Rude Competitive Eating

Due to Covid concerns, we have not been able to reopen yet for Traditions and Teas, though we have been trying to for the past few months. As soon as we are able to schedule our next dates, we will be making announcements via email, social media and newspapers. 

Until then, here’s an entertaining article on a contest for a skill that drove those who cared about good table manners, absolutely nuts back in the 1920’s… A contest to see who was best at eating peas with one’s knife!!

Move over, Nathan’s! It wasn’t those New York famous hot dogs which were being eaten competitively in the early 20th century. Bad manners were also on display, with a twist (or should I say, ‘a slit’?) in this competition. In 1929, on the West Coast, one Ruth Keller was the winner of a competition of eating peas with a knife! The knives all had a special slit down the middle to help speed things along. 

 

Why Peas Leave Pod

Why they leave their plate via the knife route was demonstrated by Ruth Keller, who is the champion of California when it comes to consuming the little vegetables with only a knife as a weapon. She won the state title in competition with other girls.– A. P. photo.

Girl Proves Champion at Eating Peas With Knife

LA CRESCENTA, Dec. 28.– Eating peas with a knife, like drinking coffee with a spoon in the cup, is admittedly poor table manners. But because Ruth Keller of this town excelled at the first-named social ban, she is wearing a medal today as the fastest green pea eater in California. In competition with other pretty maidens, Miss Keller sat down to a festive board here recently with a huge bowl of the elusive little vegetables in front of her, and only a knife as a weapon. Everybody started off at a given signal. 

The only advantage possessed by the contestants over the ordinary individual who likes his peas on a knife, was that the blades used by the girls had a slit down the center. The theory of this stroke of mechanical genius, displayed by one of the contest managers, was that the peas would stick in the slit and slide down easier into the mouth. Miss Keller consumed her peas in amazingly short time. True, they skipped and staggered and skidded about on the knife, but even the most unruly pea finally succumbed to the girl's sense of balance and followed its more tractable predecessors, until all had disappeared. - Oakland Tribune, 1929

A safety pea knife with a slit down the middle, as advertised in the late 1920’s