Even etymologically, ’sport’ comes from the Old French, port colborne, meaning leisure. And what is more leisurely than eating, except when you’re starving. The roots of a legitimate sport in eating sit planted and have hit a juvenile growth spurt in the last ten years, after millenia of gestation. Over-eating has long been a spectacle that is itself consumed. Romans notoriously overate and were purported, though falsely, to purge in unison at a vomitorium designed specifically to aid in over consumption.
Unfortunately however, not much exists in the way of records for eating. Lore abounds about great eaters like Diamond Jim Brady who in the late nineteenth century had a usual evening meal that began with three dozen oysters, six crabs, and turtle soup, followed by an entree of two whole ducks, seven lobsters, a sirloin steak, two servings of terrapin and a side of vegetables. Then dessert came.
Recently though, the spectacle has been observed and money is being made of it. The International Federation of Competitive Eating has been championing gastronomic sport officially for the past decade. They have their own seal. Promoting over a hundred events in three continents, they have under them the famous in the world of competitive eating. Takeru Kobayashi who held the world hot dog eating title for six consecutive years with a record of 53.75 hot dogs in twelve minutes. Only Fox network would set a world chapmion in competitive eating against the ultimate enemy, a kodiak bear. For your viewing “pleasure” click here.
The numbers get staggering, Joey “Jaws” Chestnut broke the record and was the first American in years to win the Coney Island hot dog eating contest by eating an even 66 hot dogs with buns in 12 minutes. In the mastery of gluttony, it seems that the smaller the gourmand, the more they can pack. Sonya Thomas holds records that men twice her size couldn’t come close to. At 47 kilos she polished off nearly 4 kilos of baked beans in 10 minutes. Every minute she increased her body mass by nearly one percent. In those short 10 minutes, she went from 47 kilos to 51.
Eating athletes are growing more and more popular, with stats and bios, even narratives attached to their rise to fame. All that’s needed now are trading cards, but unlike the stick of gum that used to accompany baseball cards, perhaps a pork roast will be included in the package.
With the rapid growth, the numbers can seem just a collection of massive amounts of consumption that are another echo in a prolific cacophony in contemporary civilization. Eventually someone will eat (insert large number here) hot dogs and we will say wow for a moment and then continue our day, observing the next set of massive numbers. This is our cacophony though.
The writer Jason Fagone titled his book on competitive eating, “Horsemen of the Esophagus,” and if the downfall of civilization has been marked yet again, this time it’s with gluttony rather than famine or war. And whether or not the fame and stardom that is attached to being a professional eater continue to grow, remains to be seen. It could be that the eaters and the promoters are in the midst of their 15 minutes. Apparently however, a substantial amount can be pressed into that time, it just might have to be purged out again.
