocolate”. The photograph of yours truly face-first in the remaining 5lbs of cake was not flattering! I'm happy to tell you that it wasn't in fact “Death By Chocolate” for me, but it was “Death By Chocolate” of my competitive eating. I swore off all eating challenges for good. After this little episode, let's call it, I became somewhat of a health nut, and no longer eat mindlessly or competitively. I exercise daily and consume vegetables mostly. Needless to say I didn't win the $10,000 but once a month I get a 1 pound box of assorted chocolates from the chocolate companies who I guess either appreciated my gumption, or maybe they felt sorry for me. Maybe I should save up a couple of months’ worth of the 1lb candy boxes and time myself, just to see how long it takes to finish them off. You know just For Old Times Sake!