This one is inspired by that episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets into a Giant Steak-eating contest, itself inspired by the actual Giant Steak-eating challenges hosted at various restaurants — the most well-known, based on my research at least, being The Big Texan Steak Ranch, which I think is somewhere in Delaware…
[That was a joke; it’s in Amarillo]
The standard size for Giant Steaks seems to be 72 ounces. That these steaks are 80 Gallicantu ounces doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bigger, it’s meant to represent that historical weights and measures didn’t correspond exactly to each other until scientific, international standardisation really caught on relatively recently in history. You can assume that 80 Gallicantu ounces is more or less equal to 72 actual ounces.
Kat being a Big Eater has been established since at least The Bandits of Goldharbour, and I’m sort of vacillating on whether she’s canonically this Big and Eater, but since these sort scenes are dubiously canonical (admittedly, basically all of the Realmgard canon is fairly dubious; it’s never been a huge priority for me as a writer), I can exaggerate it for deliberate humourous effect.
So, anyway, here’s Kat eating a Giant Steak.
Amara Valda watches the sorry spectacle unfolding before her in horror. Powers help her, she’d rather be at, to quote the plebeians of Porthaven, the Wrasslin’…
“Oh,” she groans, burying her face in an elegantly manicured hand. “Sweet Iona, save me.”
She heaves a heavy sigh.
“Honestly,” she mutters to herself. “Why am I surprised? Of course Katherine would go and enter an eating contest.”
It recently came to Kat’s attention that a cookhouse in Porthaven’s market district has been challenging hungry passers-by to compete against the cookhouse’s resident very large and very hungry professional eater Erasmus the Devourer.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the proprietor of the cookhouse says to the diners, standing between Kat and Erasmus the Devourer’s places at raised tables in the centre of the cookhouse. “Once again, a brave and hungry soul has accepted the challenge of Erasmus the Devourer!”
“Yay,” Amara says half-heartedly. A lady, after all, needs must support her dearest friend, even in such a mad endeavour as competitively eating a gigantic slab of cow.
“The rules,” the proprietor continues, “could not be simpler. Our friend Kat here has one hour to out-eat our reigning, defending, undisputed king of the steaks Erasmus the Devourer. First to finish 80 Gallicantu ounces of prime beef wins twelve shiny marks!”
“Less talk,” Kat says, knuckles whitening around her knife and fork. “More steak.”
“Katherine!” Amara shrieks. “What are you doing?”
Kat looks up quizzically from the roll she’s currently buttering.
“What?”
“Why are you eating the rolls?”
Kat stares blankly.
“I’m hungry.”
“What about the enormous steak?”
“Pfft,” Kat scoffs. “They’re weighing it in Gallicantu ounces, that’s nothing.”
She pops the roll into her mouth.
Amara throws up her hands in disbelief.
“Don’t eat the entire basket of rolls!”
“I’m hungry. And my steak isn’t ready yet.”
“Finally,” Kat says through a mouthful of rolls as the quite frankly worryingly large steak is laid at her place at the raised table.
And she tears into it like a Turoshark into a, well, worryingly large steak…
“Oh,” Amara groans. “I’m going to be sick.”
Kat wipes her mouth with her napkin and holds up her plate.
“Is there more?” she asks hopefully.
The proprietor blinks dumbly down at her. Even Erasmus the Devourer drops his fork in disbelief.
“Yeah,” Kat says. “Like, maybe two or three more? This place really needs bigger portions.”
The entire cookhouse watches in mixed horror and amazement as Kat tears through another 240 Gallicantu ounces of beef.
“Right,” Kat says, finally sated, looking up at the proprietor. “What’s for dessert?”
“Well, uh,” he stammers. “We’ve got a chocolate cake and a coconut cream pie.”
“Sounds good,” Kat says.
Defeated and for the first time in his life, out-devoured, Erasmus the Devourer slinks sobbing from the cookhouse. Amara is moved by pity for the second-hungriest soul in Porthaven. It’s hardly his fault that he ran up against the remorselessly, bottomlessly hungry pit that is Katherine Hortensia Darkstone’s stomach.
“There, there, Mr. the Devourer,” Amara says, gently patting him on the shoulder. “Perhaps it’s time to consider a more worthy and dignified career.”
“You’re right,” he declares. “I’m going to Law School.”
As it happens, the record for Giant Steaks is apparently three in 20 minutes, accomplished by a woman back in 2015.
Which is bemusing on any number of levels…
A reminder that I’ll be posting a preview of the next Realmgard story, The Valley of Appraisal tomorrow.
In the meantime, follow me here:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The author prohibits the use of content published on this website for the purposes of training Artificial Intelligence technologies, including but not limited to Large Language Models, without express written permission.
All stories published on this website are works of fiction. Characters are products of the author’s imagination and do not represent any individual, living or dead.
The realmgard.com Privacy Policy can be viewed here.
Realmgard is published by Emona Literary ServicesTM
