Tuesday, March 16, 2010

  Largest Meatball - world record set by Glen Oaks Community College

 CENTREVILLE, Mich., USA -- After cooking for 32 hours, the Glen Oaks Community College meatball was ready to be served and organizers determined the final weight to be 254 pounds - which sets the new world record for the Largest Meatball .

 Photo: Glen Oaks Community College sets the world record for the Largest Meatball . Instrumental in preparing for the feat are Glen Oaks instructors, from left, Bill Furr, Jim Cook and Lester Keith. Photo by Jef Rietsma ( enlarge photo )

   "It started out as a joke," said Lester Keith, a professor of business administration at Glen Oaks Community College . Keith and Bill Furr, also on the faculty at Glen Oaks, co-directors of Recreation and Student Activities, were trying to come up with something fun to do within Glen Oaks and the community at large.

   Math and science instructor Gerald Barkley was enlisted to help craft the recipe. "Usually when something like this comes up and somebody says, 'You can't do that,' I say baloney," Barkley said.

Mixed into the ground chuck was an assortment of spices and additives, including oregano, garlic powder, oatmeal, salt and a pasteurized egg mixture.

   Lester Keith, a business professor at Glen Oaks Community College whose casual suggestion last November has led to the attempt, said nearly 50 pounds of additives are included in the 400-pound blob of ground chuck.

   “We just followed a recipe, and our physics and math guy did all the calculations for how much to add to each batch of meat,” Keith said. “We did a 50-pound meatball test midweek to see how long it would take to cook and a lot of people who ate portions of that meatball said it tasted a lot like meatloaf.”

   The magic number of 160 degrees was reached around 32 hours after cooking began.

   It took a forklift to move the world's largest meatball to the scales, which recorded the weight at 405 pounds, including the rack, wok and wrapping.

   Organizers removed the last of the wrapping, deducted the weight of the not-quite-cooked core and some of the outside rim that was too charred to eat, and determined the final weight to be 254 pounds.

   That is large enough to beat the previous world record of 222.5 pounds set by Nonni’s Italian Eatery of Concord N.H. in November 2009

   Dave Wagner of the county health department monitored the process. Captain Tim Schuler of the St. Joseph County Sherriff’s department attested to the edibility of the meatball.

   The first 250 sandwiches — topped with red sauce and mozzarella cheese — were served to the St. Joseph County Commission On Aging for its Meals on Wheels recipients. Food handlers then cut the rest of the meat for the waiting crowd of 400 inside the gym.

   Much of the food and drink being served, tables and chairs inside the school gymnasium, the cooker, hats and T-shirts were offered for free or at cost.
Sturgis Hospital , for example, donated salad, and Burger King of Three Rivers agreed to donate dressing. Jim Brandon of Nottawa Gas has offered an extremely large cooker and all the propane fuel necessary to cook the meat. M&Q Packaging in Pennsylvania donated an entire roll of oven bag material.

   “We’re going to have to get together a list of all the people and businesses who worked with us on this … there are just too many to mention off the top of my head,” said Keith, adding that the event would not be possible without the help of the school’s student government members.    

 The previous Guinness world record for the largest meatball was set last year by Nonni’s Italian Eatery which produced a cooked meatball weighing 222.5 pounds.

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