Our look at the World's largest food

The Staff Canteen
By Mark Savile We’ve all heard of weird and wacky combinations of ingredients and food such as pizza with Nutella, beetroot and chocolate cake, and even Scotland’s famous deep-fried Mars bar which has become more than just a novelty item. However, if there’s one thing that bowls people over more than anything else then it’s definitely size, and the more extreme the better. Check out these wonderfully over-the-top dishes as we give you a run down of some of the World's largest food:  

Mallie’s Sports Grill and Bar

Absolutely Ridiculous Burger   In Michigan, USA this bar serves the world’s largest commercially available burger. Listed in The Guinness Book of World Records as “Absolutely Ridiculous Burger”, they broke the record selling an 85 kg whopper which required three chefs just to flip it. Not content with this achievement, Mallie’s has gone on to break and its own record a number of times – including making a 338 lb (153.5 kg) burger in 2012 which now features on their menu and must be ordered 72 hours in advance. In case that gets your stomach rumbling, be warned: it costs $1999, or add $200 if you fancy it takeaway.    

Fish and Chips

For something more traditional and closer to home, how about the world’s largest serving of fish and chips.   Photo courtesy of Bournemouth Echo   On 30th July 2012 Fish and Chips@ LTD in Enfield rustled up a portion of this favourite tipped the scales at 47.75 kg. There are challengers to this record, including a group of chefs from Bournemouth who claim their fish and chip platter weighed in at 59 kg, proving this is no small scale business. They toiled over a deep fat fryer on Poole Quay to cook a gigantic halibut and 59 kilos of chips to smash the previous record, set in Yorkshire...full story here.   Heading north of the English border takes us to Scotland and one of its most famous delicacies.

Haggis

Untouchable to some but worshipped by connoisseurs, is best known for containing sheep’s heart, liver and lungs mixed with onion and seasonings and spices. Yet in July 2014, Hall's of Scotland hit the headlines with their Guinness World Record Haggis, which weighed a massive 1.01 tons or 2227lbs, a balmy 933lbs heavier than the previous record, and captured the attention of Sky News and ITV. Wayne Godfrey, CEO of the company which owns Hall’s of Scotland said he wanted to make the country proud by “setting a Guinness World Records title a nation can be part of”. Not only did they make Scots proud, they also filled their stomachs!   Largest scotch egg - credit craftguildofchefs   Scotch Egg Another British culinary delight is the Scotch egg – a hard-boiled egg coated in sausage meat and breadcrumbs. Englishman Lee Streeton, Executive Chef of Hix Mayfair at Brown’s Hotel spent a painstaking 8 hours perfecting the 6.2 kg world’s largest Scotch egg. Obviously no chicken could lay an adequately sized egg, so an ostrich one was sourced, weighing 1.7 kg, covered in sausage meat, haggis and 800g of breadcrumbs.       Credit to Corkers Crisps   Crisps We’ve heard the expression a “shedload full” of something, but how about a “house-load”? That’s what Corkers Crisps of Little Downham in Cambridgeshire set about creating in September last year. The end result was a bag of crisps as high as an average-sized house, weighing over a ton and a Guinness World Record. It took two attempts to beat the previous mark as the bag split – a common problem with crisp packets! Still, after 20 hours of hard work they duly smashed the 500kg record set in Japan in 2012.         Cumberland sausage - Credit to Westmorland Gazette   You might not think that the grandson of a pig breeder would have much in common with setting culinary world records, but Gary McClure, now Executive Chef of Made in Cumbria who also produces free range pork and is the chef at Woodland Free Range Meats, holds the Guinness world record holder for the largest curled and cooked sausage in the world. You might then say it’s in the family, but this Cumberland sausage has nothing ordinary about it, weighing a massive 135kg and with a diameter of 3.3 metres. Unsurprisingly it required a custom made griddle in order to cook it!   Eton mess     All these delectable main courses and snacks should definitely be finished off with something sweet. Heading to Soho Square, London paid off for commuters one summer day last year as the World's largest Eton mess caused a stir. With over 50kg of strawberries and other berries, and buckets of cream and meringues, 167 kgs of Eton mess were served to the general public by British chefs in an enormous martini glass.  

 £110 cheese sandwich

Although not technically on the same scale as the other items here, the pièce de résistance has to be from chef Martin Blunos’s £110 cheese sandwich. cheese sanwich   This might sound excessive, but for that price you do get a rare creation from a man with two Michelin stars. Between the triple-layered, fermented sour dough bread, which itself costs £5, you’ll find West Country Farmhouse Cheddar infused with white truffles, Iberico ham, poulet de Bresse, quail egg yolk mayonnaise and semi-dried tomatoes. In case that’s not enough, to top off all these organic ingredients there’s a dash of 100 year old balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of gold leaf to ‘cleanse’ the body afterwards. Not just you’re average sub then... Anyone else know of any record-breaking food? Seen a large mushroom and thought now that's got be in the world record book? Let us know. Tweet your photos at @canteentweets.
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The Staff Canteen

The Staff Canteen

Editor 21st July 2014

Our look at the World's largest food