Sweet Spot With Mike Sugerman: Move Over Hot Dogs, There's A New Eating Competition In Town

NEW YORK (WCBS 880) -- Hot dogs get all the publicity, but there are new foods in town to eat as fast as you can from jalapeno peppers, to peanut butter and bananan sandwiches to mayonnaise.

Last week, in Little Italy the first-ever zeppole eating competition was held at the famous San Gennaro Festival.

Zeppoles are made from a wet pizza dough that's hand-rolled and deep fried in oil before its covered in powdered sugar.

Danny Fratta's family has been making the fried delights at Danny on the Corner in Little Italy for four generations. They sponsored the contest.

Eleven contestants tried for six minutes to stuff as many zeppoles as they could down their throats.

Each bin contained 42 zeppoles, which wasn't enough for champion Wayne Algenio who dipped into a second bin, consuming a total of 54 zeppoles.

"Once I started eating is when I formulated a technique which was try to rip them apart with my fingers first because it was a lot of chewing, they are absolutely delicious, and then I used the water to power them down," Algenio said.

For eating all that dough, Algenio got some dough. He won a $100 prize which he plans to spend on his dog Weston, a hound mix, who he says he also has eating contests with.