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Two Dozen Hot Dogs Please, and No, They're Not to Go

By ANTHONY RAMIREZ Published: June 30, 2005

Call them Ishmael.

In a pursuit not at all reminiscent of "Moby-Dick," a group of competitors gathered yesterday to hunt and subdue the ferocious unseen eating machine known as Takeru Kobayashi of Japan.

Lauren Holz, far right, a court-assigned police officer, at a qualifying round of frankfurter eaters
Wednesday at the South Street Seaport.

Mr. Kobayashi, 5-foot-7 and 131 pounds, is ferocious because he has defeated rivals many times his weight.

He is an eating machine because he has won Nathan's Famous hot-dog contest four years in a row. Last year, he ate a record 53½ frankfurters, buns and all, in the required 12 minutes, or roughly one every 13 seconds.

And he was unseen because yesterday was not the Fourth of July and Pier 17 at South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan was not Coney Island.

The contest, held in the shadow of a tall ship at high noon, was one of several regional qualifying rounds leading to the final July Fourth showdown at Nathan's. As the reigning champion, Mr. Kobayashi didn't have to be there.

Still, the news media converged, the curious stopped to watch and George Shea, the master of ceremonies, summoned up all the gravitas that can attach to a man wearing a straw hat.

To the beat of Eminem's "8 Mile," Mr. Shea declared: "They say that competitive eating is the battleground upon which God and Lucifer waged war for men's souls, ladies and gentlemen. And they are right!" Mr. Shea is co-founder of the International Federation of Competitive Eating, which oversees the Nathan's contest.

Nominally restricted to civil servants, yesterday's contest also included a self-described inventor, a chemical salesman and a journalist.

Among the 14 men and 2 women, the favorite was Eric Booker, 36, a subway conductor on the No. 7 line. At 6-foot-5 and 420 pounds, a Nathan's T-shirt straining at his Henry VIII girth, Mr. Booker looked every inch the nine-year veteran of the competitive-eating circuit.

Nicknamed Badlands for his provenance in Jamaica, Queens, Mr. Booker is now a resident of Copiague on Long Island.

Perhaps the most striking competitor, however, was Lauren Holz, 25, of Staten Island. She was the only eater packing a handgun.

A uniformed police officer for the state trial courts, Ms. Holz was on her lunch break. She also carried pepper spray, handcuffs and a truncheon.

Officer Holz had been teased into entering by a fellow worker and managed to eat only five hot dogs, thoroughly chewing each bite and holding the frank with the fingertips of both hands.

Asked how she felt at the contest's finish, Officer Holz paused, frowned and replied, "Not the best."

Richard Perry/The New York Times

Eric Booker of Copiague, N.Y., ate 22 1/2 Nathan's franks, with buns.

Mr. Booker won. Chewing like a gerbil, if a gerbil wore a backward baseball cap, his cheeks distended like those of Dizzy Gillespie, Mr. Booker ate 22½ franks.

The number was less than half of Mr. Kobayashi's record. Will Mr. Booker be ready for the Big Show?

Yes, Mr. Booker said, observing that he had recently eaten 41 Nathan's franks, though not in competition. And, he acknowledged, "they were the supermarket kind," easier to find than the Coney Island kind but skinnier.

Still, Captain Ahab-like, Mr. Booker said about Mr. Kobayashi, "I'm not going to stop until I get him."

* Think Jack Warner kids

- Sparky