The Most Minnesotan Eating Contest Ever Launches This June

Forget hockey. We now have a truly, uniquely Minnesotan sport: competitive hotdish eating.

This June, Major League Eating (MLE) will host the first-ever Wild Rice Hotdish Eating Championship at Fortune Bay Casino in Tower, Minnesota.

MLE are the same folks who put on some of the biggest eating contests around, including the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in New York.

According to an announcement on the league’s website, the “history-making event” will be held at 3 p.m. on June 22, with a total of $5,000 in prizes on the line.

The 1st place winner gets to take home $2,500 of that purse.

While this is the first competitive eating championship that focuses on Minnesota’s favorite dish, it’s not MLE’s first Minnesota event.

That honor belongs to the Fortune Bay World Indian Taco Eating Championship, which launched in 2017 and is still going strong.

(Indian tacos, or Navajo tacos, use fry bread instead of tortillas, in case you’ve never had one.)

There are a couple of things to know if you’re interested in proving the strength of your gut at the hotdish contest: first, you must be at least 18 years old, and second, you must “fully acknowledge and understand the inherent dangers and risks associated with participating in an eating contest.”