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Japanesing The BunWhat's The Hot Dog Speed-Eating Record?

By Marc TracyPosted Monday, Dec. 1, 2008

The Nathan's hot-dog eating contest, a race to see who can eat the most hot dogs (plus buns) in ten minutes, has been held annually on the Fourth of July for over 90 years. How can you beat the current record and win the coveted Mustard Yellow Belt?

The reigning champion, Joey Chestnut, consumed 59 hot dogs and buns in ten minutes this year, and in 2007 ate 66 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes (the competition was switched from 12 minutes to ten when unearthed ephemera revealed the contest had begun as a ten-minute race). As a rate, that 2008 result, at 5.9 hot dogs and buns per minute, bests the 2007 one, which amounts to 5.5 hot dogs and buns per minute, so 59 in 10 is the record to shoot for. (Chestnut ate an additional five hot dogs and buns in fifty seconds--a rate of just over six hot dogs and buns per minute--in a run-off that resulted when he and 2006 champion Takeru Kobayashi were tied at the end of regulation.)

There is no required technique for the hot dog competition or any of the other speed-food races organized by the International Federation of Competitive Eating. The most common technique for the hot dog race is known as "Japanesing," in honor of its main popularizer, former champion Hirofumi Nakajima. It involves eating the hot dog and the bun separately and dunking the bun in water before consuming it. Competitors are allowed more than one cup to allow for two-handed dunking; however, there is a five-second rule for dunks. Kobayashi is known to break the buns in half and dunk each at the same time, a technique known as "The Solomon Method". Chestnut, on the other hand, is known to vary his techniques even within the same race.

Bonus Explainer: If you want to break the oyster-eating record, the number to beat is 46 dozen over ten minutes (or 55.2 per minute), achieved in 2005 at the Acme World Oyster Eating Championship in New Orleans by Sonya Thomas.

Explainer thanks Richard Shea of the International Federation of Competitive Eating.