Survivor Smorgasbord (popularly known as the "Gross-Food Eating Challenge") is a recurring challenge that originated in Survivor: Borneo and was used in later seasons.
Rules
In this challenge, castaways must eat a variety of native, (usually gross) foods. This challenge has appeared multiple times throughout the Survivor series.
As a tribal challenge, whoever finishes the dish first, wins a point for their respective tribe. When this challenge is used as an individual challenge, the last person to finish each dish is out, the last player remaining wins.
History
In its debut during "The Generation Gap" in Survivor: Borneo, where the survivors were to eat a serving of butok or bug larvae. If a contestant refused to eat the beetle larvae, the contestant's tribe would automatically lose the challenge for the tribe. In order to break the tie, each tribes' most squeamish member faced off. Gervase Peterson and Stacey Stillman were pitted against each other. Stacey finished the larva first and won for Tagi.
The challenge returned in the Survivor: The Australian Outback episode "Suspicion", where a person from each tribe would compete against someone from the other. A spinning wheel determined what was to be eaten. This time, if someone refused to eat or threw up, they would lose a point for their tribe. Again, the challenge ended in a tie. Kimmi Kappenberg and Tina Wesson were chosen for the tiebreaker, and Kimmi won for Kucha by eating a mangrove worm first.
Another variation of this challenge appeared in the Survivor: Africa episode "Who's Zooming Whom?" where castaways had to drink a shot of cow's blood. During the early rounds of the challenge, milk was added to the blood to make it more appetizing. This challenge ended in a tie, in which Kelly Goldsmith and Linda Spencer had to drink a full glass of pure cow blood. Linda finished first and won for Samburu.
The challenge again appeared in Survivor: Marquesas. Tribe members had to eat farfaru (sunbathed fermented fish). This challenge ended in a tie, so Rob Mariano and Neleh Dennis had to compete against each other in the tiebreaker. Rob threw some of it up, while Neleh finished first and won for Rotu.
The first time that it was used in the post-merge phrase was in Survivor: Thailand, it was used as the Loved Ones Challenge. The last loved one standing won, Helen Glover's husband Jim won over Jake Billingsley's wife Jenny. At the final four Immunity Challenge, its final round was a tarantula-eating contest. Eventual season winner Brian Heidik won the challenge.
A tournament-style format was incorporated in Survivor: The Amazon, Survivor: Caramoan, and Survivor: Blood vs. Water where Matthew von Ertfelda, John Cochran, and Monica Culpepper won respectively.
In Survivor: Pearl Islands, and Survivor: Samoa, the tribes faced off by individually facing off against each other in a smoothie drinking challenge, where several exotic food items were mixed into a single disgusting concoction. The Morgan and Galu tribes won them, respectively.
The challenge was reused in Survivor: All-Stars as an individual Reward Challenge, where the reward was a pizza feast with the winner's loved one to be enjoyed at the old Chapera camp. Similar to Thailand, the loved ones competed for reward. The slowest to finish a dish each round was eliminated. Tom Buchanan's son Bo won this challenge over Rob Mariano's brother Mike.
In Survivor: Palau, Koror selected Tom Westman and Ian Rosenberger to compete against Ulong's last members, Stephenie LaGrossa and Bobby Jon Drinkard. The castaways had to eat balut. The first four rounds was even. The final round was time trial, which two castaways had to eat five balut. Tom finished his balut first, winning Koror 500 gallons of fresh water and various toiletries.
In Survivor: Cambodia, each castaway took turns eating Cambodian delicacies in order to try to score a point for their tribe. After an extremely close match, Bayon scored the winning point, earning them immunity.
Winners
Gallery
Trivia
- Dirk Been was the first castaway to finish a food item in this challenge.
- This challenge was used as the second Immunity Challenge in the first four seasons of Survivor.
- Survivor: Thailand became the first season to not feature the challenge in its second episode.
- Amber Brkich, Andrew Savage, Ciera Eastin, Gervase Peterson, Jenna Lewis, Kelly Wiglesworth, Kimmi Kappenberg, Laura Morett, Rob Mariano, Rupert Boneham, Tina Wesson, and Tom Buchanan have all been a part of this challenge twice.
- However, Amber, Jenna, Rob, Rupert, and Tom only directly participated once, because it was their loved ones who did the eating the second time around in Survivor: All-Stars.
- Kimmi is the only castaway to win this challenge twice, despite failing to herself digest the food on both occasions due to being a vegetarian.
- Beetle larva and balut (duck embryo) are the most commonly occurring food items that have been featured; Borneo, Thailand, The Amazon, Caramoan, and Blood vs. Water for beetle larva and All-Stars, Palau, China, Caramoan, and Cambodia for balut.
- When this challenge was used as a Loved Ones Challenge, the loved ones themselves competed.
- This challenge appeared in the first eight seasons of the show.
- Every person who has won this challenge as an Individual Immunity Challenge has made it to the Final Tribal Council.