Finance vs Food and Man vs Food

Everyone loves a food challenge.No matter what your background and what your interests are, almost everyone has heard of that Japanese guy who used to win all the hot dog eating contests, despite being tiny. He is held in esteem and awe by all. So I would like to share some thoughts and experiences on two of my favourite food challenges.

First up: Finance vs Food (a Sky company "tradition")

The final Friday of the News Corp month-end calendar was always a dull day at work. Sure there would the mild weekend plan chat at lunch whilst munching on a chicken pesto wrap, and the weekly joke and fact, whose responsibility was a rotating number of first year graduates, which would cause a mild smile at best. It was clear there was a void, something missing, no-one could put their finger on it, no-one quite knew how this filling would manifest itself. Then 3 visionaries put their minds together, and combined two forms which people said could never be done, and together became the founding members of the Finance v Food committee.

It may not shock you to find that this opening paragraph was written by one of the "visionaries" themselves. If it had been up to me, I would replace "visionary" with "dufis" and I also question how much you can say that a void has been filled given there has been a total of two challenges organised. Does it fill every dull month-end Friday with joy? I think not, given that it has only happened on one month-end Friday and one random one, then dissolved into chaos.

Nevertheless, it can be said that when the said committee has managed to pull themselves together to organize an event, it has resulted in much mirth and merryment. It all started when a group of the guys at work discussed the Ferrero Rocher challenge, which involved eating as many Ferroro Rochers in a minute as you can. The world record, apparently, stands at 8. The organisers were particular about the rules - you could not cram more than one Ferrero Rocher into your mouth at one time, but you could unwrap them in advance if you wished.  Fueled by testosterone, each claimed that this world record was doomed to fall. And so, this serious challenge escalated into this:

Yes, a meeting room booked especially in the formal system for this very special inaugural challenge. The first contestant awaits his opponents, with his careful row of Ferroro Rochers waiting to be inhaled.

In the end, the winners ate only 5, a far cry from the world record of 8, but a large crowd gathered to watch this event, including 3 Directors of Finance, who were either so impressed they noted the names down for reference or to submit to HR for pink slips.

Unfortunately only one more challenge has ensued since this epic one, whereby another winner managed to eat 3 cream crackers with no water in one minute. An Easter one was planned, but abandoned due to unwieldy room booking logistics.


Man vs Food

The other tidbit of information that inspired me to muse about food challenges is that whenever we can't find anything to watch on television, we often turn to one of the food challenges and watch Adam Richman eat bucketloads (sometimes literally!) of food all over the U.S. I secretly would eat most of the crap that he goes around eating - not in his challenge proportions, but I wouldn't mind tasting it. Even the challenges that contain what the cheese snobs around me sniff as "fake" cheese. No matter who I watch it with, however, we always wonder how it is possible that this guy hasn't already dropped dead from a heart attack, and how long it can actually carry on. So I went to trusty old Wikipedia to read up on him, and lo and behold - Adam announced in January 2012 that he was no longer continuing with the show or engaging in any food challenges! So Man vs Food is no more!!!!