Man v. Food Season 3 Episode 12: Jersey Shore
Adam travels to the Jersey Shore to take on the Chicken or the Egg’s Ludicrous Wings Challenge. Adam must down twelve jumbo chicken wings coated in an intense hot sauce in fifteen minutes to win a t-shirt. Thousands have tried the challenge, but only three have succeeded. Adam hears the wing sauce includes a firey mix called “Devil’s Blood”.
The first stop in the Garden State for Adam is Maruca’s Tomato Pies, famous for their saucy topped pizzas. Adam is at Maruca’s for their famed pizza, the Trenton Pie. Adam meets with brothers Joe and Dominic, owners of the restaurant, to see how their “sauce on the top” pizza is made. A montage shows Adam in the kitchen pretending to be a DJ with shades and earphones, “spinning” two Trenton Pie’s like vinyl records. Adam goes back to the kitchen where Joe shows him how the Trenton Pies are put together. Joe brings out a two pound homemade dough and presses it flat in their heated metal pizza dough press. From there Joe spins the dough in the air and forms the pizza. The dough is topped with one and a half pounds of a proprietary mix of cheese blend specially made for Maruca’s. Joe then swirls tomato sauce in a spiral on top of the pizza. The saucy pizza with thin crust is baked and comes out of the oven ready to eat. Adam takes a bite of the pizza and says “It goes from an almost fruit-like sweetness when you bite all the sauce, to a rich, almost bakery, buttery-like taste because of the cheese!” Adam goes in for a second bite as Joe samples a piece at the same time. Adam looks over at Joe and tells him “I love you!” as he melts over the flavor of the Trenton Pie.
Adam’s next stop is Hoffman’s Ice Cream & Yogurt, where they make their own homemade ice cream and toppings, a true taste of summer. Hoffman’s offers thirty five flavors of ice cream on their menu in five scoop waffle cones, regular cones and sundaes. Adam visits with diners who tell him the ice cream is “Made with love”, and it tastes “Like velvet in your mouth.” Adam is there to try their monster sized sundae The Octopus. Adam goes back into the kitchen to see how Hoffman’s makes their own ice cream and how The Octopus is made. Rob Falana, the production manager, takes Adam through the steps of creating their signature ice cream base. Rob starts with a five gallon ice cream mix with sixteen percent butterfat. As the mix is poured into the industrial sized ice cream machine, Adam moos loudly! As the mix is loaded Adam mentions the glooping sounds of the mix entering the machine and quips “It’s an Octopus party!” After the basic ice cream mix is ready, Adam takes a spoonful to taste and raves “That’s beyond custard, pudding, cream, love, hugs!” Next to make the fudge mint cookie ice cream Rob and Adam add the fudge and cookies to the basic mix and haul it to the freezer to set up. Rob shows Adam how The Octopus Sundae is made. Rob scoops out eight flavors of ice cream in a huge dish, piles on toppings of hot fudge, caramel, strawberries, cake crunch, cookie dough, chocolate syrup, marshmallow creme and a whipped cream octopus on top. Adam dives into the sundae and says “That’s delicious!”
Adam arrives at The Chicken or the Egg restaurant, where he faces the Ludicrous Wings Challenge. The Chicken or the Egg restaurant is known for their breakfasts and their wings which feature sixteen different dipping sauces. Adam must eat twelve lava-laden jumbo chicken wings in fifteen minutes in order to win the challenge and a t-shirt. Only three challengers out of thousands have succeeded. Adam visits with a diner at the restaurant who describes the wings as zaftig, to which Adam replies “It’s an adjective applied to people of my stature”, meaning his own chubby state of body.
A montage begins in old time black and white film as Adam narrates as the ringmaster of a circus scenes of Adam dressed as the strongman in fake muscle bodysuit at a boardwalk circus, showing off various tricks and skills for the circus crowd.
Adam wants to know what is in the hot sauce used to coat the chicken wings, so he heads back to the kitchen to meet with the owner Mark Cohen as he prepares the wings. Mark and Adam don latex gloves because the sauce is so incredibly hot! Mark creates the wings hot sauce using standard hot sauce from the store, lots of dried cayenne pepper and dried habenero pepper, and their secret Devil Sauce, a concentrated extract of habenero peppers. Adam tells the audience the Devil Sauce is four hundred times hotter than jalepeno peppers! Adam and Mark take a tiny pinky sized taste of the sauce and Adam tells the audience it is so hot he can’t keep from drooling. After tasting the hot sauce Adam tells the audience he doesn’t know if he can complete the challenge.
As Adam enters the restaurant dining room the crowd cheers for him as he sits down to the challenge and the plate of mondo sized chicken wings are placed before him. Adam has his latex gloves on for protection, with milk or beer to cool the heat, along with blue cheese dip for the wings, celery and carrot sticks.
The clock starts ticking and Adam decides to use the strategy of removing the meat from the chicken wings first, then eating the meat. Removing the chicken from the wings takes Adam eight minutes of fifteen minutes. Once he has prepped his plate of chicken he takes a deep breath and gobbles down the first bite of chicken drenched in hot sauce, immediately cursing from the intense heat of the sauce then apologizing to the audience for cursing. Adam keeps eating, deciding nothing will stand between him and cleaning that plate of wings. The crowd chants “Go Adam, go!” over and over as Adam finishes half the plate of wings in five minutes. Adam narrates the scene, saying “Each additional bite feels like a nuclear reaction!”
With two and a half minutes left, Adam has only a few pieces of chicken meat left on the plate. At thirteen minutes into the challenge, Adam takes the last bite of the chicken winning the challenge as the crowd goes wild! Adam tells the audience after eating the plate of wings there are “Flames at the side of my face!” Adam tells the audience that in the Ludicrous Wings Challenge of man vs food, today, man won!
