Big Mouth
Tony Harrison: Competitive Eater
Baltimore magazine, January 2005

"The first contest I won was a pie eating contest as a child. Later, I won an eating contest in prison. We started out with this goulash of Oodles of Noodles and tuna and crackers. We ran out of that and then we had some fruit; it was a bunch of apples. We ran out of fruit and there was still a guy - his name's Big Pete - and he was there neck-and-neck with me. So then we had just plain bread, went through a loaf of bread each and when that bread was gone, we ended up eating paper towels. There were two candles and someone said, 'Give him the candle to eat,' and I ate the candle and he didn't.

After I got out of prison, there was a guy who had won the Little Italy Pasta Eating Contest two years in a row and he thought he could beat me. And I was like, 'You know what, this guy can't beat me.' I beat his pants off. I don't really like pasta very much. But I seem to be able to eat it quicker than anybody I know. My fiancée, after the first contest she was at, said it was 'disturbing, yet impressive.'

I never throw up. I'm an alcoholic in recovery myself and I never used to throw up when I drank. I'm not a puker. I'm like Jerry Seinfeld: I haven't puked since 1971.

I'm going to organize a burger eating contest to benefit Changing Directions, my residential treatment program for addicts, and the Jimmy V Foundation. It's going to be a six-pound burger and you get half an hour to eat it and, you know, not too many people finish it. I can't do it.

I believe if you want to competitive eat, practice with something that's not going to kill you. If you practice with hot dogs all the time, you're going to end up with heart disease. I recommend people practice with stuff like cabbage and water.

Believe it or not, I'm actually a crazy health-food weirdo and that's what's holding me back from entering more competitions. I can only enter contests on Sundays because the diet I'm on, the Body for Life, you can eat whatever you want on a Sunday. So on Sundays, I can eat competitively.

Last week, there was a contest on Sunday. I got up, ate breakfast. I had a turkey, bacon, and egg-white omelet and that was it. The pasta eating contest was at 2 p.m. Now, I'm not going from breakfast to 2 p.m. without eating, so we all went out to lunch at a restaurant in Little Italy. Since I knew I was going overboard with the pasta eating contest, I had, for lunch, fried calamari and garlic bread and we went to Vacarro's for dessert and I had an éclair and some cookies.

I've never known what being full is. I don't know what that means. I knew full last Sunday, but then I just pushed through to the other side and ate some more and I wasn't full anymore.

I pray right before I start a competition and I shut every thought off in my head. When you're in it and you're shoving that crap down your throat, you're really not thinking of winning. I'm just thinking, 'Don't quit, don't quit, don't quit.'"