Egg-Frying Contest

By: © Nelson Taylor 2008

Festival Location: Oatman, AZ, USA

Festival State: Arizona Festivals

Festival Type(s): Food Festivals, Bizarre Festivals

Oatman (elev. 2,800 feet) is certainly not the hottest spot in America, but the sidewalks surrounding this 159-person town get pretty hot every July 4th -- 106 degrees of heat to be precise. And to celebrate their heat, Oatman hosts an annual solar egg-frying contest. In front of a crowd of about 1,500, about twenty contestants every year use anything from aluminum foil to magnifying glasses to homegrown solar devices to get an egg fried in fifteen minutes or less.

Fred Eck from the Oatman Chamber says, "There was one guy one year who even cooked potatoes and bacon with his egg." But beware, the hills around Oatman house quite a population of egg-loving wild burros. That's right, and you should expect to see a good many of them strolling the streets looking for ways to be stubborn.

The contest costs nothing to enter, and winners win nothing but fifteen minutes of small town fame. What a concept!