Power of Caring
  presented by CIGNA

The most fearsome competitive eater in the world stands only 5'8". He weighs 135 pounds. His waist is 30 inches. You look at him and you think, I spot this guy a pork shank and I still beat him. Yet this polite waif has made giant men bury their faces in their napkins in agony, struck terror in the stomachs of sumo wrestlers and given all-you-can-eat noodle-shop owners facial tics.

He is Hirofumi Nakajima, of Kofu, Japan, and he's coming to Coney Island on July 4th to defend his title in the 83rd annual Nathan's Famous Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Contest. Please, keep pets and small children away.

Winning again won't be easy. He will have to beat a man who can eat 150 jalapeño peppers at one sitting. The world haggis-eating champ will be there. So will the American pickle-eating champion. One beast goes 6'7" and 360. None of them can carry Nakajima's fork.

Last year, he ate 24 1/2 hot dogs (and buns) in 12 minutes, or enough to kill Babe Ruth three times over. He has put away 50 sushi in one minute; 14 bowls of soba in 30 minutes; more than six and a half pounds of sweet potatoes in half an hour. But he is not merely a speed eater. He is a classic distance eater as well. He inhaled 15 bowls of noodle soup, 100 pieces of sushi, five plates of wheat noodles, five plates of beef over rice, and five plates of curry over rice in a single lunch. Plus the mint. Another time he slurped down 58 bowls of rice-cake soup in a sitting. There is nobody the dreaded Black Hole of Kofu can't outeat.

"Excuse me," he says, bowing apologetically. "But this is not true. I lost once."

You did?

"Yes. To an elephant."

O.K., there is no human the dreaded Black Hole of Kofu can't outeat, unless maybe you're counting Gilbert Brown. Men travel days just to quiver at the terrible things he can do to a menu. Shopkeepers see him coming down the street and immediately start hand-cranking down the steel shutters.

You look at him, this 23-year-old man, not even filling out his shirt, born without benefit of a butt, his belt notched lightly at the first hole, and immediately you think, Two Happy Meals, he's done. When Nakajima humiliated the 360-pounder, former champ Ed (the Animal) Krachie of Queens, New York, at last year's Nathan's Famous contest, Krachie was reduced to crumbs. "I'm dumbfounded on how someone that small can do it," Krachie declared.

"It is a secret," Nakajima says of his gift. "If I told you, you might beat me." The mind shudders. What could it be? Japanese microtechnology? He is a black belt in judo. Maybe it's a Zen thing. "Concentration, yes, is most important," he says.

Maybe it's his training. Before a contest, he will eat a lunch of 10 to 12 bowls of ramen every day for two weeks—yet he can't put on weight. There were rumors that he had a surgically installed superstomach, until he was examined on the steps of New York's City Hall. "It is only that I hate to lose," Nakajima says.

We couldn't resist. We bought him a Jethro Bodine-sized bowl of ramen and asked for just a glimpse of his greatness. We handed him some chopsticks. We took a step back. As he broke them apart and began feeling their weight in his hands, a tingle came over us. This was Ted Williams with the pine tar, Horowitz warming up on scales, a Kennedy fingering the drink list.

Suddenly, he summoned a huge glob of noodles to his over-sized maw and Hoovered them down with sickening speed, as though something horrible deep inside him were pulling furiously at the noodles, hand over fist. There was no chewing. There was no swallowing. The noodles were just gone. The bowl was empty in 30 seconds. He dabbed at a small droplet on his chin, smiled and bowed slightly in apology. If you want just a quick bite for lunch, Nakajima-san is your man.

Me, I'd bet the kitchen that on the Fourth somebody at Coney Island will be placing a mustard-yellow belt around the waist of the Black Hole of Kofu.

If I were the presenter, I would take off my rings and jewelry first.

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Past Editions of Life of Reilly

photograph by Robert Beck

Issue date: July 6, 1998