food races

yesterday i spent time with my family down in cobourg. the food was spectacular and amazingly there was something that appealed to everyone there!! this is no small feat if you know how finicky or particular or covetous or whatever each of us choose to be around christmas food. i can eat almost anything - except the disgusting brussel sprout which many have attempted to convince me can be presented and enjoyed through the application of obscure cookery techniques, sauces, or even simply drinking enough to not notice........ i am not going near them. ever again!

anyhow, this is totally unconnected but i have a 5k run coming up in a few days and i'm thinking about it today. thinking about running makes me think about races and then especially how there've not been many races to talk about here for a while. so today i'll share some very cool, different, maybe even strange races that are available to those for whom competition of any sort is the essence! strange races that necessarily involve something normally considered food. special races that have the idea of fun and food embedded in them . . .

we’ll begin here at the yorkshire pudding boat race.

what you will find is an annual event in which people paddle yorkshire pudding boats - made out of giant yorkshire puddings sealed with marine varnish - each is made with 50 eggs, four bags of flour, 25 pints of milk, beaten and baked, lined with industrial foam-filler, and made water-resistant with layers of yacht varnish. intuitively i feel like i would keep a distance from this race. firstly because i am not a strong swimmer and i feel ninety nine per cent certain that at some point swimming would be a feature of this one. second, and perhaps most importantly, i love yorkshire puddings. if it was a yorkshire pudding eating race then i might entertain it but then i'm told it's a very bad idea to eat your mode of transportation, particularly if it involves anything on water or in the air!

then, let’s go here to a pumpkin race.

much closer to home, a day and a half's drive east of here in nova scotia, we have the home of the pumpkin racing regatta. what a neat idea! find a giant pumpkin, scoop out hundreds of pounds yep, people race hollowed out pumpkins across the local lake. can’t visualize it? then look here at some pumpkin race pictures.

bigger and better - and more famous! the olney pancake race. here we have a group of women who, reenacting a famous event from long ago, carry frying pans in which are pancakes being flipped as they run 415 yards to the local church where they will then be shrived . . . a la shrove tuesday. here they are!.

now let's have a look at cheese wheel racing. the idea here is good - stand at the top of a really steep hill. you know, the kind that when you take a step down it, you immediately fall head-over-heels. next, together a group of people who have an interest in cheese. release a wheel of cheese which descends at 70 miles per hour to the bottom of the hill. send that same pile of people chasing after it, and declare the one who reaches it first the winner and (and this is really the best part) the winner keeps the wheel of cheese. hmmmmm.
for this wonderful race and especially for the connected images and stories, start here and follow the links. for those raised on physical humour you will appreciate these depictions of the sometimes painful results!.

now let’s say that you have barely been sated in your quest to know more about the world of strange and obscure race, then
here's more!.