Gagging amid slurping in oyster eating contest

Huntington Beach safety officials have plenty on their plates as they ensure the well-being of residents. However, 12 of Surf City’s finest took on a challenge that was more than some could swallow.

More than 50 people gathered inside Ways & Means Oyster House in the Pacific City shopping center Friday to watch Huntington Beach police officers, firefighters and lifeguards slurp down as many fresh oysters they could tolerate in four minutes.

Ways & Means organized the event as a way to build a relationship with safety officials, restaurant co-owner Dena Mathe said.

The group that won the contest received $300 from the restaurant to donate to a charity of their choice. The runners-up received $100, also for charity.

Mathe’s son-in-law and co-owner of Ways & Means, Parnell Delcham, has hosted eating contests at every restaurant that he has owned. The last competition he held was at the 25 Degrees restaurant in downtown Huntington Beach, where safety officials ate hamburgers.

“It’s kind of a tradition with us,” Mathe said.

Friday’s event was a relay-style eating contest, where one by one the four members of a group had one minute to down as many oysters as possible. When one person finished, the next member of the team would jump in and try to do the same.

Every safety official, perhaps because of the courage they have to face on their jobs, was optimistic about his and her — one woman participated — chances, including firefighter Eric Blaska, who said he was planning to eat one oyster per second.

“I’m going to use one hand to feed myself an oyster while my other hand is grabbing the next one,” he said. “It takes some coordination, but as firefighters we have a lot of coordination, so we’ll be able to handle it.”

To begin, the participants gathered around a tall bar table near the middle of the restaurant and watched servers place freshly shucked oysters in their shells.

When they received the go-ahead, the safety officials, one per team, started devouring every oyster they could get their hands on. Firefighter Jason Raymond did what Blaska suggested and practically inhaled oysters using both hands. He finished those in his tray so quickly that he restored to stealing the mollusks from his opponents’ trays.

While the firefighters were eating every oyster in sight, one lifeguard was struggling to keep his oysters down. Lifeguard Sterling Foxtrot managed about a half-dozen in a minute, which was mostly spent gagging.

“I had never eaten raw oysters before, and they were really salty,” he said.

The firefighters ate a whopping 93 oysters, giving them the victory and the $300 prize. Blaska said the money will be donated to the Bolsa Chica Conservancy.

The Police Department knocked down 81 oysters, while the Marine Safety Division managed to put away 63. Police will be donating their money to the 9/11 victims fund, and the lifeguards will allocate their winnings toward a scholarship for the junior lifeguards.

Marine Safety Lt. Claude Panis said the lifeguards should have won the competition because they are always in the ocean. While the Marine Safety Division is a part of the Fire Department, Panis did not hold back from throwing a playful jab at his firefighting colleagues.

“Those fire guys sit around the station cooking and eating all day,” he said jokingly. “They are professional eaters. They’re great, as far as the job they do, but they’re good cooks and know how to eat, so we had a disadvantage from the start.”