Adam Richman's duties are quite basic.

He eats on television. He eats bigs things, strange things, spicy things.
His early life sort of prepared him for this. “I always had a wonderful relationship with food,” he said.
Now he has a strange relationship with it. Richman stars in “Man v. Food,” on the Travel Channel; when the new season starts tonight, he's in San Antonio. He tackles a Four Horsemen burger, with hot sauces and a chili that he says “elevated it to something of Dante proportions.”
That's a reference to “The Inferno.” Richman – a college guy from Emory and Yale – can make references to classical poetry; he also can throw a great party.
In each town, he faces three food-eating challenges. It's somewhere between, like, an absolute party and the Roman Coliseum,” he said.
Then he eats. This season, he'll have giant MAC Daddy pancakes in Hawaii, the “Kitchen Sink” in San Francisco, a three-pound cinnamon role in San Antonio and more. There are tougher choices, he said.
“The single, spiciest pepper on the planet (is) the Naga Jolokia,” Richman said. It's originally from India, where “they apparently tie it to fences to keep wild elephants at bay.” He's confronted it in Boston; he'll meet it again in San Antonio.
All of this is far from his Brooklyn boyhood. “(I was) very fortunate to have grown up in a home with great cooks …. I understand the value of good food.”
At Emory, he was on the track team (shot and discus) and stayed in shape. “I didn't eat any more or less than any other frat boy.”
He did savor it, though. Discovering Atlanta cuisine at Emory and on the road (doing regional theater), he started a food journal.
Then he heard that the Travel Channel wanted someone with “a knowledge of food around the country” and “a love of eating.”
That last part is important, Richman said. He'll survive if “I really enjoy the taste of what I'm eating.”
The rest is preparation. “The single greatest tool … is exercise, just to rev my metabolism up ... I work out like a beast.”
He trains like an athlete, then eats like a party animal. Life has prepared him for this.