I think we should hold an eating contest here at My House. -g
Big Eaters, Sure, but This Is Absurd
By AMANDA HESSER
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. |
