Weird Eats

World's Largest Ketchup Packet & Ketchup Instructions

The people of Collinsville, Illinois and H.J. Heinz Co. conspired yesterday to come up with the world's largest ketchup packet. It was eight feet tall and contained 3/4 of a ton of ketchup. Which would have been the perfect occasion for a really large order of French fries, but apparently that didn't happen.

For more, check out the World's Largest Ketchup Packet Web site.

If you've ever wondered how to pour ketchup, Robert Allgeyer has a Web page for you. Pouring Ketchup offers "the full technical explanation" (with illustrations) on...how to pour ketchup. Check it out here.

171 Starbucks & More

There's apparently something about Starbucks that causes people who might otherwise be quite reasonable and rational (or maybe not) to embark on obsessive and ultimately pointless quests.

Some time ago I wrote about a gentleman who had set the modest goal for himself of visiting every Starbucks in the world. It's kind of a baffling quest, if I do say so myself, but you can read about his progress here.

All of which makes Mark Malkoff seems like something of a rank amateur by comparison. Malkoff, a comedian and filmmaker, recently set out to visit and make a purchase at every Starbucks store in Manhattan within the space of one 24-hour span. That's 171 Starbucks, to be exact. And, of course, he made a film documenting his experiences. Check it all out here.

Canstruction - Canned Food Art

Just when you thought all the good gimmicks had been taken, along comes Canstruction, who sponsor events in which teams compete by making sculptures from canned food. It's all for a good and rather appropriate cause (fighting hunger), given the nature of the media in which the artists work.

For more information and to look at a bunch of nifty pictures, check out the Canstruction Web site.

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The Art of the Jellybean

Is Roger Rocha a painter or a sculptor or a little bit of both? Well, it's hard to say, given the
fact that he is an artist whose chosen medium is jelly beans, and more specifically, Jelly Belly
jelly beans.

Rocha has taken up where his uncle Peter Rocha left off. Over the years the two men have laboriously fashioned intricate jelly bean portraits of everyone from Minnie Mouse to Ronald Reagan to Laurel and Hardy. Check out photos of some of their unique artworks at Jelly Belly's online Bean Art Gallery.

Image: Jelly Belly

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Peanut Butter Gun & PB Paintings

When it comes right down to it, a peanut butter and jelly gun is probably not going to advance the cause of humankind very much. But that didn't stop the inventing team of Tim Homoya and Austin Nelson from coming up with such a gizmo. The pair are hoping the gadget will land them a spot on the TV show American Inventor. More info here.

1000 Bars

From our Obsessive and Pointless But Essentially Harmless Quests bureau, comes the story of Bar Man, a 62-year-old Minnesota native now living in Brooklyn. Bar Man retired from his job as a computer consultant at age 55. A few years later he decided to attempt to visit one thousand bars in one year, a journey kind of reminiscent of Supersize Me and TV's Thirsty Traveler all rolled into one neat little package.

Bar Man's peculiar feat, which he accomplished with one day to spare, is chronicled at 1000 Bars. Some of his previous feats include a motorcycle trip from Minneapolis to Toronto, where the participants sought to have a drink in 100 different bars (and failed) and a Bar Trek where the objective was to hit 26 bars in a single day.

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Edible Wedding Gown, PB Sculpture & Dum Dum Dress

(Update 03/11/2007)
From our People With Too Much Time On Their Hands bureau, comes a report of a high school girl who fashioned a dress from lollipop wrappers - Dum Dum wrappers, to be specific. Caroline Bodell, the designer, hails from the Flint, Michigan area and has actually won a design award for her creation. Read more at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Great Fruitcake Toss

Have you ever suspected that there's actually a use for fruitcake, but couldn't imagine what it would be? Of course, they're not really for eating - unless you're made of stronger stuff than most of us - but they do come in handy for certain athletic pursuits.

Like the Great Fruitcake Toss, for example. The 12th annual incarnation of this event is coming up on January 6, 2007, in Manitou Springs, Colorado. More information here.

Let the fruitcakes fly!

Eating In Madison A To Z

It stands to reason that if the universe is in existence long enough eventually someone will attempt to eat at every restaurant in Madison, Wisconsin - in alphabetical order.

Now that you mention it, JonMichael and Nicole Rasmus, husband and wife and mismatched diners, are in the process of doing just that and documenting the results at Eating in Madison A to Z.

They're only on their seventh letter so far - the latest review is the Green Forest, a family restaurant ("in the idiom of Copper Top, American Family Table, etc., where you can pick a huge meal from a lengthy menu for cheap.") - but give 'em a break. After all, Madison, which supposedly has the most restaurants per capita of any U.S. city, boasts about 600 eateries.

The couple began their feat in May 2004. They don't actually intend to eat at every last one of the 600 restaurants, but for more about their somewhat complex selection strategy you'll have to check the site, which has reviews organized by whether the eatery serves Coke or Pepsi, among other things.

The plan is to visit at least one restaurant per week and "to complete the list before JM gets his driver's license renewed (or the world ends) in 2012."

Image: City of Madison

Record Breakers: Pumpkins, Jalapenos, Tea

It's October, which means that it's time for the obligatory news reports about giant pumpkins - which should not be confused in any way with The Great Pumpkin. The latest record holder was grown by a Rhode Island farmer and weighed in at 1,502 pounds. The Associated Press says it may be the largest ever.

If esophageal tears are the kind of thing that get you all worked up, try eating an excessive amount of hot peppers and heave 'em back up. A gastroenterologist, commenting on a recent jalapeno eating record, says that this is apparently a potential danger in this sort of thing.

The jalapeno eater in question is Richard LeFevre, a 62-year-old retired accountant from Nevada, who gulped 247 peppers in eight minutes yesterday to win a $2,000 prize. Mr. LeFevre will be available for comment in about a week or so when he emerges from the bathroom. More info here.

Speaking of records, UPI reported on a recent feat in Japan, where 14,718 participants lined up for almost a mile to shatter the record for simultaneous tea-drinking.