World Nattō-Eating Contest

On March 11th, a "World Nattō-Eating Contest" was held in Mito, at Senba Lake, near the bowling alley. We failed to mention it in our events calendar but we did not fail to go and check it out. With a bit more than 70 participants including 4 foreigners, this 7th annual contest had the bad luck of happening in the midst of rain. The low temperature combined with the wind made it hard to stay warm for anybody, although some contestants were not afraid to wear just one layer.

Because of these apocalyptic circumstances, the competition was reduced to two rounds, instead of the planned three. I went there not to appreciate nattō (I am not particularly a great fan) but to support my American friend, Max, who tried to defeat the Japanese and somehow take revenge on Japanese Takeru Kobayashi who won the Hot Dog Eating Contest six times in a row back home.

The first round consisted of swallowing, as fast as one can, a bowl of rice covered nattō. After mixing both ingredients carefully, five lined-up contestants were given the go. You find all sorts of contestants there. You have the trained ones, that don't chew anything and just gulp as fast as they can, interrupting occasionally to help the mixture go down by drinking a bit of water. You have those who come just to experience an eating contest. They don't necessarily do badly but one can tell they have never done this before. You finally have those who basically don't know any more why they came but still try to finish the bowl, trying to contain the tears forming in the corners of their eyes.

Video cameras were all over the place. A Korean TV channel was actually covering the event and interviewed Max. How did he do by the way? Max was very fast and he did impress the crowd. However, he was messy and got rice and nattō all over his "I like beer" shirt, which made him lose time picking off the grains and beans one by one. Without this mishap, he might have made it to the 2nd and final round that day. . . .

The best 10 times were selected for this round. Just like for the 1st round, they lined up in groups of five contestants. In the bowl, there was only nattō. Before getting down to business, the contestants were asked to stir the nattō 30 times to let air penetrate and of course make it harder to eat. The winner, Mr. Nakamura, was able to swallow it down in 31.6 seconds, leaving vice-champ 0.2 seconds behind.

This eating contest was actually the first time I'd witnessed something of the kind. You may think whatever you want about these competitions; I was really impressed by the techniques a man can think of to eat in almost no time. Some doctors worry that repeatedly stretching the stomach may diminish its ability to function. Knowing that, watching such a contest can be very disturbing. However, because this was not about how much you can eat in a certain amount of time but rather how fast you can eat a certain amount, it was somehow organized to be relatively safe for the contestants and I could enjoy the competition.

The organizers (the Mito City Sightseeing Department) were glad to welcome foreigners, so if you like nattō, why not try next year to get in the competition? It is, after all, supposed to be a world competition . . . win or lose, you get a prize. You win: you get something like a digital camera, DVD player, etc.; you lose: you are given the tools to win the next time, nattō and rice.