Hopkins senior and actress Liz Gilbert -- tall, thin, and striking -- doesn't look like your typical competitive eater.
Having recently starred in The Marriage of Bette and Boo in the Merrick Barn this past weekend, in addition to competing in Tuesday's "Hopkins Top Model" competition, Gilbert is also the two-time champion and record holder of the Pete's Grille pancake eating contest.
"Liz is gorgeous," senior Michelle Miano, who also competed in the November competition, said, "but she has an incredible competitive streak. Once she puts her mind to something, she's doing it."
Even Gilbert agrees.
"I can be really intense when I set my mind to something," she said. "I worked at a discotheque in Spain, and I would charge through crowds of people with my tray. They called me El Toro."
Gilbert first won the competition during her sophomore year, when she set the record for most pancakes eaten by a female in one hour -- 12 1/2.
"It was totally impulsive," Gilbert said. "I had been sick the week before and drinking a lot of water, so my stomach stretched. I don't know how I did it, but until anybody beats it, I get free breakfast."
The following year, Gilbert again competed in the contest -- but tragedy struck at pancake number nine.
"She was winning the girls contest, but she was trying to beat the boys," Miano said. "She was on pancake nine, and she threw up. She lost the money but kept the title."
Gilbert's strategy is simple: Drink a lot of water beforehand, eat as much as you can in the first 20 minutes before your body registers that it's full, and then pace yourself.
"I use a lot of my acting techniques -- breathing, meditation to stay centered -- because it's like a performance. It's not like eating for taste. It's engorging. It's like sprinting and then hanging on."
According to Miano, "she dips the pancakes in water and scrunches them up so they take up less space in her stomach."
"This year, I decided I was only going to eat as many as I needed to win, and I only ate 10 1/2," she said. "I regained my crown, the record still stands, and I won $500, which I plan to use to go to Mexico with."
But Gilbert hasn't consumed massive quantities of carbs and starches simply for the money. She has other motivations that she considers far more important.
"There's also all these feminist things I say to myself," Gilbert said. "There are all those girls out there who don't eat: This is for them. The idea of saying to yourself, `I'm a girl, and I don't need to prove anything by not eating,' is important. I'm a woman and I can eat."
Gilbert, who has also directed a campus production of The Vagina Monologuese2 admits that she has a rebellious streak in her.
"Eating is such a faux-pas for women. Eating and food, for American women, is too big a deal. I like to see people take it less seriously, take their bodies less seriously, and this is something that's emblematic of that," she said.
"[Expletive deleted] it. I don't care if people think I eat a lot. If you keep a regular diet and exercise and feel good about yourself, I don't see why you can't go out and do something excessive every once and a while."
As an actress, Gilbert has always been aware of body stereotypes: She runs constantly and watches her diet, but she also loves pancakes.
"I can see how it's funny when someone who's tall and somewhat thin does something like this," she said. "Everybody's self-conscious about something. I think women are beautiful in any sense and shouldn't defer themselves from doing things that are stereotypically unsexy or unfeminine. I think it's important to broaden the boundaries of things people think of as feminine."
There's also an added bonus to the competition: a phenomenal ab workout and an amazing sugar high.
"Your abs pulse and strain when you're digesting your food," Gilbert said. "When you're eating like this, you're using those muscles a lot, and my abs hurt like hell the next day."
"She was a little wobbly walking home," Miano said. "She always comes back afterward, takes a nap, and feels amazing when she wakes up from eating so many carbs."
"It's a huge high," Gilbert said. "I literally feel better than I have in my entire life. But then that night, I'll go ahead and eat dinner. Why not?"
