Every year in late August, Your Hot Sauce Company hosts the 'I Like it Hot' Festival, the largest spicy foods show in Florida at Largo's Minnreg Hall. Along with an array of vendors offering sauces, salsas, marinades, and the like — all ranging from mild to nuclear — the festival holds amateur salsa and hot sauce competitions, as well as my favorite event: the jalapeno eating contest.

This year, eighteen competitors ran the gauntlet by attempting to consume a pound and a half of jalapeno peppers that had been doused in green chile sauce. Twelve men, four women and two youngsters around seven years-old had three minutes to consume all of the peppers on their plate. Whoever finished first then had to wait five minutes during the 'regurgitation period' in order to see if they'd expel what had just gone down. If so, they'd be disqualified and the next person who finished would be in line to win. First prize was a huge trophy and three bottles of hot sauce, courtesy of Tahiti Joe's. All other contestants received a consolation prize of a bottle of hot sauce as well, though I'm sure if many of them would be eating hot sauce for awhile after subjecting themselves to this kind of torture.

In under the three minutes time, the first to wolf down all of the peppers was Natasha Leslie. She quickly jumped up in a fit of glory, shocking the other contestants at her speed and size — she was the smallest in the group, excluding the kids. (Seriously, there were some great "WTF?!" faces from the guys.) After five minutes of keeping her capsicums down, Leslie was named the 2010 champ of the jalapeno eating competition. At around 5'2", the trophy was almost as big as she was.

Check out some of the competitors in action below:

This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.