With his hands tied behind his back, 22 year old Manhattanite Shai Pariente of West Nyack, NY ate 12 oven-baked cockroaches Friday night as part of the promotion for the opening of the IMAX film "A Rainforest Adventure: Bugs! in 3D," in West Nyack. Mr. Pariente went home as the fastest cockroach eater with an Apple iPod in his pocket for what he said wasnit that tough of a task.
"They were good," he told The Journal News. "Crunchy and salty. I would eat them again."
Runner-up Noam Gil, 23, of the Bronx lost by one cockroach. Third-place winner Elisabeth Dominguez, 19, of Haverstraw, NY ate three of the insects before "one became lodged in the back of her mouth and she retired to the theater ladies room to expel the bug, along with the chicken fajitas she had just eaten for lunch," The Journbal wrote.
The promotion was tied to the local showing of the popular IMAX film, which follows the life of two insects, a praying mantis and a caterpillar, in the jungles of Borneo. Author and chef David George Gordon was on hand for the promotion. Mr. Gordon said he has visited 22 states and two foreign countries cooking insects and challenging locals to eat scorpions, crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms to promote the film and to teach people that bugs are not all that bad.