Busting the gutbusting record

6/7/2007

A time comes in everyone’s life, most often around a picnic table, when you think to yourself, yes, I could handle one more hot dog. Well then, how about 58 more?
There was a great rejoicing around the old relish jar on Saturday, as a California man finally toppled the seemingly unbeatable Takeru Kobayashi’s hot dog eating record.
At the Southwest Regional Hot Dog Eating Championship at the Arizona Mills Mall in suburban Tempe, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut scarfed down more than 59 franks and buns in 12 minutes, to set a new high water mark for good old American gluttony.
It works out to one hot dog every 12 seconds, for 12 agonizing minutes; and if that boggles your mind, imagine what it is doing to Joey the Jaws’ digestive system.
The otherwise normal 22-year-old from San Jose laid waste to Kobayashi’s previous record of 53 and 3/4 hot dogs, set last year at Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest, held at Coney Island in New York.
While such a record may be laughable to some, it seems only fitting that the title is back in American hands.
The hot dog has been an American institution ever since the first forward-thinking butcher scraped his shovel along the slaughterhouse floor, squeezed whatever it picked up into a casing, and sold it to a happily hungry public.
It is also somehow fitting that the record was broken in California, where freaks are a dime a dozen, and dimes are in endless supply. Chestnut, by the way, is no rank amateur when it comes to dog gobbling. He placed second in last year’s world championships, consuming 52 hot dogs.
Ryan Nerz, an employee of Major League Eating, the world governing board for all stomach-centric sports, said Chestnut is “unbelievable” and that “his numbers have just been going up at a tremendous clip.”
Following the record breaking performance, Nerz said he always thought there was a limit to the human stomach, and a limit to human willpower. Apparently, there isn’t.
Gone are the days when a 400lb ogre could waddle up to the table, and cram a few dozen hot dogs into the airplane hangar he called a mouth. No, a record like this requires training. Lots and lots of training.
The most popular gut-stretching technique involves long days of guzzling water, until the stomach is stretched out like a hot air balloon just before the gas hits it. The top technique for downing the dogs is not to chew them, but to fold them up and swallow them whole, much like a boa constrictor downing the barefoot bushman.
Preliminary research has shown that three out of four doctors agree this is not particularly good for you. The fourth doctor still thinks smoking is good for you, and DDT is an effective way to control the mosquito population.
Regardless, Joey Chestnut is a world champion. His prizes included a free trip to New York, a $250 gift card to the mall, and a year’s supply of hot dogs. At one every 12 seconds, that works out to around 2,628,000 franks.
Kobayashi, if he wants his record back, has a month to train. It’s going to be war—and no one said war is pretty.