Test of Taste: Food Challenges to Try and Stomach

Food. We humans have some rather extreme relationships with whatever we throw down in the boiler. Where one side of the planet is killing each other for granules, the other side is bottlenecking arteries with another deep-fried bird. Food is the crowd-pleaser, the event coordinator and sometimes the safety blanket. Yet when most see comida as sustenance to sustain livelihood, a few patches see it as a feastly challenge capacity, mental strength and local legendry. Not everyone answers the call for greatness, and to be honest, I should’ve sent it to voicemail. However, I’m not one who looks for any easy way out when I grabbed a knife and fork for such a flavorful conquest.

My first challenge dragged me down south to Center Street Provo. A tightly-knit sub shop with its Toon Town typeface sneered with tantalizing hiss, Sensuous Sandwich. The lot reminded me of The Philadelphian, except with a roomier welcome and scotch-taped with posters you would find in a 1980s boy’s bedroom, like Calvin and Hobbes. I caught wind of their 24-inch-long gambit — two Chuck Taylors in length of grain, meat and cheese finished in under 30 minutes. The ball was truly in my court when I could pick the type of sandwich. I settled on the classic French dip after weighing out every option, thinking the roast beef and Swiss cheese could make an easy flow with an au jus slip-and-slide. Munching away, the sogginess of the dipped sub helped immensely with its soaked paper towel flop. With 12 inches in (there’s got to be a better way to word that…), I was positive to get it done. However, the freight train to get my Polaroid on the wall derailed when a certain someone in our group began spewing horror stories involving mealworms and lizard vomit. Have you ever felt so full that when eating, you’re swirling your chewed food to cow cud so you don’t gag during mid-gulp? It was hitting me tenfold.

The next challenge came from a smoke signal near Olympus Mountain. Narrowed in by Everest climbing gear and chalk-drawn menus of buffalo juices, Wing Coop calls upon the 11 challenge — 11 solar flare wings finished in under 11 minutes, complete with a free T-shirt. Sanctioned back to my kitchen island (out of fear of projectile magma), I munched away. My nose ran red like the River Nile, while my eyes became glossy and tempered. This is not to knock the wings, because they were evenly crisp and hand-tossed to saucy perfection. However, under a couple of toothy breaths and a Sprite Chill, I was disappointed with how quickly the fire was extinguished. Maybe I’ve scorched my heat signatures off from too many Scassa La Boca dabs on Sunday steak night, but this is the guy who chugged a bottle of Spontaneous Combustion in a walk-in freezer… and woke up two hours later. If you’ve just scaled a snowball summit and can’t feel your frozen nuggets, Wing Coop can keep them toasted.

For the homestretch, the traditional execution is to finish with a frozen dairy dessert. In the most patriotic pull I’ve been in over a decade, I divebombed into to conquer a revolutionary colossus known as The Liberty Bell Monumental Sundae. Dollop 13 scoops of ice cream for each American colony, four splashes of cavity-filling syrups, whipped cream, sprinkles and topped with a cherry in an upside-down liberty bell. Oh boy…

Halfway through sugary shivers and an agonizing rocky road ride to the porcelain, it dawned on me. What was the point? There’s no way risking life and limb for public clout and a shirt that’ll end up in the donation bin is worth it. Most food challenges are too ridiculous to even be feeble, yet after finishing, it wasn’t the physical ability that I was worried about. It was that inner shame of how much I felt like a lard ass…

Read more harebrained adventures from Associate Editor Alton Barnhart:
Cottonwood Crawl: Two Dudes with a few Brew Reviews
There’s Something in the Woods: Utah’s New and Improved Cryptid