Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 8, 1991 TAG: 9102080566
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
On the other days, he eats a sandwich with hot peppers at Pierre's on Williamson Road.
Some nights, Hager eats taco salad for supper. He ladles on some smoke - hot taco sauce - and chows down.
It is a tough training regimen for Hager, but the hard work and the gastrointestinal discomfort have paid off. He has triumphed in each of the past six pepper-eating contests held in Roanoke as part of the Virginia State Chili Cook-Off.
Last year, he wolfed 31 raw, gnarled, nasty jalapeno peppers in five minutes to cement his status as one of this region's pepper-eating immortals. Year before, Hager buried 39 of the evil little intestine igniters.
Wertz's Country Store on the market, which sponsors the pepperfest, vouches for the firepower of the jalapenos. Hager eats skin, meat, dreaded seeds and all.
Robert Hager's a champ, having dispatched every challenger to douse their aching epiglottises.
For his valor, Hager earns a country ham and about 50 bucks. He has gathered much ham over the years.
But there looms now one Johnny Espinoza, a pepperslinger standing, legs spread, in the Main Street dust. There are those who feel that Espinoza has a jalapeno with Robert Hager's number on it tucked in his holster.
Espinoza lives in Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border. He doesn't have a telephone, which helps him to better concentrate on jalapenos.
Johnny Espinoza will emerge again from the mesas of south Texas on Feb. 23 to defend his title as Laredo's - and the world's - premier jalapeno muncher.
Their contest is part of a two-week Washington's Birthday Celebration, and Fernando Zuniga can explain why the jalapeno festival is such a popular event during the gala.
"These guys are amazing," says Zuniga, this year's president of the festivity organization. "They stand right there and puke their guts out."
Zuniga speaks in hushed tones about the legendary Pete Marinovich, a Pennsylvanian who blew into Laredo and retchlessly mopped up the place, winning the pepper matches going away.
To this day, Marinovich holds the record for 87 jalapenos in 20 minutes. Nobody can find him now. Small wonder.
"These are not," warns Odie Arambula, the editor of the Laredo Morning Times, "the ones you and I eat, the ones that are preserved in vinegar with the seeds removed. These are the raw green sons-of-guns."
Robert Hager, Roanoke's great bite hope, is undaunted.
"Their peppers might be a little hotter down there. Might not be," says Hager, the modest champ. "I'd be willing to give it my best shot."
We, as a community, owe it to him and to ourselves to let Robert Hager put us on the map in this, the granddaddy of all pepper-eating competitions.
At stake here is far more than the $1,000 first prize. It is the chance for Roanoke, through Hager, to shine. There are only 25 entries in this belly-blowtorching event. One woman is bound from California. A man is headed for the Rio Grande from Tennessee.
They grab not for their own personal limelight, but for the good of their hometowns, for God and for country.
Problem is, as always, the money. Hager is a gardener for the city. He rolls in no cabbage leaves - literally or figuratively - if you catch my drift.
Can we? Will we? Will this valley chip in to send Robert Hager ($586 round-trip from Roanoke; $450 from Greensboro) on his Chariot of Fire? Will American Eagle Airlines step forward with a goodwill discount?
Phone your pledge to the Hager Hombre Hot Stuff Fund: 981-3336.
by CNB