Eatin’ Mort Hurst — the NC man who once ate 38 eggs in 29 seconds — has died
In his gut-busting prime, Mort Hurst devoured 21 whole watermelons in just 10 minutes, swallowing the seeds as they tore at his throat.
He once consumed 1,248 pistachios in just 5 minutes, busting a tooth on a shell. He tore through 16 double-decker Moon Pies in the time it takes to fry an egg, gorging himself until marshmallows poured out his ears.
And in perhaps his most impressive feat, literally death-defying, he ate 38 soft-boiled eggs in 29 seconds — suffering a stroke.
But he embraced the risk with the nerves of a high-diver, an artist who never talked till his plate was empty and his stomach full.
“I knew what I was doing,” he told the N&O in 2015. “You know when you get behind the wheel of a race car you might die. But you can’t perform in fear. I wanted to be the greatest eater in the world. I accomplished that goal. I modeled myself on Evel Knievel, Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley. The best.”
Hurst died last week at 74 after a stint in hospice care, according to his obituary. A graveside service was held Monday in his native Robersonville, where he grew up, owned an ice factory and served three terms on the town council.
An early eating legend
He gorged his way to eating legend decades before competitive eating aired on ESPN and drew sponsorships from the likes of Pepto Bismol. Well into his 60s, he bragged he could beat Joey Chestnut, the hot dog-scarfer ranked No. 1 by Major League Eating.
In the 1980s, when he broke a string of records, Hurst was so popular that candidates for North Carolina governor sought his endorsement. A district attorney in Nash County wrote and recorded a song in his honor: “The Legend of Eatin’ Mort Hurst.”
“Mort is unique from head to toe,” Rufus Edmisten, former NC Attorney General, told the N&O in 1990. “Between the head and the toe, he must be hollow.”
Hurst trained for competitions by eating six meals a day, interrupting them with jumping jacks, push-ups and squats. Sometimes he ate for speed, sometimes for quantity. He knew how it felt to stab himself in the cheek with his own fork in the heat of food battle, so he filed down the tines in advance.
In the old days, he would flex his fingers before sitting down to a pound of shrimp, windmilling his arms before the starting whistle. Before he ate a bite, the methodical champion would tie his shoes 10 to 15 times until he had the knot perfect. Anything so much as a shoelace out of whack would disturb his concentration.
The stroke in 1991 might have killed him if not for a timely dose of ipecac. Hurst officially walked away from fame so outrageous he would perform eating stunts while hanging upside-down from a crane.
“What a lot of people don’t know is this: competitive eaters are athletes,” he told the N&O. “You don’t just go out and sit at a table and eat. That’s a sure way to die. If you drink a gallon of water straight down, it can kill you.”
One last shot at the Collard Festival
But in 2017, Hurst stepped back into the gustatory limelight, announcing he would return to the Ayden Collard Festival against doctors’ warnings and attempt to beat his old record: 7.5 pounds of leafy greens.
“This is the last shot,” he said at the time. “Live or die, this is it.”
He did not die.
He spent weeks training at the Roberson McDonalds, staring down boxes of chicken nuggets behind a pair of dark sunglasses, dipping them in barbecue sauce and consuming 100 for practice.
And while he may not have passed his old record, he showed people the excitement of a life lived to its full potential, the thrill of setting and meeting a risky goal, the and the immortality gained by becoming the best at one thing.
This story was originally published July 19, 2023 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Eatin’ Mort Hurst — the NC man who once ate 38 eggs in 29 seconds — has died."