Using your hands to stuff your face with hoards of fries with gravy and cheese curds doesn’t seem to be most conventional way to eat a meal, but on Saturday for about three hours it was.
The Laurier Marketing Association (LMA) at Wilfrid Laurier University, for a challenge put on by Campus Perks, hosted a poutine eating competition in the Terrace. Smokes Poutinery provided the poutine for free.
“There were two tiers for the [Campus Perks] competition and one was social media and awareness, and the second tier was throwing a really good eating competition,” explained Naz Sokmez, the marketing manager for LMA, about how Campus Perks determined the winner.
The actual event, according to Sokmez, was a success.
The competition, however, was not based on how much each competitor ate, but how fast each team of four ate it.
“I’ve always been a fast eater, so my friends told me that I should enter it. So they all came here and they all supported me,” said Yasin Elrofaie, a third-year business student at Laurier who ate his poutine under a minute.
According to Elrofaie, there’s a technique to eating really quick.
Crushing and mashing the poutine and using your hands, instead of a fork and knife, was the way to do it.
With water and gravy covering their faces students, who had to dress up in a uniform or costume, quickly wolfed down loads of poutine, where the occasional competitor would throw-up.
They continued on with the competition, obviously.
“You can’t be worried about how gross you look,” he laughed, adding that the competition was fun.
“From what I heard at least, people loved it, even though it was more of a puke and rally type of deal,” added Sokmez.
Various other universities across the nation put on their own poutine eating competition this past weekend.
The winning school — the one who generates the most support and awareness at their school – receives $2500 for the club and a free poutine party for about 50 people.
Sokmez and Denise Wang, the co-president of the LMA, believe that they have a pretty good chance of winning it.
“The scale at which we did ours [was] way bigger than they expected us to do,” said Wang. “[And] we did really well in social media.”
LMA, if they win the competition for Campus Perks, plans on using the money to put on more events and to fund their annual marketing case competition.
President and CEO of the Wilfrid Laurier University Students’ Union, Michael Onabolu also participated in the competition, and ate his poutine so fast he was still hungry. He didn’t eat all day to prepare for it as well.
“I’m going to get Frat Burger!” he laughed. “You have to keep going.”