THERE are times when nothing but comfort food will do. Fish finger sandwiches – two slices of white plastic bread, slather with butter, squash four grilled fish fingers with a fork so they reach the crust-to-crust corners, finish off with a twist of pepper – are my particular solace when the going gets tough.

There’s usually a bit of a guilt thing afterwards but learning about Philadelphia’s annual chicken wing eating contest has put paid to that.

We all know Americans can be a bit in your face and somewhat excessive but this takes the biscuit. Or chicken wing, come to that. The Wells Fargo 25,000-seater stadium is home to the annual contest where the aim is for competitors to outdo each other with the amount of chicken wings they can eat in 30 minutes before throwing up.

‘You heave, you leave!’ goes up the chant as participants with ridiculous names like Tiger Wings n Things cram the wings into their mouths, barbecue sauce and grease dribbling down their chins, with the cameras zooming in for the kill when they finally vomit their way out of the challenge.

The winner is a housewife from Nebraska who breaks the world record of 348 wings in the time allowed, finally coming to a stop after she’s rammed 363 of the things down her throat. She not only does chicken wings – she apparently once ate a 72-ounce steak in two minutes 44 seconds.

This penchant for stuffing yourself silly is a big thing in America. There’s even an International Federation of Competitive Eating with its Major League Eating arm being the ‘world body’ that oversees all ‘professional’ eating contests.

It describes competitive eating as a sport and helps sponsors to ‘develop, publicise and execute world-class eating events in all varieties of food disciplines,’ adding that MLE-sanctioned eating contests provide ‘dramatic audience entertainment’ (the drama no doubt being when people dramatically spew their guts up) and offer an ‘unparalleled platform’ for media exposure.

World records include 72 cupcakes being eaten in six minutes, 11 pounds of cheesecake in nine minutes, six pounds of baked beans in 1 minute 48 seconds and nine pounds 5.2 ounces of deep fried asparagus spears in ten minutes.

And as if any of that isn’t bad enough some person, who was clearly short of a brain cell or three, ate 57 cow brains weighing 17.7 pounds in 15 minutes to take the cow brain eating crown. Just the sort of thing you’d be dying to tell the grandchildren….

Over here we’re not as excessive as our American brethren but there’s a worrying trend emerging that involves eating food servings for free if you can down the lot in the allotted time.

A 9lb fry-up including 12 rashers of bacon, 12 sausages, six eggs, four slices of black pudding, four slices of bread and butter, four slices of toast, four slices of fried bread, two hash browns (only two?), an eight-egg cheese and potato omelette, plus sauté potatoes, mushrooms, beans and tomatoes is on offer for 15 quid – with free heart attack thrown in - at a diner in Great Yarmouth.

Closer to home a roadside eating establishment near York, billing itself as Britain’s first extreme diner, offers up a two feet high stack of buttermilk pancakes complete with fruit and syrup and weighing in at four pounds for have-a-go challengers to consume in 90 minutes.

Or you can tackle their 6lb burger challenge consisting of a 2lb burger, 1lb bread roll, 2lb of skinny fries and 1lb of battered onion rings. And you can also pit yourself against the clock by attempting to eat 4lbs of nachos topped with pulled pork, chilli, cheese, salsa and sour cream in 45 minutes.

Now I love my food and always have done. In fact, my dad used to tell me when I was a kid that I ate with my eyes as admonishment for grabbing more roast spuds than was deemed ladylike. I’ve got more than 1,200 cookery books at home that I’ve collected over 30 years, and I’m always dreaming up new recipes to try.

I take cookbooks to bed and fall asleep dreaming of new dishes to create. Therapy when the world crowds in, is spending an afternoon conjuring up stuff in the kitchen. And not just fish finger sandwiches either…

But stuffing as much down your gullet as you can in the manner of a force-fed goose? No thanks. For what really sticks in the craw is the ones who are winning these ridiculous events are usually as thin as a lat with not an ounce of excess fat on them…