Luscious Lecture

As part of j-CATION, competitive eating champion Takeru Kobayashi of Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest fame was interviewed by Time Out New York Associate Food Editor Jordana Rothman and Food Writer Daniel Gritzer. Kobayashi reveals his special techniques for ingesting hotdogs.

A multiple-world-record-holding major-league eater, Kobayashi is known in the U.S. as "The Tsunami" and had a 6-year winning streak 6 (2001-06) at Nathan’s Famous July Fourth International Eating Contest at Coney Island. In addition to a personal best of eating 64.5 hot dogs in 10 minutes in 2009, Kobayashi set a new Guinness World Record by eating 29 meatballs in one minute. Born 1978 in Nagano, Japan, Kobayashi founded the United Food Fighter Organization (UFFO) in 2004.