Tuesday, September 4, 2007

2007: new record for fliegel-fressing
(chicken wing eating)

Competitive eater Sonya ("The Black Widow") Thomas weighs just 105 pounds, but she scarfed down 5.17 pounds of chicken wings in 12 minutes Saturday night to win the wing-eating contest at the National Buffalo Wing Festival.

Thomas devoured 173 wings, beating 12 bigger-bellied competitors.

The contest is an annual Labor Day weekend event in Buffalo, NY, the city where Buffalo wings were born. Thomas, from Alexandria, VA, also held the festival's previous record of 161 wings in 12 minutes, set in 2004.

Thomas has set numerous records in competitive eating events, including 37 hot dogs in 12 minutes; 35 bratwursts in 10 minutes; 11 pounds of cheesecake in 9 minutes; 44 lobsters in 12 minutes; and 250 Tater Tots in 5 minutes.

She is ranked No. 5 by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. According to the federation's Website, No. 1-ranked Joey Chestnut holds the 12-minute record for chicken wings, downing 7.5 pounds of them May 21, but apparently didn't do it in Buffalo. (info from the Associated Press, photo from sonyatheblackwidow.com)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's a fliegel? What's fressing?

Michael N. Marcus said...

Fliegel is the Yiddish word for poultry wing. Fressing is the Yiddish word for pigging-out.