<\/p>\n
Five-pound cans of green pickled jalape\u00f1os glistened in the sun on the closing day of the Montezuma County Fair. A judge wore blue plastic gloves to place the peppers on paper plates.<\/p>\n
Upon the word \u201cgo,\u201d spicy juices squirted in every direction as contestants chomped down on Saturday\u2019s jalape\u00f1o-eating contest. Eyes watered. Hands waved in front of puffed mouths.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to eat all the way down to the stem,\u201d the judge ordered.<\/p>\n
Nearly two dozen contestants were allowed to drink or eat anything of their choosing during the contest. The winner simply raised a hand after swallowing all five peppers.<\/p>\n
Justin Gray ate five pickled jalape\u00f1os in less than two minutes to win the 12-and-under category. He swigged water and snacked on crackers during and after the contest. The 12-year-old from Cortez said he has entered the competition every year for as long as he could remember.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he replied, gasping deeply for respite, when asked how he ate the jalape\u00f1os so quickly.<\/p>\n
Contestants were a little leery to enter when the call went out to start the female 13-and-older category. Finally, four women sat down.<\/p>\n
Debbie Hager, who ate 42 a few years ago, reclaimed her title. \u201cI eat hot stuff at home every day,\u201d she said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t bother me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five competed in the men\u2019s category, including a teen who used a large pixie stick to ease his suffering. He finished fourth.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sugar usually helps to cut it,\u201d he moaned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jalape\u00f1o-eating contests lures some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":118620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6364],"tags":[640,188,805,60],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-118619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-living","tag-award-and-prize","tag-dolores-star","tag-gastronomy","tag-montezuma-county"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118619"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=118619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}