Eat This Book: A Year of Gorging and Glory on the Competitive Eating Circuit

by Ryan Nerz

  When he wasn’t working, Ed was hitting the town with his boys. He ran with a group of twenty to thirty drinking buddies that could be found at one of the regular Queens watering holes on any given night. While barhopping, Krachie’s buddies started noticing that, on certain nights, bars held eating contests for cash prizes. Krachie entered a few and won. Because Krachie’s insatiable appetite was already the stuff of local legend, his friends took it upon themselves to spread the word. They went on reconnaissance missions and found new contests. “Inevitably, twenty guys would get together and we’d go,” Ed remembers. “And I’d win, and then I’d have drinkin’ money for the night.” Though most of these eating exploits have fallen into the sinkhole of history, one notable record remains—thirty-seven White Castle hamburgers in ten minutes.

  Every year, on the Fourth of July, the topic of the Nathan’s Famous contest would arise. Ed and his friends would see the results on the local news in some bar, or someone would call him up: “Ed, did you see that, man? That guy only ate thirteen!” Ed wanted to get into the contest, but had no idea whom to contact—there was no IFOCE at that point. John Schneider, one of Ed’s closest friends, remained obsessed with getting him into the event. He would call each year in July, only to be told by Nathan’s headquarters to call back at the first of year—and each year, he’d forget.

  In 1994, John remembered. After a few phone calls, he contacted George Shea. Because there was no qualifying series at that point, George asked for Ed’s eating credentials. When John described Ed’s size and his myriad victories in unsanctioned Queens eating contests, George gave him the nod.

  On July 4, 1994, Krachie made his auspicious debut, narrowly losing to Mike DeVito, with eighteen HDBs to DeVito’s twenty. It was the beginning of a long friendship between the two fierce competitors. The older DeVito would serve as a wise mentor to Krachie, a sort of competitive-eating Jedi master.

  The first lesson Krachie learned from his defeat was about last-second stuffing. Up to the final seconds, Krachie and DeVito had been neck and neck, but while Krachie continued to exhaustedly nibble at his final dog, DeVito took a few quick bites and then stuffed an entire dog into his mouth. While DeVito spent the next minute or so masticating, Krachie slumped in empty-mouthed defeat.

  He had a whole year to marinate on his loss, because the Fourth of July competition was, at that time, the only one around. Fortunately, Ed’s friends had caught the competition on video, so he was able to review it and fine-tune his skills. He vowed that he would not lose the Mustard Yellow International Belt again due to sloppy technique.

  On Independence Day of 1995, Ed Krachie and his pit crew of supporters didn’t leave anything to chance. He rolled in about fifty deep—friends, extended family, and a girlfriend. Two of his best friends stationed themselves just past the media barrier on either side of Ed. As the contest wore on, they’d shout tidbits and updates, like “Mike’s got sixteen. You’ve got seventeen. Speed it up!” When the twelve minutes expired, Krachie had fulfilled his destiny. Final tally: DeVito, nineteen Krachie, nineteen and a half.

  His life would never be the same. The next morning, at around 4:00 A.M., the phone rang. “Are you Ed Krachie who won the hot-dog-eating contest?” a woman said in a British accent. “We’d like to interview you for BBC radio.” By 6:00 A.M., he began fielding a steady stream of phone calls from wacky morning-zoo radio shows across the country. Ed’s buddies brought over breakfast and beer, and the party started up again, with Ed intermittently taking interviews. “It was the beginning of a wonderful thing for me,” Ed says. “But then there was also a loss of privacy.”

  As the 1996 competition approached, Ed began to worry about his prospects for a repeat performance. He had taken a job as an apprentice to a mechanical engineer and had realized the job required increased mobility. By watching his calorie intake and working out like a madman, he had lost eighty-five pounds…which was great from a health and vanity standpoint, but would he still be able to put the dogs down?

  A week and a half before the big show, Ed conducted an exhibition round to check his capacity. He cooked up twenty dogs and shared them with his five-year-old niece, who was delighted by her uncle’s eating display. In the end, he put fifteen down easily, with room for more. His goal, he decided, was not just to win, but to break Frank Dellarossa’s five-year-old record of twenty-one and a half dogs.

  The competition went much the way it had the year before. As the clock ticked down, with the Coney Island faithful on their tiptoes, Ed pushed ahead of DeVito by a dog and a half, then two. The first one to notice history being made, in fact, was DeVito, who was then three dogs down and willing to concede defeat. With thirty seconds left, he got George Shea’s attention and, through a stuffed mouth, said, “Record!” George realized and immediately cried out to the crowd, “Ed Krachie is about to break the world hot-dog-eating record, folks!”

  “And that’s when all hell broke loose,” Krachie says.

  For the next few days, reporters besieged Krachie. At 10:00 A.M. the next morning, while taking the same morning-show calls from the year before, a photojournalist from the New York Daily News knocked at his door. The idea was to do a piece called “A Day in the Life of the Hot Dog King.” The reporter followed Ed and his girlfriend around as they went shopping and did errands. The article included information from a nutritionist, who determined that Ed had eaten three weeks’ worth of sodium and fat, and nearly three and a half days’ worth of calories. The Daily News ran the story the next day on the third page. “Must’ve been a slow news day,” Ed offered humbly.

  The publicity kept coming. Ed, a John Goodman look-alike with a physical magnitude that’s hard to miss, was frequently stopped by fans in Queens. Many media outlets saw Ed, a self-described “beer-drinkin’, hardworkin’, blue-collar American kind of guy,” as a character the masses would relate to. He started getting booked on the talk show circuit—Ricki Lake, Sally Jessy Raphael, and Howie Mandel. At the enormous Manhattan-based telephone company near where Krachie worked, NYNEX, he became an in-house celebrity. During a welcome party for a new member of the board of directors, the company’s CEO proudly paraded in the new hot dog champ for an introduction.

  A few months after he broke the hot dog record, Krachie got a call at work from TV Tokyo. A producer from the network proposed a showdown between Krachie and a young Japanese eater, a skinny little guy who had allegedly never eaten hot dogs before. The segment would appear as part of a New Year’s Eve special on Japanese TV. The prize would be $2,000 for first place, and $500 for second. Was Krachie interested?

  He was. The contest took place on December 4, 1996, at a Nathan’s Famous restaurant across from the Empire State Building. When Ed Krachie saw Hirofumi Nakajima, his confidence soared. The kid was tiny, smiley, harmless-looking. Though Krachie was generally considered humble, he had also become known for bouts of crowd-pleasing brashness. (In a Nathan’s Famous qualifier the year before, Krachie had sat out the first half of the competition. He started eating at the six-minute mark and, despite the handicap, inhaled sixteen dogs for a decisive win.) Before the showdown with Nakajima, Ed asked a New York Daily News photographer for a copy of the newspaper. “This is gonna be boring,” he said. “I think I wanna read the newspaper while I’m eating.”

  He never got the chance. The skinny kid, it turned out, was a ringer. Nakajima ate twenty-three and a quarter, surpassing Krachie by one and a quarter dogs and setting a new world record. While onlookers gaped in amazement, Krachie shook his head in shame. He felt he’d been duped. The producers’ claim that Nakajima had never eaten dogs before was not so much true as not true. “I mean, I’m not a naïve New Yorker, but I took them at their word…,” Krachie says. “Sure enough, this guy shows up and not only had he eaten hot dogs before, but he was the reigning Japanese champion. And I really felt like it was another Pearl Harbor.”

  The stage was set for a Fourth of July showdown. As the big day approached, Krachie’s friends encouraged h
im to roll up to Coney Island in a limousine to psych up the American fans and psych Nakajima out. But Krachie declined. “That’s where I drew the line. I told them, ‘Listen, I’m the people’s champ, man.’ ”

  The people’s champ, known for his uninhibited, almost animalistic style of attacking wieners, was dethroned again by Nakajima, the methodical assassin. Using the revolutionary method of eating dog and bun separately, Nakajima broke his own record, eating twenty-four and a half. Adding insult to injury, another Japanese eater, Kazutoyo “the Rabbit” Arai, took second with twenty-four. After the competition, Nakajima, a twenty-two-year-old, soft-spoken furniture deliveryman from Kofu, Japan, refused to reveal details about his training and tactics, offering only, “You have to concentrate.”

  In the wake of a devastating third-place finish with twenty dogs and buns, Krachie seemed bewildered. “I don’t know where they put it,” he said. “Both of those guys put together weigh less than me.” Spurred on by a vocal, pro-Krachie crowd, Ed had kept pace with the Japanese challengers early on, but at the nine-minute mark Krachie had slammed face-first into that insuperable obstacle known as the wall, and his chewing ground to a near halt. Afterward, the thirty-four-year-old American champion was so dejected that he announced his retirement. The mighty Krachie had struck out, and there would be no extra innings.

  It didn’t hit him all at once. In the weeks and months after July 4, 1997, what began as a thought slowly crystallized into a theory. Ed Krachie, now a licensed engineer and blessed with a keenly analytical brain, began researching an insight into human physiology that would change the sport of competitive eating.

  While many in the American competitive-eating community were biased by paranoia and even racism, Krachie tried to remain objective. It would prove difficult, especially since Krachie’s friends had their own conspiracy theories. Some speculated that high rice consumption led to increased stomach capacity. Immediately after the competition, one friend, having downed a few too many beers, spotted a suspicious wire and decided to lift up Nakajima’s T-shirt. It turned out to be a TV Tokyo microphone wire.

  Then, a few months after the competition, Krachie claims he received an anonymous call from a man claiming to be a doctor. “Listen, I’d rather not give you my name,” the man said, “but this guy might be taking drugs to stop him from regurgitating.” The doctor went on to describe a muscle relaxant that could suppress the muscles that contract during regurgitation.

  Krachie wasn’t convinced by such convenient explanations. There had to be some natural explanation for Nakajima’s abilities. Ed thought back to his own record-breaking win at Coney Island and remembered how trim he had been. Was it possible that skinny people actually had an advantage in eating competitions? What if, hypothetically, having a gut restricts one’s stomach capacity?

  Krachie talked to doctors, surfed the Internet, and bought a slew of medical encyclopedias. His research seemed to confirm his hypothesis. The adipose tissue of which a belly is composed lies between the abdomen and the skin. This belt of fat, known colloquially as the gut, pushes directly against the stomach, especially when it is distended. With this in mind, might excess belly fat weigh down the stomach muscle, inhibiting its ability to expand? What if—again, hypothetically—Nakajima had once weighed three hundred pounds himself, then went on a diet? Could he maintain a big man’s stomach capacity within a small man’s frame?

  A steadily forming thesis crackled in Krachie’s brain. He called George Shea, who received the theory enthusiastically. Shea suggested they submit it to scientific journals, including the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. They worded the theory in the proper format and submitted it. Then they threw a rollout party to celebrate the public unveiling of the Belt of Fat Theory.

  Ultimately, though, while a few New York newspapers covered their attempt to make science history, no journals accepted the thesis for publication. Krachie remembers the rejection letters with dismay. “They said, ‘While it might be very valid in your sport—and it sounds steady—your theory really doesn’t have real-world medicinal value. It’s not something the medical community can use.’ ”

  In the spring of 2000, Krachie received another call from TV Tokyo. The producer said he wanted to fly Ed to Japan for another New Year’s Eve segment. This time, the event would be a “triathlon of eating,” in which Ed would attempt to break three records in one day, in three different cities—ramen noodles in Kobe, Japanese pizza in Osaka, and shabu-shabu in Tokyo. While the free travel and healthy stipend sounded enticing, the sheer amount of food was staggering. He would have to consume fifteen pounds of food in less than twenty-four hours.

  Were he not familiar with the extreme nature of Japanese fringe sports, Krachie would have been suspicious of TV Tokyo’s motives. Eating fifteen pounds of food in a day, on top of travel and jet lag—it seemed a laughable proposition, but Krachie had seen excerpts from a Japanese TV show that illustrated just how sadomasochistic their entertainment could be. One segment involved two men lying on a metallic rooflike surface in the hot sun, wearing nothing but underwear. The roof tilted back and forth at increasingly extreme angles, and the men slid back and forth, burning off layers of skin. He who didn’t fall off the roof or scream out for relief was declared the winner.

  After weighing the pros and cons of the eating triathlon, Krachie decided the travel and cash would be worth the punishment. In exchange for his compliance, Krachie was treated like royalty. He and George Shea flew first-class to Kobe. When they arrived at the airport, they were so spent that Krachie told George he wasn’t sure he could handle waiting in the customs line. At that point, a police officer jogged up to Krachie. “Hot darg man! Hot darg man!” the excited officer yelled out. Within seconds, Krachie was surrounded by jabbering well-wishers and autograph seekers.

  A band of policemen escorted Krachie to a line marked VIP. After a genial chat with the customs official, Krachie entered the main terminal to find several dozen Japanese fans awaiting his arrival. Cameras flashed. Autographs were signed. Krachie, unaware that he was big in Japan, was stunned. Just as he began to fret that the mob would start tearing his clothes for souvenirs, a driver emerged from the crowd and whisked him away to a waiting limousine.

  The next day was consumed by production meetings, sightseeing, and a fabulous sushi dinner. At around 6:00 A.M. the next morning, George and Ed were driven to a restaurant so small it could be a corner deli back in Queens. Ed was directed to sit at what looked like an old-fashioned soda fountain counter. The chef was directly across from him, boiling ramen noodles and adding them to the broth, then doling them out in half-pound servings. The goal was to eat six servings, or three pounds, in less than a half hour. The record stood at twenty-two minutes.

  The clock started, and Ed slurped down his first few noodles. They were so hot they burned the roof of his mouth. He requested a glass of ice water. On the next bite, he twirled a swirl of noodles on his fork as if it were pasta. He dunked it in the cold water, sucked it down. The crowd oohed and aahed at the crafty American—it was a technique they’d never seen before.

  Soon Ed was chasing the record. One half-pound serving to go, and he was just starting to feel full. The shouts of fans, camera crew, and wait staff transformed the shoebox restaurant into an echoing micro-stadium. “Come on, Ed!” George Shea urged. “You got this record!” Dunk, slurp, dunk, slurp. Ed was feeling it. This was why they called him the Animal, because he came up with a plan and executed the foodstuff. He ate one last forkful, lifted the bowl, and drank the broth. The clock stopped, and the place filled with cheers. Elapsed time: 12 minutes, 53 seconds. In Ed’s words: “Totally annihilated the fuckin’ record. So they’re thinking…We got the man here!”

  More pictures, more autographs. The owner framed Ed’s picture and placed it on the wall next to the three Japanese eaters who had broken the record before. They drove to the airport, flew to Osaka, and checked into a five-star hotel. Krachie made a few phone calls, showered, and it
was off to the next event at another hole-in-the-wall restaurant, with a six-foot-high door that Ed had to duck to get through. The place was famous for a type of Japanese pizza that doubtless wouldn’t go over in the States—its toppings include cabbage and fish, and instead of baking it, they fry it into patties. Each pizza patty weighs four pounds, and Krachie was obliged to eat two pizzas in two hours.

  Ed’s reaction to the first bite was utter revulsion. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God. What is this shit?’ It’s terrible. I mean, I can’t believe this is a fast food here, and I can’t even stomach it.” He threw salt and pepper on it, then requested Tabasco. Still, Krachie couldn’t hide his disgust. Ten minutes into the eating, the announcer, a talk show host roughly equivalent in Japan to Dave Letterman, said aloud to Ed, “You’re insulting the chef!” Uh-oh. Even the dullest of dolts knows better than to insult a Japanese chef. “Just tell him I like the food spicy,” Ed told the announcer. “I like it real hot.”

  Ed knocked one pizza down in an hour, but the repulsive flavor, combined with the gaseous effects of the cabbage, was almost too much to handle. He stepped away from the table, telling George he needed a ten-minute break. The cameras shut off, but the clock kept ticking. Part of the deal was that he could not, during the allotted two hours, use the bathroom.

  With fifty minutes remaining, he started on the second pizza. Were it a four-pound Sicilian pizza or a flaky-crusted apple pie, well, no problem—but all this fried fish and cabbage was really getting to him. He ate a half pie in a half hour before the pain really set in. Ed’s innards roiled and churned, audibly protesting this unnecessary punishment. He ate on, but each bite took its toll. Finally, only four forkfuls left. I just gotta get these down, Ed told himself. And then I can run to the bathroom. He ate three forkfuls in what felt like protracted, make-believe time. Less than a minute left. As he lifted the final forkful to his mouth, teetering on the precipice between victory and defeat, Ed exploded.