’Net Junkie
Stuff your face
and win a titleIf you scoff at the notion that a rotund, 400-plus-pound man can excel in athletic contests, you haven't met Eric "Badlands" Booker or Ed "Cookie" Jarvis. It's also a safe bet that you take issue with the International Federation of Competitive Eating's contention that Booker and Jarvis, like the rest of its celebrated roster of eating machines, are considered "athletes."
The IFOCE (www.ifoce.com) was established in 1997 by Richard and George Shea, who had overseen the granddaddy of all eating competitions, Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, a spectacle that draws thousands to Coney Island, N.Y., each summer. The organization has helped boost the popularity of competitive eating by hosting and sanctioning dozens of events, from oyster-slurping contests in New Orleans to cabbage-eating showdowns in Alaska. It boasts members and affiliates in the United States, Japan, England, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Thailand and the Ukraine.
Bona fide stars on the competitive eating circuit abound. There's Booker, the matzo ball-, doughnut-, burrito- and hard-boiled egg-eating champion of the world, who once consumed four pounds of corned beef hash in one minute, 58 seconds. According to the IFOCE's Web site, it took just 15 minutes for 131-pound Takeru Kobayashi (www.who2.com/takerukobayashi.html) to ingest 57 cow brains in what has to be the most nauseating contest ever staged in competitive eating.
In 2001, Kobayashi consumed 50 hot dogs in 12 minutes to double up on countryman Kazutoyo Arai's record set in 2000. Last summer, Kobayashi bettered his own high mark by half a wiener.
Other stellar eaters include Oleg Zhornitskiy, of Brooklyn, N.Y., the reigning mayonnaise- and chicken wing-eating champion (he gulped down four 32-ounce bowls of mayo and, another time, devoured 74 wings in 12 minutes), and "Hungry" Charles Hardy, who inhaled six pounds of cabbage in nine minutes and swallowed more than four pounds of shrimp in another contest en route to his, uh, weighty titles.
For the lowdown on other world-class gluttons like Donald "Moses" Lerman (burger champ, former matzo ball champ) and "Krazy" Kevin Lipsitz (pickle-eating champ), check abcnews.go.com/sections/us/WolfFiles/wolffiles204.html.
If nothing else, it'll make you feel better about that grease-soaked, calorie-laden meal you had for lunch yesterday.
’Net Junkie drops every Monday.
Contact Shawn "Speedy" Lopes at slopes@starbulletin.com.
Note: Web sites mentioned in this column were active at time of publication. The Honolulu Star-Bulletin neither endorses nor is responsible for their contents.
