Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Of Meatballs 'n' Men Who Gotta Eat

Once upon a time - 'bout ten years ago, I guess - I embarked on a crusade to find the perfect meatball recipe. I scoured the Interweb and cookbooks 'til I found about two dozen meatball recipes which seemed to be the most promising.

A majority of the recipes called for meatballs to be fried before stewing in a tomato sauce. Some, however, called for meatballs to be baked for a bit before getting tossed in tomato sauce. I tried all the fried 'n' baked recipes ... and with each one, it was like biting into golf balls made of dense, dry meat.

Then I found a meatball recipe which called for the little round buggers -- made o' ground beef, ground pork, fresh breadcrumbs, eggs, salt pepper, fresh basil and parsley -- to be slowly poached in a savory tomato "meat sauce." I tried it once, and it became my preferred way to cook meatballs.

Unfortunately, I can't recall the cookbook which inspired me so. Oh, well. Click here for proof of the inspiration.

All that said, this Slashfood.com story caught my attention ce soir:

Take approximately 327 pounds of beef chuck, season it and cook it over a day and a half. The end result? One humongous meatball that should beat the world record set by a restaurant in New Hampshire last November. At least that's what a group of staff and students at Glen Oaks Community College in Michigan are hoping.

On Monday, after cooking for 32 hours, the behemoth was removed from the oven and placed on a scale (by a forklift). It came in at a little over 400 pounds, but that included the rack and wrapping.

Just in case you were concerned about people surreptitiously placing their chubby fingers on the scale to jack up the weight, have no fear. The weigh in was overseen by official witnesses for the Guinness World Records. (Who knew that could be a job?)


The pic:



That meatball mighta been big; but there ain't no way it was as flavorful or juicy as a meatball that got plucked from a pot o' Joltin' Django's savory "Sunday gravy." Indeed.

Truth be told, I'll bet that ****in' thing was hard as a rock, hard as a rock ... and then some (apologies to BulletBoys).

1 comment:

Brian Stanley said...

Your a meatball Django! just kidding, just kidding, just kidding!