Corby Kummer: 10 minutes, 63 hotdogs and a protestor in a Darth Vader mask

On July 4, Nathan’s held its annual Hot Dog Eating Contest. Joey Chesnut, who is ranked first in the world by Major League Eating, picked up his fifteenth win Monday, fighting off a protester mid-contest. 

Food writer Corby Kummer said on Boston Public Radio that he enjoys watching the spectacle. “It's a scene out of a cartoon or a movie,” Kummer said. “It's broadcast on ESPN. It is treated as a sport… I also think it's the strangest Roman Times era spectacle that exists today.”

Chesnut has since said that he regrets fighting the protestor, who came up behind Chesnut in a Darth Vader mask. Kummer explained that ESPN had to refund some bets because the fight messed up the odds. Still, Chesnut remained victorious, with 63 hotdogs and buns in 10 minutes, shy of his world record of 76, set in 2021.

The contest, which takes place at Coney Island, is a July 4 tradition going back 50 years.

“It is with watching any athletic challenge, can they do it?” Kummer asked. “I think that you find yourself inadvertently rooting for them because they're challenging themselves. They're pushing themselves to the extreme and you want them to achieve their horrible goals.”

Kummer is executive director of the Food and Society policy program at the Aspen Institute, a senior editor at The Atlantic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.