Barbecue chef Ted Reader spreads sauce on a hamburger weighing in
at 590lbs, seeking to break the record for world's largest, at Yonge Dundas
Square in Toronto, on Thursday May 6, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Patrick Dell
TORONTO — A Canadian barbecue chef is trying to take a very big bite out of
the record books by grilling what could be the world’s largest burger.
Ted Reader set a sizzling mark Thursday by creating a hamburger at
Yonge-Dundas Square in downtown Toronto that tips the scales at 268 kilograms,
or 590 pounds. If someone were to chow down the equivalent of the colossal
creation in quarter-pound portions, he or she would have to devour 2,360
burgers.
If the mark stands, that would make mincemeat of the previous Guinness World
Record of around 84 kilograms, or 185.8 pounds. However, Reader says they still
have to wait for Guinness to give them the official nod that they’ve claimed the
biggest burger crown, which he anticipates will take a couple of weeks.
Regardless of the official outcome, Reader expressed pride in the effort.
“Whether they say ‘yea’ or they say ‘nay’, I don’t care. We built it, now
we’re going to serve it,” he says.
“We tried to do all the checks and balances and make sure we followed the
rules. Let’s hope they go, ‘Yea.’
The award-winning chef used a specially designed grill with a built-in
forklift mechanism designed to flip the oversized culinary creation.
Reader says it took six hours to cook the behemoth of a burger, starting off
with a patty weighing 139 kilos. The grilled patty was then nestled in a
48-kilogram bun, dressed with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, red onions, pickles and
barbecue sauce.
“I’m amazed that we got it out of the grill and onto the bun,” Reader says.
“That was the whole trickiness to it, but it’s held together, it’s edible, it’s
delicious.”
An auction of the burger also netted money for a charitable cause, with
$8,500 raised to benefit Camp Bucko, a camp program for children with burn
injuries.