It’s the classic dilemma food lovers face every Thanksgiving: How do you maximize consumption while minimizing feelings of discomfort and fatigue? Determined to solve this glutton’s conundrum, I met up with Eric “Badlands” Booker at the Tick Tock Diner in New York City for a firsthand lesson in piling my plate high, chowing down, and still having room for seconds.
There is no better feasting coach than Booker, who at 6' 5" and 400 pounds, is a man who not only knows how to eat but knows how to eat a lot, and quickly. There are people who enjoy eating, and then there is Booker, who has spent the past 14 years perfecting the craft of consumption, and now ranks 15th in the world on the Major League Eating (MLE) circuit. If Thanksgiving is the Super Bowl of food, then this man is the holiday’s MVP.
A native of Queens, New York, Booker got his first taste of competitive eating in 1997 at a qualifying match for Nathan’s Famous hot dog–eating contest, the annual Fourth of July showdown for the world’s elite eaters. After placing first in the qualifying match, Booker came in sixth at the event, and has since placed as high as second, in 2002, when he ate 26 hot dogs and buns.
Since his first showing at Nathan’s, Booker has earned eating records in nearly every food group. Noteworthy claims to gastronomical fame include eating 4 pounds of corned beef hash (1 minute, 58 seconds); 21 baseball-size matzoh balls (5 minutes, 25 seconds); 49 glazed doughnuts (8 minutes); and—just in time for the Thanksgiving dessert bar—4 3/8 Entenmann’s Pumpkin Pies (12 minutes). This is a man who clearly knows his way around an all-you-can-eat buffet.
We grab a booth by the window at the diner, one of the few places in New York City that actually serve a traditional Thanksgiving meal 365 days a year. I order Booker two of the Roasted Turkey Dinner platters, which come with a choice of soup or salad and include a half-pound of sliced turkey, plus stuffing, giblet gravy, marshmallow yams, and cranberry sauce (noticeably absent are mashed potatoes). Booker also orders the chicken noodle soup, and digs in as we start talking strategy.
“Thanksgiving is a time when everyone is a competitive eater,” says the champ, who, along with his wife, cooks Thanksgiving dinner for 15 or so friends and family members. “And at our house, I know it’s going to be like an amateur boxing match—a three-round match, at least,” Booker says, referring to the multiple servings he’ll eat of some of his favorite dishes, including homemade macaroni and cheese, a family recipe for sweet and tangy sausage stuffing, ziti, turkey, ham, chicken, and meatloaf, plus ice cream and several types of pie.
Of course preparation for a big match must begin well before game day. To lay the groundwork before you come face-to-face with your plate, Booker recommends eating a light dinner made up of lean proteins, such as chicken, and salad the night before the feast: The key, he says, is to eat something to prevent your stomach from shrinking, while avoiding weighing yourself down with anything heavy. On the morning of the big day, eat a breakfast of complex carbs, such as oatmeal, which will keep you satiated and make you less likely to snack in the hours leading up to the first bite of the bird. (A word to the wise for cooks: Booker knows there’s no way to get around tasting your creations to see if you need to adjust seasonings, but says to keep sampling to small bites.)
In the Booker family home, the cooking takes place in two shifts. Booker prefers the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift, since he’s used to the hours from his job as an overnight MTA conductor on New York’s 7 train.
Just as he’s putting the finishing touches on the ham and stuffing, his wife steps in for the daytime shift, and Booker retreats from the kitchen to build up his appetite for the main event. One key to success is what you drink leading up to and during dinner. Booker suggests instituting the MLE approach to liquids. “You don’t want to be drinking anything that’s carbonated,” he advises. “It creates bubbles in your stomach, which are not good.”
Steer clear of soda and beer if you’re looking to hit the buffet hard. “I definitely wouldn’t recommend walking into the meal doing a boot chug,” Booker warns. Instead, opt for juice, wine, or your best option, water, as your drink du jour. Because he’s a pro at the art of eating, Booker will often drink an entire gallon of water the night before a competition to stretch his stomach, but he wouldn’t advise this tactic for the average eater. (Drinking too much water can dilute sodium in the body, causing hyponatremia, a potentially deadly condition.) He also stretches his stomach by consuming vast quantities of cabbage, but this isn’t advisable for overeating amateurs, either.
Just as Booker is finishing up his soup, the turkey dinner platters arrive, along with a glass of lemonade (noncarbonated, of course). He does his signature “it’s go time” move and flips his black Yankees hat backwards, then surveys the platters before starting what he refers to as “the pilgrimage of the plate.”
Before the official start of the pilgrimage, Booker likes to sample a little bite of everything on his plate. He hoists a forkful of turkey to his mouth, then moves on to the stuffing, followed by a small bite of the candied yams, then the cranberry sauce, and finally a taste of the giblet gravy. Content with the platters’ offerings, Booker kick-starts his pilgrimage by tackling all of the candied yams then continuing around the plate, leaving the turkey for last.
“The whole goal is to know what foods to attack first,” he explains, washing down each bite with a swig of lemonade. “Some foods will make you sleepy earlier in the meal, and you don’t want to have to stop after only one plate.”
Booker’s bottom-line advice: Get your fill of side salads and nonturkey proteins first, and then tackle the carbs and turkey. And when piling up your plate for the first round, always take even portions of everything so you can really load up on your favorite dishes in round two. “You have to be careful with turkey and chicken because of tryptophan. It’ll put you to sleep, so you save those for last,” Booker advises. (He notes that his approach to the carb-centric Thanksgiving meal is slightly different from the strategy he’d take with something like a churrasco, when he’d attack the meats first.) If we were at Booker’s Thanksgiving table, the champ says he’d “hit the ham or meatloaf first, and then the candied yams or stuffing,” since the side dishes are his favorites.
With just a few bites left on each platter, our waitress slides slices of red velvet cake and apple pie across the table. “You really just have to be hungry and focused when you’re eating Thanksgiving dinner,” he says. “Sometimes, when you’re in a competition, you get to the point where you start enjoying the food, and then you fall behind.”
The waitress reaches to clear Booker’s plates. “Oh, no, no. I’m not done with that,” he says. At this point we’ve attracted an audience at the Tick Tock Diner. Tourists and locals alike rubberneck to see the spectacle. “I know you from somewhere,” the waitress finally confesses. “You’re from the hot dog eating contest!” Booker smiles and nods before taking another bite.