There were quail eggs, goose liver and seaweed among a variety of foreign and smelly foods, but eight children survived the Fear Factor challenge Friday.
Nancy Carson Library's food competition started out with 16 contestants. After 12 rounds of gross foods, ending with Scottish haggis, nine children remained.
Children's Library Assistant Renee Reel got out her mixing bowl for the 13th round, stirring a combination of ingredients together --- curry sauce, snapper turtle soup, roasted green peas, pickled cockles and more.
The ingredients were poured into drinking cups. Seeing what he would have to drink, William Kalbskopf, 13, opted out of the final round. And then there were eight.
The stop watch came out and the game became who could drink the mixture the quickest.
Richard Sharp, 9, of Graniteville, was declared the winner. He didn't even think it was nasty.
"It tasted good," he said.
The worst thing he had to eat was seaweed, he said.
Richard competed to prove one thing; he is gross.
"I wanted to prove I am grosser than her," he said of his cousin, Krista Paschall, 9, of Beech Island.
Krista survived through the final round, but couldn't out drink her cousin. She said eating the pickled quail eggs in the first round was tough, but that she now likes roasted green peas.
Reel shopped for her ingredients at The Curiosity Shop in Aiken this year instead of a local grocery store. She thought Fear Factor would be much harder, but said the children's ability to eat the foods surpassed her expectations.
"I can't gross them out," she said. "I thought for sure the haggis would (do it)."
Richard won a McDonald's and Gary's Hamburgers gift certificate and coupons to local restaurants.
Reach Crystal Garcia at crystal.garcia@northaugustatoday.com.
