That's a lot of meat
Tim "The Goose" Gilbert shows his winning form in yesterday's Italian-sausage eating competition at the annual Italia Unita festival in East Boston: In ten minutes, he ate 4.84 pounds of the stuff, taking the $300 first prize. Unlike in that Coney Island hot-dog thing, Eastie contestants actually had to chew their food. Watch the contestants in the early going:
Urp:
Other photos from the festival (which continues today, Sunday, July 22):
That's "FBI" as in "Full-Blooded Italian:"
Now this is neighborhood pride:
An Italian festival has to have a bocce court:
The coolest ride of the day was in the wagon attached to this guy's scooter:
One great thing about the festival is that a lot of the food was local - from fresh clams and oysters to just cooked pasta:
Aw, shucks:
Residents of a certain part of Newton will note the guy's apron:
Fried Oreos? Is America great, or what?
The sun sets over the festival:
Glow sticks:
A festival is always good for people watching:
Shortly after 9 p.m., Sly Stallone's brother, Frank, came on stage to sing, or something:
Ad:
Comments
Fried...Oreos. It's not
Fried...Oreos.
It's not that I didn't know such things existed, along with fried Twinkies and fried Snickers and the like (I am from the Midwest: Land of Fried Foods on Sticks), but I manage to be in denial every time.
Things to improve next year
Jimbo, who lives in East Boston, notes some shortcomings, including too expensive food (yeah, I admit it: I had one of those $8 bowls of pasta; but I washed it down with a $1 bottle of water from one of the neighborhood stands, as opposed to the $2.50 bottles at the fried-Oreo stand), Stallone's generic (i.e., non-Italian) rock and kids just throwing bocce balls around (ouch!), which obviously happened after I left, because when I was there, there were kids playing actual, serious bocce.