Alex Casey chews on the serious issues with Nela Zisser, competitive eater and YouTube sensation.
Nela Zisser is planning her next big meal: an entire block of butter. Or perhaps three kilos of fish and chips. Or perhaps another attempt at eating 100 McDonald’s cheeseburgers. Despite the YouTube star being six years into her competitive eating career, she still has many food Everests to conquer. “I might try and eat the most expensive Subway sandwich I can make,” she mused, brainstorming her next videos aloud.
The ex-model’s competitive eating career began with a Sal’s pizza contest in 2013, winning out against 19 “huge guys” at the age of 22. “People were quite surprised because I’ve also always looked a lot younger than I am. Even though I was in my 20s, everyone was like ‘what the fuck is going on here’ because I looked about 16.” She ate one-and-a-half 18-inch pizzas and won $1500. “I won a lot of money so I thought I might as well keep doing it,” says Zisser.
Her next big break came during Mad Mex’s infamous one kilogram burrito challenge. “My friend filmed it for me – it was so shit,” she remembers. “It was in portrait mode on his bad phone and it just looked absolute trash.” Low quality as it may be, Zisser can be seen demolishing the enormous sack of beans and meat in less than two minutes. She doesn’t appear to chew, or swallow, her jaw seemingly dislodged like a snake. It’s hypnotic to watch.
“I ended up putting that video on my YouTube channel just to share it with my friends,” she remembers. It quickly went viral, and is now sitting at just over a million views. Most people who win the challenge get a spandex wrestling mask – she got herself a YouTube career.
Four years and hundreds of thousands of calories later, Zisser now has over 200,000 subscribers and uploads new videos every fortnight. Her channel is equal parts delicious and nauseating – for every yum-looking five kilo Chinese food challenge, there’s also Max Key eating a measly amount of chicken nuggets. “Easily my most hated video,” she says. “Because it’s Max Key and people hate Max Key.”
How does the human body react to 36 Creme Eggs, 100 chicken fries, 50 Krispy Kreme donuts? “It’s obviously not a healthy thing for me to do all the time, but if I’m doing one big challenge a month then my body can deal with it.” Filming is often followed with a glass of cold water and a lie down, no running around or leaving the house allowed. “I basically make sure I have nothing else to do that day,” she says.
Although Zisser is naturally gifted in the sacred art of eating, she admits there are simple tips and tricks for the layperson to up their consumption in the event of a buffet situation. “The main thing you have to do is not eat that day,” she says. “I noticed at contests that some people eat a big breakfast – that’s just not something you should be doing if you want to eat a lot of food that day.” Buffet preparation should begin the day before, she says, with several hearty meals to stretch out the stomach.
I told Zisser about my attempt the the Happy Meal challenge, one which culminated in me choking on an ambitious bit of hamburger and having to Heimlich manoeuvre myself over a balcony to survive. She scolded my technique. “If you start choking, you just have to push more food down and then you stop choking. People don’t realise that, they get very scared. Just stay relaxed and don’t freak out, push some more food down and it will dislodge. If you freak out, you’ll choke and die.”
The Spinoff does not endorse this very freaky-sounding method.
Another key to smashing a large meal is to keep your water consumption to small sips. “You should just be using the drink to moisten the food and get it down. I’ll take tiny sips but I will never chug it down – I probably drink only about a cup of water per challenge.” It also helps to use moist foods to your advantage. “If you’re eating a burger, you’ve got to logically think about what you are eating first. You’ve got to use the wet tomato and the lettuce get down the patty and the bread. It’s a lot to think about.”
Despite being an expert in her field, Zisser still isn’t immune to people commenting on YouTube about everything but her incredible skill. “I’d say it’s about 80% good and 20% complete trash. But it’s YouTube, what do you expect?” Having competed in international pageants such as Miss Earth in 2013, she’s very used to being judged on how she looks. “The bad comments are all related to my body, or the way I look – comments that you’d say to a girl but you would never say to a guy.”
It’s a surprise that Zisser has time to look at any of the comments at all – she’s also studying at medical school, and casually drops into conversation that she also owns restaurant Tucks & Bao in Newmarket. “I’d like to do more videos but I’ve got to think about my priorities – med school was very hard to get into so I don’t want to squander it.” She’s looking to eventually specialise in reconstructive trauma surgery, and is about to open a second Tucks & Bao restaurant in Takapuna this month. And that’s all before she’s even managed to eat a block of butter.
Keep going!
Simon Day, Al Brown and Sophie Gilmour tuck in to Carolina ribs (non-meat-eater Alice Neville opted for a Sicilian stuffed pepper skewer) following recording of the great lost podcast (Photo: Tina Tiller)
Simon Day, Al Brown and Sophie Gilmour tuck in to Carolina ribs (non-meat-eater Alice Neville opted for a Sicilian stuffed pepper skewer) following recording of the great lost podcast (Photo: Tina Tiller)
In which Al Brown praised Simon Day’s grillin’ skills and we got it on tape… and then disaster struck. But don’t worry, the recipessurvive.
If legendary chef Al Brown demands you cook his own recipes for him, you spend all night in the kitchen. And when he tells you how delicious everything is and the moment is recorded on a podcast, but no one gets to hear it due to technology erasing its existence – did it ever happen?
Al Brown was the guest on the summer barbecue edition of The Spinoff’s food podcast Dietary Requirements, and we hoped he was going to cook for the staff. But apparently Al finds it hard to talk shit and cook at the same time, so instead he sent me his favourite barbecue recipes and suggested I cook, and he would critique. When I received the recipes for Al’s Carolina-style ribs and jalapeño cornbread from his book Stoked, I was inspired and intimidated. I added my own pork rump steak recipe to show off a little.
Cooking for one of my culinary heroes was a simultaneous dream and nightmare. And when you’re still in the kitchen at 1am the night before your big day, you’re inevitably going to make mistakes. I made two key ones. I hoped Al wouldn’t notice. He did.
Proof it happened (Photo: Tina Tiller)
I marinated the ribs in the spicy southern rub the night before I slow-roasted them, before finally barbecuing them for Al (and The Spinoff staff, who initially had been told Al Brown would be cooking for them). This was where I made my first mistake, which in my opinion turned out to be a happy accident. I read two teaspoons of cayenne pepper as two tablespoons. And then I chose to up the chilli quantity a little because I like spicy ribs, and I added three tablespoons of cayenne to the spice rub – more than five times Al’s recommended amount.
*“Whooooooo!” said Al Brown, as he ran his finger through the marinade. “That’s pretty hot. How much cayenne did you put in there?”
But once they’d been on the grill and the cayenne had mellowed, they had real heat that hit you upside the head. If you ask me, it was exciting, not unbearable.
“You’ve made the recipe your own,” Al said. “It’s your recipe now.”
Rib selfie (Photo: Sophie Gilmour)
For years I’d been left disappointed every time I’d eaten ribs. They seemed perpetually dry and lacking in meat. The meat that did exist you had to work hard to get off the bone. There are two key solutions to this problem. First, use a good pig. The Freedom Farms baby back ribs are long and thick with meat. Second, slow-cook them a day or two in advance of the barbecue – but not for too long. You want them moist and tender, but still holding onto the bone so you can have that experience of tearing the meat from the rib with your teeth. Al’s tip is that after an hour and 20 minutes of the ribs braising in the oven, check them every 20 minutes or so, until you can feel the meat is soft and moist but still holding the bone. “You don’t want it to shake off.”
(An additional tip from Drew at Freedom Farms: scrape off the sinew from the back of the ribs to allow the marinade to penetrate even further.)
On to pork steaks. It’s essential you cook your pork steak medium rare. Too many people are afraid of pink pork, but there’s absolutely no danger in serving barbecue pork rump steaks charred on the outside, and juicy, tender and rare in the centre. Let the grill get super hot before you drop the steaks on the barbecue to let the fat render and the meat colour. But get them off sooner than you think. Let them rest and don’t let anyone send them back for more cooking.
Us again (Photo: Tina Tiller)
It’s exciting to see barbecue culture in New Zealand evolving. The concept of outdoor cooking over fire has always suited our Kiwi psyche. “It fits our nation’s personality. No matter what the style, it evokes the same sentiment: informality, casualness and unpretentiousness,” Al said.
But for decades, that meant sausages on hot plates over gas. While that’s an essential piece of the Kiwi cooking canon, barbecuing over coal is becoming more and more common. Even our vegetarian managing editor of The Spinoff has the highly popular Big Green Egg Kamado barbecue and a bag of coal. The flavour it adds is significant – it takes the food to a primal place.
Al hates the idea of a secret recipe. “Food is made to be shared,” is his ethos. So he’s been kind enough to share the recipes for his ribs, cornbread and salsa. They’re fucking delicious, I know because Al told me so (even if he did notice straight away that I forgot to add the salt to my cornbread. Mistake number 2).
“This is so, so, so good,” Al Brown said with a mouthful of rib he’d just torn effortlessly from the bone. I couldn’t hide my grin. Al Brown loved my food. You’re going to have to believe me.
Al Brown’s Carolina-style ribs, as cooked by Simon Day (Photo: Simon Day)
AL BROWN’S CAROLINA-STYLE RIBS WITH JALAPEÑO CORNBREAD AND TOMATILLO AVOCADO SALSA
Serves 6
These ribs are super moist, and the jalapeño cornbread is a recipe Al has been using for over 20 years. It’s not dry like a lot of cornbreads, as it has good amounts of cheese and buttermilk in it.
Tomatillos are around from mid-summer onwards. They are a relation of the tomato, as the name would suggest, and also the cape gooseberry, hence the lantern-style husk that this green fruit grows in. They can be hard to find but are worth seeking out: keep an eye out at farmers markets. You treat them like a tomato and they can be used cooked or raw. I really enjoy their savoury and slightly sour flavour. If you can’t find them, use tomatoes instead.
STEP 1. Carolina rib rub
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
2 tablespoons regular paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper (or 3 tablespoons, if you like it spicy…)
3 slabs of pork ribs, cut in half (about 500g per portion)
Mix the spices together in a small bowl to make the rub. Sprinkle a liberal amount over the ribs, massage in and marinate for at least a day. Refrigerate until required.
STEP 2. First cook of Carolina ribs
2 cups medium-diced onion
2 cups medium-diced carrot
2 cups medium-diced celery
8 cloves fresh garlic, roughly chopped
½ cup American “ballpark” mustard
½ cup cider vinegar
4 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons smoked paprika
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cups water
2 teaspoons Tabasco
Preheat the oven to 150℃.
Put the marinated ribs in a suitable-sized roasting or braising dish. Pour all the rest of the ingredients in a suitable-sized saucepan, set over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved, then pour over the ribs. Cover with tin foil and place the pan on the high heat for 5 minutes before carefully placing in the oven.
Check the ribs after 1 hour 20 minutes, then at 20 minute intervals after that. Remove when the pork is soft but not falling off the bones. Remove the ribs and cool then refrigerate until required for the barbecue.
Allow the braising liquid to cool a little before pureeing until smooth. Pour back into a saucepan then place on medium-low heat and reduce until thick. Cool then refrigerate until required. This becomes your barbecue sauce to brush on as you grill the ribs.
Cornbread: delicious, even without the salt (Photo: Simon Day)
STEP 3. Jalapeño cornbread
⅓ cup olive oil
1½ cups finely chopped onion
¼ cup tinned jalapeño peppers, finely chopped
4 cups corn kernels, roughly chopped
3 cups fine-grain cornmeal
250ml buttermilk
2½ cups grated cheddar cheese
2 teaspoons salt
9 eggs, separated
Preheat your oven to 160ºC.
Line a large skillet with baking paper or greased tin foil, or use two loaf tins.
Place a sauté pan on medium-low heat. Add the olive oil, chopped onion and jalapeño. Sweat for 15 minutes until the onion is transparent and soft. Place in a large mixing bowl along with the corn, cornmeal, buttermilk, grated cheddar and salt. Set aside.
Put the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk until creamy. Put the whites into another clean bowl then whisk to soft peaks. Now fold the egg yolks into the whites to create a light, airy egg mix.
Fold this into the corn and onion mix until fully combined then pour into the lined skillet or two loaf tins.
Place in the oven and bake for 45 minutes until the cornbread is golden and firm to touch. Take a toothpick or similar to check if the centre is cooked.
Remove from the oven and let the cornbread cool a little before turning out.
Cornbread on the grill (Photo: Simon Day)
STEP 4. Tomatillo and avocado salsa
2 roasted red capsicums (skins, seeds removed), cut into medium dice
2 cups medium-diced tomatillos (or use tomatoes)
1 avocado, cut into medium dice
⅓ cup finely diced red onion
1 clove fresh garlic, finely diced
⅓ cup fresh coriander, roughly chopped
½ tablespoon freshly ground cumin seeds
1 teaspoon sweet smoked Spanish paprika (dulce)
juice of 1 lime
⅓ cup olive oil
12 drops chipotle Tabasco (or use regular Tabasco)
½ tablespoon sugar
Put all the ingredients in a bowl except the salt and pepper. Mix to combine then season accordingly. Refrigerate until required.
STEP 5. The barbecue
Get your char grill (or your gas barbecue if it’s your only option) to a high heat.
Lightly oil the ribs then place on the heat. Brush with the marinade as you heat through. Remove the ribs once they are golden and nicely charred.
For the cornbread, cut in thick slices and brush with a little oil before cooking on the grill for a couple of minutes to get golden and slightly crunchy.
Serve the ribs on a platter with cornbread and tomatillo salsa on the side.
Rump steaks are beautiful for the barbecue (Photo: Supplied)
SIMON’S MEDITERRANEAN BARBECUE PORK RUMP STEAKS
Serves 6
Rump is beautiful for the barbecue. It’s got lots of beautiful fat that caramelises as it burns over the coals, and injects so much flavour into the meat. Don’t be afraid of serving it medium rare.
This marinade has delicious aniseed notes from the fennel and influences from all around the Mediterranean. If you’ve got time toast cumin seeds, fennel seeds and coriander seeds then grind them in a mortar and pestle. If you don’t, the pre-ground packet stuff is pretty damn good.
At least a day in advance, mix the spices, salt and pepper with enough olive oil to give you a paste consistency. Rub the paste over the steaks and keep them in the fridge.
Use coal if possible, and then get the barbecue as hot as you can. Sear the steaks until they start to blacken and the fat starts to caramelise – max three minutes each side.
Rest and slice into strips to reveal the glistening medium-rare pork meat.
