- Title: World Stinging Nettle Eating Championships
- Date: 31st May 2009
- Summary: This eating competition involves keeping the mouth very wet and folding the leaves very carefully, otherwise the tongue will turn black and lips will swell up. Stinging nettles or to give it its full Latin name “Urtica Dioica” is covered in thousands of microscopic hypodermic needles each filled with boric acid. On contact the needles break, causing the acid to flood over and burn the skin. Cooked nettles quickly lose their sting, and some say they taste like spinach, but in this competition in Marshwood nettles are eaten raw. They are picked only a couple of hours before the start of the competition, so are completely fresh, albeit with natural accompaniments such as caterpillars, slugs and other nettle loving bugs! Techniques differ among competitors to get the potentially painful leaves down the throat. The real art to the 'sport' apparently is keeping the mouth moist, so plenty of liquid really helps. This year the event attracted a record number of entries from around the world; as the competition's fame has spread, nettle eaters from as far as Australia and Canada made the trip to West Dorset. As the huge bunches of stinging nettles arrived, the competitors faced one hour of munching their way through the leaves – the winner being whoever finished with the most two foot stalks, stripped of their leaves. Not surprisingly, the rules were tight for this level of competitive nettle eating. Only nettles provided could be eaten, competitors were not allowed to bring their own, no mouth numbing substances were allowed - although a swig of beer in between mouthfuls was encouraged. Nettles first became an issue in the tiny Dorset village of Marshwood, population of around 300 in 1986 when two farmers were having an argument as to who had the longest nettles on their land. And so the Landlady of the "Bottle Inn" said: "we'll have a competition open to every one in the area and we'll see who has the longest nettles!" The Longest Stinging Nettle Competition was born and over many decades this evolved into a nettle eating contest. A record crowd of a 1000 plus people turned up to watch this year’s spectacle, proving that the English “silly season” has begun. The contest has separate men’s and women’s sections but for the first time in “Nettle eating” history the two winners – Mike Hobbs, a 28 year-old pub landlord of the New Inn at West Knightley, near Dorchester and Mel Lang, 42 resturant manager from Dorset, both managed to consume a whopping 48ft of the stuff.
- Description:Shot list Nettles growing in the wild Nettles swaying in the wind – Pull focus Pub in background Back of T- shirt saying "World stinging nettle eating Championship” (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDY TAYLOR, JUDGE, SAYING: "OK, here we have a two foot stalk – this is traditionally what we expect to have stripped by the end of the competition. We expect every bit of foliage excluding the seeds and excluding the odd bit of bird’s muck on there, we expect the rest the rest to be stripped and eaten for a stalk to be valid.” (SOUNDBITE) (English) WORLD RECORD HOLDER (7 FEET) & JUDGE, SAYING: “Its basically commitment, you got to focus OK. It’s basically a test of psychology as much as it is a pure and utter commitment of the day. You got to work out a routine – you got get into that routine right from the word go- you got to pick your nettles and you have to eat them as fast as you can obviously but then while you are eating prepare the next leaf to eat, so you get into a natural rhythm.” (SOUNDBITE) (English) ANDY TAYLOR, JUDGE, SAYING: “Well your mouth starts to go black but also the nettle tend to ferment in your body so you get this nice gurgling sensation, bit like a sheep in your body and it gonna go one way or the other either come out one end or go up back up the other and that where these people that come into the event who have never done it before suddenly are surprised that they are vomiting without even knowing it – so its it quite a surprise to them.” People standing around just before start of competition Nettles in large bucket being delivered to areana Nettles being put infront of competitors Pan from right to left - Crowd to stage Start of Competition Various competitors eating etc (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNKNOWN COMPETITOR, SAYING: “ Its’ alright if you can stuff it in and get the confidence – it’s fine.” (SOUNDBITE) (English) CANADIAN COMPETITOR, SAYING: “Fabulous – I am stalk number 9, this stuff taste great, you really ought to bottle it here, I don’t know why you do this in every market” (SOUNDBITE) (English) UNKNOWN COMPETITOR, SAYING: “I am gonna have a ring stinger if you know what I mean.” (SOUNDBITE) (English) AUSTRALIAN COMPETITOR, SAYING: Interviewer - “Tell me truthfully?” - “It hurts a little.” Lady eating Cutaway – Lady laughing and taking photo Cut up of leaves being put into mouth Ladies winner Mel Lang (with glasses) eating (SOUNDBITE) (English) MEL LANG – LADIES WINNER , SAYING: “They don’t really taste of anything – but they are really really hard to chew.” Close shot of nettle being dipped into beer glass Men’s winner – Mike Hobbs eating. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MIKE HOBBS – MEN’S WINNER , SAYING: “I actually been in training for the last two years. Everyday I go to work you know – bit of a leaf – bit of a try- pretty good.” Mike Hobbs and Mel Lang looking at camera with their cups
- Collection: Hot Under The Collar
- Producer:HUTC
- Transmission Date:01/06/2009
- Decade: 2010s