by Steven Doyle
Six years ago on a sun parched field at Lake Lewisville the inaugural World Tamale Eating Championship was held. Sponsored by Dallas Tortilla and Tamale Factory and the Old Town Lewisville Association, the event soon began to garner national media attention. The contest was moved to the Western Days Festival in Old Town Lewisville the following year.
Dallas Tortilla & Tamale Factory has organized and donated all of the tamales and labor for the last six years, working with the City of Lewisville and local media outlets to promote the event.
Upon hearing the news of the City of Lewisville’s decision to award the bid to supply the tamales for the eating contest to another entity; Special Events Organizer and owner of the Lewisville location of Dallas Tortilla & Tamale Factory, Rebecca Leal Behnke, shared her thoughts, “Dallas Tortilla & Tamale Factory has always enjoyed being a part of the Western Day Festival. We are especially proud to have built the World Tamale Eating Championship from the ground up. When we received a Request for Proposal on August 19th, for an event that we built from scratch, and given the new parameters for the bid, we made the painful decision to opt out of bidding. My concern for the eating contest and for the overall continuity of the event led me to offer a counter proposal in the chance the City find there was not a successful and qualified bid.”
Behnke continues, “Working with the Eaters and the Major League Eating staff has been a fun and memorable experience; one we will always treasure. We wish nothing but the best of luck to the eaters in this event and plan on being out there to watch as a spectator rather than the organizers.”
In addition she continues to say “We would like to thank the City of Lewisville and Major League Eating for this grand opportunity and to make note that it takes a village to put on an event of this stature. We would not have been able to do it if it weren’t for my loyal husband and children, my extended family and of course the Hot Tamale Crew and our beautiful customers.”
Nationally ranked Eaters have flocked to the eat fete where the world record of 71 Pork tamales was consumed by Eater X aka Tim Janus. Nationally ranked competitive Eaters such as Juliet Lee participated and she won the 5th annual contest with 48 Pork Tamales eaten. The event will again happen on the last Saturday in September at 1:00pm at the Western Day Festival.
