Jul 19, 2023 3 min read

How is your summer going so far? It seems as if Memorial Day weekend no sooner arrives than it’s already July Fourth in the blink of an eye.

Along with the annual parades, cookouts and fireworks displays to celebrate Independence Day comes the annual Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest on Coney Island in New York. It always boggles my mind that someone can down dozens of dogs and buns, let alone do it so quickly and (by all appearances) not get sick right after doing it!

This year on the Fourth, the defending champion, Joey Chestnut, prevailed once again. I also learned that one of my coworkers actually faced off against Chestnut years ago while working at another TV station in a different city. They were tasked with an all-you-can-eat shrimp cocktail challenge at Indianapolis’ famous St. Elmo Steak House.

We have been fortunate enough to dine there several times and try to make it an annual outing when we go to the Indy 500. The shrimp cocktail is delicious and topped with a famously spicy homemade horseradish sauce and shaved horseradish that is so powerful, it will clear out your sinuses in one bite! The idea of eating a lot of that, along with pounds of shrimp, just doesn’t seem appetizing to me, but I’m told Chestnut downed 10 pounds of shrimp during the contest. Maybe it’s just me, but shrimp – and really any kind of seafood – doesn’t seem like the best food for eating massive quantities. I could be wrong, though, as I always see hoards of people carrying plate after plate of crab legs every time I visit a buffet restaurant.

Now, don’t get me wrong: the idea of being paid to eat or compete for money by eating something delicious sounds completely awesome to me. How do you get started doing that? What does the training involve? A chocolate ice cream eating contest would be right up my alley, and I have to believe I could gulp gallons of that tasty stuff with the best of them.

A bit of research tells me that stomach elasticity is usually considered the key to winning an eating competition and that professional eaters commonly train by drinking large amounts of water over a short time to stretch out the stomach. Another method is to combine drinking all of that water along with eating large quantities of low-calorie foods, such as vegetables or salads.

Well, that certainly doesn’t sound like any fun. I guess the only time they get to really scarf down huge plates of really yummy stuff must be during the actual contests.

In that case, I’ll just stick with my usual occasional small bowl of chocolate ice cream. I don’t need anything else to “stretch” my stomach – especially not 10 pounds of shrimp!

Kristin Emery can be reached at kristinemery1@yahoo.com.