With all due respect to Survivor and pretty much any other mainstream reality competition show that's built on discomfort and danger, Race To Survive is a completely separate level of grueling. Teams are basically just given a map to a new location a dozen or more miles away and told to race there without the benefit of things like food and complicated navigation equipment. So, players need to do what they need to do to survive, like, for example, going on a hedgehog killing spree.
At least that’s what exes Paulina and Creighton did during a recent episode of Race To Survive. They were hungry. There were hedgehogs around. They did what they needed to do to eat and took out almost a half dozen of the little guys. Not surprisingly, their choice attracted plenty of chatter on social media, but more importantly, it also inspired some absolutely fantastic cupcakes Creighton posted on his Instagram. Check these beauties out…
If you haven’t been watching Race To Survive, you should get on that immediately. The USA Network show is on its second season and follows teams as they race through the wilderness. Last year’s version was in Alaska, and this time around they’re in New Zealand. The teams of two are made up of outdoorsy people, most of whom specialize in a specific skill. So, for example, there are white water rafting guides and smoke jumpers and ultra marathon runners.
At the start of each leg, the teams are given a map and some basic info on the course, which might include things like a 6 mile bushwhack, a 4 mile canoe, an hour long rock climb and 8 more miles of navigating through the jungle. The last team to arrive is typically eliminated, while the first teams get some kind of reward and typically a head start on foraging for food.
Teams are usually given a chance to go out of their way to get a food crate during each leg, but it’s never enough to fully sustain them. Those who really want to eat need to go find food for themselves, which is why we’ve seen a lot of hunting and fishing for everything from eels to sheep to hedgehogs.
In case you were wondering, hedgehogs aren’t exactly the most delicious food in the world. Here’s what Creighton told USA about his adventures in trying to cook hedgehog meat…
You can do a lot of things to make wild game taste good. [But] we had a lot of practice with hedgehog out in the bush, [and] you cannot make a hedgehog taste good. You can't, it doesn't matter if you fry it in eel fat and put some sea salt on it, it's gonna taste bad. [But] the liver and kidney are delicious; the organs taste really good. And then the guts are really good for eel bait — that's the most useful part of the hedgehog, is as bait for more meat.
One episode away from the finale, Creighton and Paulina will no doubt go down as one of the most memorable and popular teams in Race To Survive history. The married couple made the decision to separate and later divorce but were called and asked to be on the show as the process concluded. They decided to go on as one final adventure together, and it’s been a joy to watch them bicker like unhappy exes but also find ways to support each other as friends. You can simultaneously tell how much love is there and also why the relationship didn’t work.
Race To Survive airs on Monday nights on USA Network. You can also catch it on Peacock.
