Slate has a barely-amusing article about a Friar's Club-sponsored orgy of eating, the famous, but also barely amusing, Matzo Ball Eating Contest. And of course Slate, in a typical display of wit, has slugged the piece: Great Balls of Matzo!
Two bits of information:
(1) The contest winner ate 30 matzo balls in 5 minutes. That's pretty gross. Especially when you consider the event took place in a famous lodge, and not at a Pesach Hotel, where such displays of glutony seem to be de rigueur
(2) The Friar's Club has strayed further from their Jewish heritage than even we imagined. As Slate reports, their matzo balls are inedible: "A thin, moist crust quickly gave way to a pastelike mantle, followed by a sawdust core. I got the whole thing stuffed in my cheeks, where it defied my attempts to swallow. I finally choked it down and reached for the next one. The centers were killing me: No grandmother of mine would ever have served such dusty balls."
Oy.
PS: If Amshi were here (all together now: Sigh) he'd be so all over the last line of that quote.