What? No Pepperoni?

May 30, 2016 12:36 AM

The Guinness World Record for Worlds Longest Pizza has been broken. (not to be confused with the record for World's Largest Pizza) After a mile-long pizza was created at Expo Milano last year, pizza-makers in Naples (recognized by most as the place modern pizza was invented) upped their game, building a 1.15-mile coast-hugging track and five motorized wood-fired ovens on wheels, and in 11 hours, 250 pizza chefs turned "2.2 tons of flour, 2.2 tons of mozzarella cheese, 3,527 pounds of tomato sauce, 200 liters of olive oil, and 66 pounds of fresh basil" into a continuous pizza that Guinness approved of.

One other recent Guinness pizza record: the first Pizza Hut in Tanzania delivered a pizza to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro to earn the record for "Highest altitude pizza delivery on land".

posted by oneswellfoop (34 comments total)

I forgot to include Longest Pizza Pictures... do not view on an empty stomach (or if gluten intolerant)
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:40 AM on May 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

So by the time it is done the front end is stale? I hope they let people start eating it before the whole 11 hours was up.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:50 AM on May 30, 2016

What a time to be alive.
posted by teponaztli at 12:57 AM on May 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

And they STILL ask if you want garlic bread.
posted by adept256 at 1:03 AM on May 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Where's Pac-Man when you need him?
posted by chavenet at 1:29 AM on May 30, 2016

So by the time it is done the front end is stale?
I guess that's why there were FIVE rolling ovens... with just one, it would've taken 48+ hours to bake the whole thing. Still, I wish I'd have seen what they did with the rolling ovens when they finished their sections and were somewhere in the middle...
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:38 AM on May 30, 2016

surplus pizza was donated to those in need

Seeing that this is a) pizza and b) a lot of surplus, this makes me happy.
posted by bigendian at 2:35 AM on May 30, 2016

And they STILL ask if you want garlic bread.

No, even here I still think I'd want garlic bread. Wanting garlic bread is a central part of the human condition.
posted by eykal at 2:43 AM on May 30, 2016 [10 favorites]

Uhh I specifically said "no basil", please transport this back to the kitchen.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:31 AM on May 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

"2.2 tons of flour, 2.2 tons of mozzarella cheese, 3,527 pounds of tomato sauce, 200 liters of olive oil, and 66 pounds of fresh basil"

it's impressive they were able to successfully complete this engineering challenge while mixing imperial units and metric...
posted by ennui.bz at 3:49 AM on May 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

All of these sound utterly metric to me. Out here, a pound is 1/2 kilogrammes.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:55 AM on May 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Eater website did some partial conversion, since the Guinness website reported "2,000 kg of flour, 1,600 kg of tomatoes, 2,000 kg of fiordilatte cheese and 200 litres of olive oil". In Italy, fiordilatte cheese is mozzarella NOT made from buffalo milk, so Eater Americanized that too. They probably just thought "53 gallons of olive oil" didn't sound impressive enough.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:22 AM on May 30, 2016

Imagine if the dam holding back the molten mozzarella broke before the pizza could be constructed. It would be like Pompeii and Herculaneum, but with cheese.
posted by XMLicious at 4:51 AM on May 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I"m more surprised that people still care enough about the Guiness Book of Records to pull stunt like this. How did I end up back in the 1980s?
posted by mary8nne at 4:59 AM on May 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

According to legend, in 1889, the Margherita pizza, whose red tomatoes, green basil, and white cheese represent the Italian flag, was named after her.
posted by clawsoon at 5:05 AM on May 30, 2016

So by the time it is done the front end is stale?

I quite like stale (thin) pizza. It's a different thing to fresh pizza, but it has it's own appeal. One thing I like is filling a folded piece of old pizza with a dressed rocket salad. Or just dipping it in chilli mayonnaise.
posted by howfar at 5:10 AM on May 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Chicago should make the world's deepest pizza.
posted by srboisvert at 5:29 AM on May 30, 2016 [13 favorites]

Food-related stunts have always bothered me because few foods scale well. I witnessed two record attempts involving edibles--one was a giant "pancake" and the other mashed potatoes. There was a great deal of waste, not a little contamination and more than a few onlookers overwhelmed to the point of nausea. The "pancake" did not in fact have any real structural integrity and could not be flipped, and the end product of the potatoes looked like medical waste. I could not look a potato in the eye for months afterward.

Maybe this is better because pizza, but stuff like this just feels wrong and frivolous when everyone simply does not have equal access to food.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:44 AM on May 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

So by the time it is done the front end is stale?

See also: World's largest microwave oven.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:49 AM on May 30, 2016

Few years ago Bob Blumer got the Guinness record for most pizzas made in an hour. The Guinness folks are surprisingly obsessive! Measuring the pizzas with rulers etc. Crowd ate them after.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:03 AM on May 30, 2016

Foop, I'm making pizza tonight and it's all your fault.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:05 AM on May 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

The pizzeria across the road's latest assassination attempt is 33% off for three pizzas, so of course I have leftovers. Microwaved breakfast pizza is indeed special in it's own way.

FFFM, you can't just say something like that and not tell us how many.

Only the world's deepest and most philosophical pizza would be able to justify the White Sox.
posted by adept256 at 6:38 AM on May 30, 2016

I'm very curious about the DOUGH! Was it one long piece, and if so, how did they do that?? I'm imagining 2000 people responsible for one section each, dumping the flour and yeast onto the table all at once, adding just enough water to make a nice mix, then kneeding and spreading so the ends connected. Let sit for an hour under some damp towel, then roll, all together, one mile long dough. I hope this is what happened.
posted by rebent at 6:54 AM on May 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Adept, 168. Poor Bob was dripping with sweat by the end. Secret: over proofed dough spins out faster.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:10 AM on May 30, 2016

We deserve the meteor
posted by beerperson at 7:17 AM on May 30, 2016

Chicago should make the world's deepest pizza casserole.

ftfy.
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:45 AM on May 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I agree that this is very frivolous, but for me, that's exactly why I like it. It's useless, nonsensical and fun. It's a form of performance art, in my eyes.
And I'm glad that the pizza was not thrown out but given away and eaten.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:07 AM on May 30, 2016

Hopefully the most common use for giant powered exoskeletons will be hand-tossing pizza dough to create the world's largest circular pizzas. That'll be a much better use for them than war.
posted by clawsoon at 8:43 AM on May 30, 2016

eykal: "And they STILL ask if you want garlic bread.

No, even here I still think I'd want garlic bread. Wanting garlic bread is a central part of the human condition."

When I was a young Splunge my friend Jay and I would go to the local pizza place every Friday after school. We'd order either a veal or chicken parm hero each. And a whole garlic bread... each.

Young and reckless, that was us.
posted by Splunge at 9:14 AM on May 30, 2016

dear askme i left my pizza outside in the summer sun next to a highway for 11 hours, is it still safe to eat
posted by poffin boffin at 10:36 AM on May 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Uhh I specifically said "no basil", please transport this back to the kitchen.

I'll have your basil dear, I love basil! I'm having basil pizza with basil, basil, basil, basil, basil, basil, garlic, garlic, and basil!
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:33 PM on May 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Chicago should make the world's deepest pizza casserole.

A sad mischaracterization. The crust on the bottom makes "Chicago Deep Dish" much more of a PIE. Pot pie or meat pie, your choice, but if you can't accept it as a 'pizza pie' (which was actually a misnomer for the flat pizza), it's solidly PIE.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:34 PM on May 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just realised the problem with these photos. WHERE ARE THE SEAGULLS?
posted by adept256 at 6:42 PM on May 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's likely that, of the 250 people working on the pizza, at least 50 (maybe 100) had the job of (a) shooing away or (b) shooting down seagulls. There may have also been some drones utilized (maybe the same ones providing the aerial photos)... after all, it IS 2016. (I think the Guinness Book has its own drones these days... that and a direct connection to Britain's GCHQ to identify cheaters. Because they can.)
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:28 PM on May 30, 2016