St Elmo's "make-you-cry" Shrimp Cocktail
Day Three’s eating challenge was brought up in conversation last week when I was first discussing the idea of this eating competition hullabaloo. My good friend Chris was telling us a tale of years gone by where he attended a friend’s bachelor party in Indianapolis when they went to “some steak house” that promised “the hottest cocktail sauce” they’ve ever had. The waiter promised that if it didn’t make them cry, it would be free.
After some digging around on the ol’ intertubes it turns out that place was St. Elmo Steak House, and the cocktail sauce lives on. In fact, the restaurant itself has been in the same place for over 100 years. Now that’s an institution.
I haven’t seen any mention of the cocktail being free if you don’t cry, but I have found reviews telling of the “make-you-cry” cocktail sauce.
It’s a common tale, and one that is the main reason for why I’m celebrating eating challenges over the course of the week. People who think they’re tougher than the challenge presented to them. In this case, a table of grown men convinced that the horseradish wasn’t nearly as spicy as promised…until they started uncontrollably crying a few minutes later. Chris shared that he didn’t even realize he WAS crying until he felt his wet face.
That, my friends is hot.
- Wings To Go
There is a place that does still offer up some free swag (at least the NV location) if you can survive their hot sauce. Wings to Go dares you to try their homicide wings. Do you hear me?! They fucking DARE YOU. It says so right on their menu.
“Eat 20 original Homicide Wings in 10 minutes (no drink…no dressing…no celery). If you survive, you will get a Picture on the Wall Of Fame and a I Survived A Homicide T-Shirt & Hat. Oh, not to mention, we will pay for the beer and/or soda if you SURVIVE.”
There’s a story on the Brown Daily Herald that gives a firsthand account of people attempting to handle these wings. A small excerpt:
After the Super Bowl, I found the three incapicitated in their rooms. The wings had hurt, bad, and the consensus was, to paraphrase, that the wings hurt even more going out than in. One housemate, Ike, said he kept on waking up in a sweat after he went to sleep that night. Another Hundred Winger, Jin, asked me for a bottle of Tums. When he returned it two weeks later, it was nearly empty. He had had an upset stomach the entire time, and had fallen victim to hot flashes.
We, and by we I mean most boys who occasionally lose the faculty to think, have all had this experience. I bit into a pepper at Big Bowl after being warned against doing it. The result? I couldn’t feel my lower jaw for 2 hours, making it impossible to finish my meal with full tastebuds intact. My friend who joined in with me? Couldn’t eat his meal at all. He just cried for a bit. Good times.
I had another friend who decided he could handle the spiciest of spices at BD’s Mongolian Barbecue. He didn’t care what went on there, as long as there was a warning attached to it. The end result was a bowl of stirfry so nuclear that from 3 seats down *I* was crying the heat was so strong. Needless to say, he didn’t finish more than a bite.
Because, as I said, we boys are occasionally quite dumb and stubborn. Don’t tell us we can’t do something, because we’ll try and prove you wrong. Even if it comes at great personal pain to us.
Two Bites in Suburbia 
About 12 years ago my grandfather, sitting at our local pub during one of his visits to Chicago, learned from the pub owner of a hot sauce the owner’s son had brought back from Louisiana. The owner brought the bottle over to us and each of us were handed a toothpick. My grandfather having been through a bypass and a host to a pace-maker opted out of the obvious challenge presented by the pub owner. I however was all in! This was the hottest thing I could have ever imagined. I was not prepared for the pain that just a few drops would inflict. My grandfather found it all very amusing his granddaughter stomping up and down the bar with her tongue hanging out begging for beer. When my husband arrived about an hour later, we gave him a toothpick and told him to taste it, I said it was not that bad, my tongue was no longer numb and the overall burning sensation was gone plus there was bread at the ready behind the bar. His reaction was one of surprise and disappointment, how could his wife put him through such an ordeal….how could I not? Our reactions to this sauce gave an awful lot of delight to our friends and particularly my grandfather. The hot sauce was Dave’s Insanity Sauce, I’ve never had any thing like it since.
I have a friend, we’ll call him Pete (cause that’s his name,) who threw caution to the wind and disregarded all warnings about the secret, special, sign a waiver hot sauce that they keep in a cooler at Heaven On Seven and slathered it on a slice of white bread.
Silly boy missed the rest of dinner trying to wash out his mouth, throat and stomach and then ended up calling in sick to work the next day due to intestinal distress.
Yep. Beware of hot sauce served on a litmus stick.
That is all.