Displays of the Grotesque

Wall Street Fat Cats Killing Time by Literally Making Themselves Fat

Like this, but with suits.
Like this, but with suits. Photo: iStockphoto

Well, this sounds lovely: This week, The Daily checks in on the world of Food Eating Challenges, a thing that’s apparently quite popular among the city’s financial types. What, you say, is a Food Eating Challenge? “The trend is new and only spottily documented, but high-stakes eating contests are catching on among traders and other employees at hedge funds, banks and investment firms in New York City and beyond.” So basically, people have to eat some insane amount of food in a given amount of time. It’s kind of a mix of that hard-boiled-egg scene from Cool Hand Luke and the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest! And, of course, people get money when they accomplish this. And every sporting league has its superstar: The one here is “Ian Roncoroni, a 27-year-old energy options broker who ate 244 raw oysters in an hour, earning $3,500.” So next time you’re somewhere like the Dutch, wondering why those Kumamotos you ordered cost $3 apiece, know that it’s partly because this asshole is driving the price up by eating 200 at a time. [Daily via Fork in the Road/VV]

Wall Street Fat Cats Killing Time by Literally Making Themselves Fat