Wednesday, September 28, 2011

  Largest potato gratin: Mount Vernon sets world record (Video)

MOUNT VERNON, WA, USA -- Some residents of Mount Vernon, Wash. used 15,000 pounds of red potatoes, 400 pounds of cheese, 100 pounds of diced onions, 50 pounds of garlic and 200 gallons of cream, (all the ingredients were grown locally) to cook a up a pan of potatoes that was 80-feet long by 8-feet wide, weighing 16,000 pounds and setting the world record for the Largest potato gratin, according to World Record Academy (www.worldrecordacademy.com).

  Photo: The World's Largest Potato Gratin was made in Mount Vernon, weighing 16,000 pounds. ( enlarge photo )

  The Guinness world record for the largest potato gratin weighed 3,800 kg (8377.56 lb) and was prepared by Hutton Executive Catering and Sligro Food Group at the Slokdarm Festival, in Julianapark, Veghel, Netherlands.

Guinness World Records also recognized the world record for the largest serving of potato salad was made by Spilva Ltd, Latvia and weighed 3.27 tonnes (7,224.5 lb).

  The world record attempt was put together by the Mount Vernon Downtown Merchants Association.

   "The whole project has had an energy," said organizer Springer, the owner of the Trumpeter Public House and the woman behind the record-breaking idea. "It had a force all by itself. You couldn't stop it."

   Here's the World's Largest Dish of Potatoes au Gratin by the numbers:
   —Estimated weight of the dish: 16,000 pounds, nearly doubling the current world record that had been set in France. About 15,000 pounds of potatoes were donated by the Skagit Red Potato Growers Association.
   —Size of the pan: 80 feet long, 8 feet wide and 8 inches deep, made by Superior Systems of Mount Vernon. It was brought to the lot in four pieces and bolted and caulked together on site. It may also break the record for largest pan.
    -- Heated by 40 crab cookers power by two 1,000-gallon propane tanks.
    —Students from the culinary program at Cascades Job Corps grated 400 pounds of cheese, diced 100 pounds of onions and chopped 10 pounds of garlic.

   The garlic came from Joe's Garden of Bellingham, and was grown by first graders at schools throughout Mount Vernon.

  In order to qualify as a record-breaker, the entire dish must be consumed, and people were lined up to do that.

  Organizer Karin Springer tells a local paper their potatoes au gratin nearly doubles the current world record, set in France.

  Organizers planned on packing up leftovers to donate to food banks, community kitchens and shelters in the area so nothing would go to waste.