About a year ago, on June 21, 2015, 80 of Italy’s finest chefs delighted visitors at the Expo Milan with a slice of the world’s longest pizza — A 1.59545 meter-long (about a mile) pie that they spent 18-hours crafting. On May 19, 2016, 250 masters of traditional Neapolitan pizza from across the world gathered at the beautiful bay along the Caracciolo seafront in Naples, and outdid their achievement with a delicious pie that measured an impressive 1,853.88 meters, or about 1.15 miles, long.
The mouth-watering treat that was baked during the “L’Unione Fa La Pizza” event, was the brainchild of Oramata, the organizers of Napoli Pizza Village, the world’s largest meet dedicated entirely to pizza consumption. It took the pizza chefs 11 hours, 2,000 kg of flour, 1,600 kg of tomatoes, 2,000 kg of fiordilatte cheese, and 200 liters of olive oil to prepare the record-breaking pie. The pizza was cooked to perfection in the five custom-made portable ovens that had been brought to the seafront for the occasion.
Once Guinness World Records adjudicator Lucia Sinigagliesi had confirmed the record, slices of the delicious Neapolitan pie were handed out to the hungry visitors that had come to witness the event. Whatever pizza remained was donated to local food banks.
While the recent battle between the chefs has been focused on creating the world’s “longest” pizza, the title for the world’s “largest” has remained uncontested since 2012. Called "Ottavia," in honor of the first Roman emperor Octavian Augustus, it measured 131-feet in diameter and weighed over 51,000 pounds!
The pizza crust that was made using 1,488 pounds of margarine, 19, 800 pounds of flour, and 551 pounds of salt, was topped with 10,000 pounds of tomato sauce, 8,800 pounds of mozzarella cheese, and to the disappointment of meat-lovers worldwide — 220 pounds of lettuce! Though that may seem like a strange topping choice, it made perfect sense given that Ottavia was also 100% gluten-free and baked not just to break a record, but also to educate people about the importance of making healthy food choices.
Resources: Guinnessworldrecords.com
