NYT -- Big Eaters, Sure, but This Is Absurd.
October 30, 2002
Big Eaters, Sure, but This Is Absurd
By AMANDA HESSER
ED (COOKIE) JARVIS was sipping a glass of water. A large
man with a body shaped like a water balloon pinched at the
top, Mr. Jarvis looked calm.
"I'm really hungry," he said. "I had a brownie about 15
minutes ago." Mr. Jarvis, who weighs 409 pounds ("I'm like
the spray," he said), was standing in the ballroom of the
Atlantic Oceana nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, last
Sunday afternoon, waiting for the world pelmeni-eating
championship to begin.
"What happens is, if you fast," he said, "it keeps you from
eating so much." For breakfast, Mr. Jarvis had four eggs,
scrambled with bacon and cheese, two cups of coffee and a
brownie; for lunch, half a pound of turkey and a brownie.
Brownies, he said, keep him from getting nauseated.
"I haven't tasted one," he said, speaking of pelmeni, which
are Russian meat dumplings. "I hear they're not that great.
But it's not going to matter because I'm going to eat 250
of them."
Mr. Jarvis is the world champion ice cream eater (1 gallon,
9 ounces in 12 minutes) and cannoli eater (21 large cannoli
in six minutes). He is also one of a new breed of food
professional, the competitive eater.
In recent years, spurred in part by Nathan's Famous Fourth
of July hot-dog-eating contest in Coney Island, eating
contests have popped up across the country, from
reindeer-sausage events in Alaska to conch fritter matches
in Key West, Fla. Fox Television has shown "The Glutton
Bowl," and the Travel Channel just finished taping "Vegas:
Battle of the Buffets." There is now an organization, the
International Federation of Competitive Eating, that
sanctions many events.
A group of substantial members of that federation gathered
for the pelmeni challenge. Out of Atlanta was Dale (the
Mouth From the South) Boone, in snug denim overalls and a
coonskin hat. Two men came from Ukraine, and a Boeing
mechanic from Seattle named Ray (the Bison) Meduna also
made the trip. In all, there were 20 contestants and some
250 spectators, who had paid $50 to $100 and were piling
plates with pickled fish, eggplant salad, meat pies and
pickles - light fare before the visual feast.
It was a small crowd for a competitive eating event. Last
year's Wing Bowl in Philadelphia drew more than 20,000
spectators, and the hot-dog event in Coney Island receives
television and print coverage from around the world.
The federation and the eaters themselves insist that
competitive eating be recognized as an athletic event.
George Shea, who founded the federation with Richard Shea,
his brother, said: "Sport is about the refinement of a
skill, like throwing a basketball. And eating is a skill
that has been refined by these athletes, so the components
that make up a good competitive eater are capacity, the
speed with which you can eat and the speed of your hands."
Priscilla Ferguson, a sociologist at Columbia University,
disagrees. "It is such an extreme that it totally becomes
rationalized," she said. "So it's a venue for going all
out, which we're not normally allowed to do."
For the people who attend these events or watch them on
television, there is a strong sideshow element, said James
Taylor, the publisher of Shocked and Amazed, a newsletter
devoted to sideshows. "I think we're very curious monkeys,"
Mr. Taylor said. "We'll watch train wrecks. We'll watch
house fires. Anything that's a little bit unusual, a bit
over the top, a little bit amazing, a little freaky, people
will watch."
FOR the pelmeni-eating contest, the setting itself
satisfied the carnival aspect. Smoke from dry ice spilled
over the stairs of a tiered stage. Dancers dressed in
thigh-high leather boots and thongs sprang out from behind
a glittery curtain, putting on an S-and-M-theme show. Then
the Shea brothers dashed onto the stage in tuxedos. "We
will see these beautiful, seductive pelmeni go down the
throats of our competitive eaters by the hundreds," George
barked like a carnival showman. "Ladies and gentlemen, we
are in the midst of competitive eating's best."
One by one, the competitors were welcomed. Some just
pounded down the steps from the top of the stage and found
their places at a big U-shape table. Others hammed it up,
fists punching the air.
Eric (Badlands) Booker splashed water over his ample skull
and practiced shifting his arms from his plate to mouth in
a rapid blur. Next to him was Mr. Boone, who folded his
coonskin cap (he maintains that he is descended from Daniel
Boone) and then kneeled. He wiggled his tongue over his
plate of pelmeni and snapped his head left and right like a
boxer.
The competitors stood for the national anthem. Soon after,
a countdown from 10 began, and the first round was under
way: three minutes of trying to eat enough pelmeni to
qualify for the second round.
Because the federation's only strict rule is that you
cannot vomit during the competition, there is a great deal
of personal style involved in competitive eating.
Mr. Boone took an early lead by gathering pelmeni between
both palms and squeezing them into his mouth like a sausage
maker. Meanwhile, Mr. Booker worked rhythmically to the
house music, bringing pelmeni to his mouth one by one, and
Mr. Jarvis, like a boy made to eat his broccoli, looked
grim as he chewed. Oleg Zhornitskiy, called Oleg Cassini,
last year's champion, ate deftly with his right hand and
drank water with his left. He was considered a clear
favorite. He was this year's matzo ball champion and
mayonnaise eating champion (eight pounds in eight minutes)
and, being Russian, grew up on pelmeni.
After Round 1, Mr. Boone was ahead.
"Did you say 150
pelmeni in 3 minutes?" said David Baer, an announcer in a
commentators' booth set up on the side of the stage. "How
can he possibly eat more?"
Mr. Boone, like many competitors at this level, trained for
the event, weighing his meals to make sure he got up to
eight pounds the day before the contest. Others follow the
water method - drinking a gallon or more very quickly, to
stretch the stomach without taking on lots of calories.
Dr. John de Csepel, chief of minimally invasive surgery of
Saint Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, said that the
average stomach holds up to a liter of food. "The stomach
can certainly stretch to take a greater capacity," he said,
but too much food in the stomach poses dangers. If food
backs up into the esophagus and the lungs, a person can
develop aspiration pneumonia. Then there is the problem of
acid reflux, Valsalva reflex (a massive distention of the
stomach) and even steattorhea, a particularly bad form of
diarrhea.
Competitive eating is not a purely American phenomenon.
Eating competitions are common in Japan, said Elizabeth
Andoh, a journalist based in Tokyo. "Being made to look
foolish in public and surviving it really puts you on top,"
she said. "And food and abusive food eating is part of it
and has been for a while."
Indeed, a slight man named Takeru Kobayashi came to New
York two years ago for the Nathan's contest and shattered
the world record by scarfing down 50 hot dogs in 12
minutes. The previous record was 24 1/2. Mr. Kobayashi has
since eaten 50 1/2.
Whether Mr. Kobayashi actually consumed that final half has
been debated by experts, including Gersh Kuntzman, a
reporter for The New York Post and self-styled Homer of the
eating contest. "I've gone back to the videotape," Mr.
Kuntzman said. "He did exhale the last half, but then he
reinhales it through his nostrils which, again, is such a
mark of a champion."
THE FOOD NETWORK has shown a few eating contests, but
Eileen Opatut, a senior vice president at the network, said
that the shows have never earned great ratings. "It doesn't
really hit the sophistication and intelligence mark for our
audience," she said. The network broadcasts both "Emeril
Live" and "Iron Chef."
For psychologists, sociologists and physicians, competitive
eaters are troubling specimens. Dr. Kelly Brownell, a
professor of psychology at Yale, called eating in such
quantity merely an extension of America's toxic
environment.
"The environment that people are exposed to in terms of
food is toxic," he said. "There is too much food available,
too much of the time, at too low a cost." Eating contests
and gorging were centered in the past on harvest seasons,
community gatherings and times of plenty between lean
stretches. Today's eating contest, Dr. Brownell said, is "a
freak show in a domain that's relevant to all of our
lives."
Some of which may explain why the crowd at the Atlantic
Oceana, which seemed timid and skeptical through the first
round, closed in on the eating tables by Round 2. As the
contest went on, the competitors got sloppy. Mr. Boone
squished his dumplings into spaetzle. Slimy bits flew out
of Mr. Booker's mouth as he ate. But the numbers climbed
steadily. Mr. Zhornitskiy took the lead with 241 pelmeni
under his belt.
The crowd pressed in closer. By the third and final
minute-long round, the men ate sluggishly but dutifully.
Mr. Boone mashed his pelmeni so much that the officials had
to count his remaining dumplings by the number of meat
nuggets left in the watery slop.
The Sheas bounded back onto the stage, and large sparklers
went off as the top three finishers were announced. Mr.
Zhornitskiy came in a disappointing third. Mr. Boone took
the first prize by four dumplings, maxing out at 274
pelmeni, eaten in six minutes. He roared something
incomprehensible into the microphone and held up his
trophy.
Mr. Booker, who came in second, posed for a picture with a
child, while Mr. Zhornitskiy and Alex Zhornitskiy, his
brother and translator, contested the results with George
Shea.
"They do this at every contest," Mr. Shea whispered into a
bystander's ear.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company. |
