# Has anyone ever eaten their shoe? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 19, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944 "2004-02-19T04:21:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/1 "2004-02-19T04:21:03Z")
As per the expression, if (unlikely event) happens, I’ll eat my shoe! Well, if has anyone ever lost that bet and done it? I tried a search and didn’t see anything. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/2 "2004-02-19T04:47:04Z")
I don’t know about a shoe, but if you look in the _Guinness Book of World Records_ a guy named “Mr. Mangetout” has eaten, among other things, a bicycle and an airplane. IIRC, he ground them up before ingesting them. A guy like that probably eats shoes like you eat french fries. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/3 "2004-02-19T04:58:04Z")
I’ve never heard of “I’ll eat my shoe”. “I’ll eat my hat”, yes. Which I could do, being the owner of a straw hat. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/4 "2004-02-19T05:04:36Z")
[This guy](http://216.97.50.144/WWW/TopFilms/Chaplin/chaplin4.jpg) did. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/5 "2004-02-19T05:22:09Z")
CNN’s Tucker Carlson said he’d eat his shoe if Hillary Clinton’s book sold a million copies. But it looks like he didn’t go through with it: [http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/09/tucker.shoe/](http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/09/tucker.shoe/) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/6 "2004-02-19T06:53:21Z")
You boil leather long enough and it becomes a gelatinous mass. Film director Werner Herzog made a bet with his friend, documentary maker Errol Morris, that if Morris ever completed his first project, _Gates of Heaven_, about a pet cemetery, Herzog would eat his shoe. But Morris did complete it, and Herzog boiled (and boiled and boiled and boiled) a leather shoe and then ate it. Les Blank filmed it as _[Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0081746/combined)_. ---
**Author:** ![CelraySoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@CelraySoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CelraySoda)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/7 "2004-02-19T07:52:57Z")
I used to live in San Francisco and Mangetout was very popular due to his eating experience and location was like 20 miles away from us, even though it was a secret when he did these stunts. Jeff Havaraugh in Berkely, an aspiring med student in miochemical engineering tried to eat a green converse hightop in 2000. He did the whole boiling thing, even though it wasn’t leather. From what I hear he got sick and couldn’t finish. If it was leather, it was probably more possible, you never know. I got these facts from the 101 Pub on Market st. I remember all this because I thought I could do it…then I lost my motivation. -M ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/8 "2004-02-19T13:39:48Z")
For his movie **The Gold Rush** , Charlie Chaplin’s character ate a shoe. But I’ve heard that the shoe used was licorice, or something like it. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/9 "2004-02-19T16:45:06Z")
I read a book about the siege of Leningrad (as it was known then). The starving people ate a lot of stuff. Leather from shoes, belts, etc. was a food of next to last resort. (Last resort was stuff like sawdust, not counting, you know, “the other white meat.”) You boil it a long time. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ee59a6/32.png) [@CrazyMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyMonkey)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/10 "2004-02-19T21:40:10Z")
[Eric Taylor eats his hat](http://www.wizards.com/sideboard/article.asp?x=PTSD02%5C425edthat) ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2004, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/11 "2004-02-19T23:23:49Z")
Let’s see…I’ve had to eat crow…had a shot at humble pie…have had egg on my face more times than I can remember…and have certainly had my foot in my mouth enough times. But never actually ate my shoe or my hat, nor heard of anyone else doing so. ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2004, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-eaten-their-shoe/229944/12 "2004-02-20T01:47:30Z")
[The Donner Party](http://www.californiahistory.net/5_PAGES/harbingers_donner.htm) > [@](#): > > When food provisions ran out, first the pack animals were eaten, then the hides and the **boiled leather from their snowshoes** , and finally the flesh of those who died.