The Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest Is a 4th of July Tradition and Spectacle

For many of America, the Fourth of July evokes ideas of fireworks, household and cookouts. However hours earlier than any of these issues start in earnest, many People will flip their consideration to a curious spectacle that has turn into one other vacation custom: the Nathan’s Well-known Scorching Canine Consuming Contest.

Annually on Independence Day, hundreds of spectators, braving the warmth and the consequences of inexplicable fervor, descend upon an intersection within the Coney Island part of Brooklyn to look at an elite corps of aggressive eaters eat as many scorching canines as humanly attainable in 10 minutes.

The definition of humanly attainable has one which means for a lot of the meat-eating world; it has fairly one other for a lot of the contestants. That’s very true for the defending champions, Joey Chestnut and Miki Sudo, who had been again to defend their titles and probably broaden the notion of what’s humanly attainable.

Mr. Chestnut holds the boys’s world file of 76 scorching canines and buns eaten in 10 minutes in 2021, whereas Ms. Sudo holds the ladies’s world file of 48.5 scorching canines in 10 minutes. Each had been overwhelming betting favorites to win.

The ladies’s contest began first, and Ms. Sudo prevailed, consuming 39.5 scorching canines in 10 minutes, six greater than her closest competitor, Mayoi Ebihara.

Mr. Chestnut, who’s often known as Jaws, received the boys’s contest for the fifteenth time final yr by consuming 63 scorching canines. Ms. Sudo received for the eighth time by consuming 40 scorching canines.

The Nathan’s competitors, which is split into separate males’s and girls’s occasions, has been held annually since 1916. Its fashionable incarnation is fueled by a supercharged dose of puns and patriotism from George Shea, who oversees the occasion together with his brother, Wealthy Shea.

Over time, the Sheas have gently coerced mayors, together with Rudolph W. Giuliani, Michael R. Bloomberg and Invoice de Blasio, to preside over weigh-in ceremonies which are wealthy with one-line groaners. (After delivering one such groaner in 2012, Mr. Bloomberg remarked aloud, “Who wrote this [expletive]?”)

They’ve expanded the Coney Island occasion right into a nationwide spectacle of aggressive consuming run by Main League Consuming, a bunch that describes itself as “the governing physique of all stomach-centric sports activities.” The competition shall be carried stay on ESPN2 and ESPN3.

For these of you who could also be curious, scientists (scientists!) have decided that the human physique is able to consuming — at most — 83 scorching canines in 10 minutes, in response to a study published in 2020 that was primarily based on 39 years’ value of information from the competition.

In accordance with that paper, probably the most elite human aggressive eaters on this planet might go toe-to-toe with a grizzly bear when it comes to the quantity of meals eaten per unit of time.

Bears can eat about eight scorching canines per minute, and Mr. Chestnut can eat about 7.5 scorching canines per minute. However the bears normally faucet out round six minutes, whereas Mr. Chestnut can scarf scorching canines for a stable 10 minutes straight.

“Many of the prime eaters use a fairly comparable approach: We separate the meat from the bun,” mentioned Mr. Chestnut, in an online video describing his championship approach. “For those who’ve obtained to eat it quick, you must dip the bun in water.”

He mentioned he started coaching for the competition annually on the finish of April, with a sequence of apply contests adopted by durations of fasting. He additionally eats outdoors on scorching days.

He has managed to eat greater than 80 scorching canines in 10 minutes on 5 separate events whereas coaching, he mentioned, however has by no means been in a position to duplicate that feat in competitors.

“Plenty of it’s psychological and psychological,” he said. “Your physique tells you you’re full.”

Mr. Chestnut can also be what, in different contexts, could be known as a multi-hyphenate. Along with his scorching canine consuming abilities, he holds world data within the fast consumption of Large Macs (32 in 38 minutes), tacos (82 in eight minutes) and funnel cake (5.9 kilos of it in 10 minutes).