Eat your greens

Dorset’s annual stinging nettle eating championship was first held at the Bottle Inn near Bridport in 1986. After a gap of three years when the pub was closed, the ritual has been revived by the current owners – who also champion an annual contest to grow the tallest nettle. The event always takes place on the summer solstice weekend. My friends and I were on our way to Glastonbury Tor with sleeping bags to camp out and witness the longest day, so what better way – we decided – to spend the hot June afternoon than among an estimated 1,000 spectators who have turned up from all over the world to witness their fellow human beings suffering? (And, of course, there is the fact that not all global endurance events take place in front of a charming, thatched 16th-century inn with cider on tap.)

Thirty-one competitors took part this year. Each of them were handed six 2ft nettle stalks at a time. The aim of the competition is simple: to strip the leaves from as many of these 2ft long stalks as possible, and eat them. Several of the competitors are old hands at this sport. Different tactics are employed. Some first soften their pile of leaves with spit and roll them up; others, wisely, choose to chug them back with a strategic cider, moistening the leaves while soothing the mouth and mind (a strategy that is surprisingly allowed); the strangest competitors of them all choose to munch their leaves dry as if they were a favourite bar snack.

There aren’t many rules. I’m told that competitors are immediately disqualified if they leave the table or are sick (though, grimly, if they are sick into their pint glass they are allowed to remain in the competition). While a couple of green-toothed contestants test this particular judgment, I wolf down a bun of delicious hog roast covered in sticky apple sauce. It feels like a quintessentially British day.

It’s a separate contest to plough through the cider-soused crowd to get to the loo. A small window is propped open inside the ladies so we don’t miss a second of the competition; a couple of those waiting in line have attended since the beginning, they tell me, and wouldn’t miss a year. Another woman explains that she had “overheard a couple talking about it” at another pub and “simply had to find out more”. It’s extraordinary how watching humans perform in such a primal competition brings people together.

The competition, almost unbelievably, lasts an hour. The competitors’ faces become increasingly slick with sweat under the beating sun and begin to take on the colour of the stingers they are devouring. With a few minutes to go the chants and whistles from the tipsy crowd become louder. Some competitors are panicking now, stripping the leaves frantically and trying to shove them down, while the slow and steady regulars maintain a continual calm. When time is called the piles of stalks are counted.

The two winners with the longest combined length of eaten stalks are both defending champions from 2025. The overall champ is Lucy Dermody, who ate 68ft of stinging nettles, while Michael Hobbs, 54ft, retains the mens’ championship title, and promptly announces his retirement from “professional eating”. Each of them is handed a traditional flask of cider as a trophy. Through a winning green smile, Hobbs tells me: “My hands are throbbing, my mouth is throbbing, and that will last for a couple of days.” He sticks out his tongue, which is dyed black by the nettles. I feel an instinctive urge to mirror the gesture, like we’ve stumbled upon a long-lost language.

Illustration by Oscar Ingham