The Great Eater of Kent

Some people make it into the history books by becoming world leaders. Some do so through acts of daring or heroism. Some do so by creating immortal works of art. And some, like the hero of today’s post, do so by eating an entire sheep in one sitting.It’s a funny old world.About all we know for sure about Nicholas Wood of Harrietsham, Kent, England, is that he would have been a devil at today’s “all you can eat” buffets. Virtually all of our information about him comes from a 1630 pamphlet, “The Great Eater of Kent,” written by a poet named John Taylor, who was Wood’s self-appointed impresario. Taylor was more interested in promoting his protege’s gastronomical feats than providing personal information, with the result that his work is less a biography and more of a 17th century infomercial.Wood was born circa 1585. He was a farmer who owned a reasonably large amount of land, and he was said to be a strongly-built man capable of great physical labor. Some time around 1610, he began…