Another day, another restaurant offering “the world’s biggest plate of nachos” (it isn’t) in some sort of giant nacho extravaganza where if you can eat the whole thing you can get it for free. At least this time it’s in England so when they tell you how many kilograms of nachos it is it’s quaint when you have to convert it to a real weight. Sadly though, not quaint enough to cure my exhaustion of this giant nacho arms race.
The latest challenger on the scene is The Smoke Pit in Northampton England. This is somewhat unique in that England generally isn’t as big on the “stuff your dumb face until you puke” style of food challenges as the United States is. Indeed, whenever my friend from London comes to visit I am informed that he needs to adjust to “American Portions”. Europeans, aren’t they a hoot? Anyhow, after spending the time to convert measurements like “kilograms” and “stones” into pounds, the Pit’s nachos come in at a whopping 12.1254, or still 1.8746 lbs less than Mex 1 Costal Cantina. USA IS STILL NUMBER ONE BABY!
But does any of this really matter? Any restaurant that wants to have a bunch of food go to waste can add a giant order of nachos to their menu, or rather NOT add it because they’re ashamed and never seem to list these things. Guaranteed no matter what size of nachos you put on your menu someone will order it, even if it’s 10 times more than a human should eat in a day. History’s Greatest Eater Takeru Kobyaski (although the weight of the 14-month-old child the infamous Tarrare might have eaten was never mentioned) once ate 20 lbs of rice balls in 30 minutes, but that was a challenge, not a casual meal. No regular person is ever going to eat anything this size outside of a jape.
Trust me, I’ve got nothing against people trying to eat as much food as possible as fast as they can. This is a man who owns not one, but two books on competitive eating and signed up for Disney+ just to get ESPN to watch the Nathan’s Famous Hotdog Eating Competition. Mandalorian? Manda-BORE-ian more like. So sure, you can try and eat some giant order of nachos by cramming your gullet to the brim with something that I’m sure is more style over substance, or maybe you could eat a whole order of reasonable sized nachos that are delicious? Even Mount Nacheesmo at Tios Mexican Cafe, while the tastiest order of nachos in all the land, is too large for a normal person to enjoy, but they make a mini version you could actually eat in one meal. Maybe you could even get some churros for dessert.
As famous mathematician Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, “...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.” Who knows where it will end with giant orders of nachos. 15 lbs? 9.07185 kgs? 2 stone? The sky, and the corn and cheese supply, is literally the limit. Maybe though, just maybe, restaurants will stop trying to make the world’s largest order of nachos and try to instead make the world’s tastiest order of nachos… Nah, that’s too crazy. Just pass me the 0.011 imperial ton of nachos and I’ll gorge myself into a stupor.