THE DAY THAT D2 BEAT OLD IRON GUT AT AN EATING CONTEST

Alright time to take a stab at this…. I would hate for the Heald family archives to be filled before I have my say.  So as most people already know I didn’t get to live with my dad, but as anyone who has listened to me narrate while taking footage on a video camera would attest my dad has had a very obvious impact on my personality. Another example of this was when I came to visit him while he was living in Edmonton. He was watching the oilers on TV, gleefully cheering their every move while cursing the very existence of the hated Calgary Flames who since I lived in Calgary were my adopted team. Unfazed by this obvious conflict of loyalties I informed my dad of our common deep-rooted love of the Edmonton Oilers and proceeded to sit with him and cheer them on to what I can only assume was another one of many lopsided victories over an obviously overmatched Calgary Flames team. This one game with my dad was the beginning of my life as an actual honest to goodness Edmonton Oilers fan (you should see my man cave).

Another way that I attempted to emulate my dad was by proudly agreeing to eat anything and everything that is put in front of me. This for the most part has been pretty easy over the years and I have managed to develop a pretty broad palate. There was a Christmas that this was really put to the test though. It was when he lived in Calgary on the golf course at Douglasdale Estates (I think….) He had purchased four “100 year old” duck eggs for the lofty price of $25 apiece and challenged everyone to join him in the culinary experience of a lifetime. Upon hearing crickets in response, the old man might have thought that he was destined to dine alone. I, of course, knew that this was the moment that I had been training for my whole life so I stepped up and said that I would be happy to join the adventure. The duck eggs were packed in salt (thus artificially aging them, I don’t think they are actually 100 years old). I have included a picture (#1) of what these eggs looked like after removing the salt.

I was somehow chosen to go first so without hesitation I chomped into the century old snack hoping like hell there wasn’t a beak or feathers to deal with. Once biting into my egg I was relived that it was reminiscent of a extraordinarily salty hard boiled egg in its texture. Thankfully no feathers or little duck feet. Picture number (#2) is pretty representative of what my egg looked like after I bit into it. I pretty easily choked down the rest of my egg and in survivor challenge fashion I proudly displayed my tongue for everyone to see that I had swallowed the egg completely. Dad must have felt buoyed by the relative ease that I managed to eat my egg so he promptly peeled the salt off of his chosen egg and popped it into his mouth confident that his experience would be every bit as “pleasurable” as mine.

His confidence was promptly replaced by a look of horror that told everyone in the room that he wasn’t finding the whole experience as yummy as he hoped. He made his first unsuccessful attempt at swallowing the egg as everyone watched on in confusion. Surely, we thought, he had eaten much worse things than this over the years. We had all heard the stories. His eyes started watering and he made another unsuccessful attempt at trying to swallow the twenty five dollars that he had in his mouth. This was when a black tarry looking substance began dribbling down his chin. If my egg could be best described as hard-boiled, dads egg was more reminiscent of a soft boiled egg (picture #3).  With a lone tear running down the side of his face dad made another brave attempt at swallowing his egg. This time he managed to keep it down, he proudly declared “that was yummy, who wants to try the next one”.

You never heard a house filled with H…ds quieter than that house was at that moment. And who could blame anyone for not stepping up. Lets face it, if the king of worldwide culinary adventures struggled that much to swallow one of these tasty little treats there wasn’t much chance anyone else was going to manage. I was becoming more proud at the success of my effort by the minute. Undaunted dad decided that it was just a matter of heating the egg up a bit to change the texture. Naturally he decided that barbequing the egg was the answer. He fired up the grill, peeled the next egg and placed it in the BBQ and eagerly anticipated his shot at redemption. Approximately 10 minutes later he went back to check on the status of his, hopefully fully cooked, appetizer. He lifted the lid a BOOM the egg exploded everywhere. After presumably doing a moisture check on the old undies and teaching us a few words that we hadn’t heard previously he decided that he wasn’t hungry for any more century old duck eggs.