July 2, 2011 6:36 PM
Reporting Don Knapp
PLEASANTON (CBS SF) — Some very ambitious cooks tried to make history at the Alameda County Fair Saturday when they attempted to grill a 777-pound hamburger. If successful, it would be the world’s largest commercially available hamburger. …
Full Article: CBS San Francisco: Ground meat patty for what may be the world’s biggest hamburger at the Alameda County Fair.
It’s Official & It’s the World’s Largest Hamburger
By Tanya Rose
July 3, 2011
Giant burger, cooked Saturday at the Alameda County Fair, beat the record set in Canada.
It’s probably the first time a giant hamburger has trended worldwide on Twitter.
It’s also the first time a burger weighing in at a grease-tastic 777 pounds has existed on the planet, and Guinness World Record officials were on hand at the Alameda County Fair on Saturday to say so.
By Gary Peterson
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 07/02/2011 10:48:37 PM PDT
Updated: 07/04/2011 06:38:18 AM PDT
Celebration ensues after breaking a Guinness World Records for the World’s Largest Commercially Available Hamburger, weighing 777 pounds at the Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton, Calif., on Saturday, June 2, 2011.(Doug Duran/Staff)
Brett Enright, if his first impression is any indication, was born with a twinkle in his eye and a bold idea at full boil.
So it’s no surprise to learn that while relaxing last December, the only month he takes off from his job as CEO of Juicys traveling barbecue catering service, he was shaken awake by an inspiration.
“I thought, ‘I bet I could build the world’s largest burger,’ ” Enright said Saturday. “So I looked it up.”
He found the world record for the largest commercially available hamburger, according to Guinness World Records, was 590 pounds. This led to a conversation with Nick Nicora, co-owner of Ovation Food Services, which has a facility in Pleasanton. And that led to Saturday’s spotlight event at the Alameda County Fair, in which Enright and Nicora cooked the biggest whopper the world has ever known.
They began at 5 a.m. with 600 pounds of meat, which they expected to shrink to about 400 pounds during cooking.
They forged 340 pounds of dough into two buns. On standby were 50 pounds of cheese, 20 pounds of onions, 12 pounds of pickles, 30 pounds of lettuce and 10 pounds each of mustard and ketchup. The final burger weighed in at 777 pounds, shattering the old record.
It was estimated the ingredients would comprise a 1.375-million calorie gut bomb.
“I kind of have a thing for big food,” Enright said.
The barbecue was Enright’s pride and joy, a massive trailer (the Outlaw Grill) that pops open into a massive food preparation station with an elevated cooking platform. The rig spends 11 months a year on the road, bouncing from NASCAR events to concerts to fairs. The burger was its most challenging project to date.
“Cooking it is difficult,” Nicora admitted.
It was estimated the burger would be ready to weigh at 5:30 p.m.
At 5:27, Nicora told a bystander, “It’s like Thanksgiving — when the meat’s done, you eat.”
The meat wasn’t close, having failed to reach its target core temperature.
The world record attempt was very much in the delightful spirit of the county fair. Which is to say fairgoers had options as they awaited the weigh-in. Among them: having their picture taken with a pig, watching elementary-age children try to ride a sheep, dining on all manner of fried food and buying a goldfish in a water-filled plastic bag.
Ain’t that America.
Jose Haro of Sunnyvale brought his wife and two kids to the fair specifically to see the quarter-tonner-plus.
“I barbecue pretty much once a week,” said Haro. “We just want to see it. Unleash the beast!”
Alas, the beast remained leashed past 8 p.m.
Onlookers lined up for a bite-sized, 99-cent taste of the burger, with proceeds to go to the Alameda County Community Food Bank.
Fast food it was not, but a record it was.
Article Link: Contra Costa Times: World-record burger at Alameda County Fair
By FIELDING BUCK
The Press-Enterprise
Deep-fried butter is all the rage this September, thanks to the State Fair of Texas and its type-A desire to come up with something bigger, greasier and more death-defying every year.
We’re a little backwards in California. We don’t have deep-fried butter yet, and at the Los Angeles County Fair we’re still feeding off the Texas fads of prior years.
But it’s quite a feed.
You eat chocolate-covered strawberries, don’t you? Why not chocolate covered pork products?
Chocolate-covered bacon is the big taste treat and available all over the fairgrounds at $5-$5.50 for three slices. The bacon is good. The chocolate shell is good. The two don’t do much for each other.
If you buy, eat fast. The chocolate shell melts fast in the Pomona sun.
Fair news releases tout a meat-lovers ice cream cone. It’s tamer than it sounds: chocolate or vanilla soft-serve ice cream in a cup, not a cone, topped with chocolate-covered bacon bits. The chocolate coating was so thick the bacon was just a slight aftertaste.
You can find it for $5.50 at a concession with signage that reads “Mexican Funnel Cakes” by the racetrack grandstands.
The staff says they sell a lot of them, but they seemed to do better business with conventional ice cream cones.
Mainstream foods in massive portions (and matching prices) are another cornerstone of the fair diet.
Everything is huge at Juicy’s, an Oregon-based concession with evil-looking trucks, except for the $3 soft drinks.
Juicy’s has fairgoers’ eyes popping with its $10 Cowbunga Corn Dogs, which look like they could swab a small cannon barrel, and cinder block-sized servings of curly fries for $6.75.
Past Texas sensations such as deep-fried Snickers bars, deep-fried Twinkies and deep-fried Oreos, are available all over the place at the fairgrounds.
The term deep-fried is used almost as an honor. You can buy deep-fried hamburgers and hot dogs, but the difference between deep-fried and fried struck me as slight.
In case you were wondering how Texans pull off deep-fried butter, The Dallas Morning News says they begin with frozen butter that is dipped in batter and fried, creating something like a piece of toast, ultra-buttered from the inside.
Maybe we’ll get to try it next year.
Reach Fielding Buck at 951-368-9551 or fbuck@PE.com
Los Angeles County Fair
When: Through Oct. 4; closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Hours vary
Where: 1101 W. McKinley Ave., Pomona
Information: www.lacountyfair.com
Originally published at http://www.pe.com/guide/stories/PE_News_Local_S_upfront11.21d7236.html
The L.A. County Fair starts again this Saturday, a perfect opportunity to bury bathing suits in the sand and start stuffing our mouths. The country’s biggest county fair is not about petting zoos for us, but the landscape of over 250 food booths that provide a pre-holiday excuse to eat food our doctors would not approve of. Beyond a bazillion varieties of pie and produce are the warped and delicious takes on our guiltiest junk food pleasures. Which food vendors should you make a beeline for among the massive fairgrounds? Here’s a sneak peak at the new and notable eats you’ll find this year.
Two new additions that are well-suited to the fair will debut this year. Colossal Gelato crams an entire pint of Italian ice-cream made from natural local ingredients into a waffle cone as big as our arms and is sure to be a big hit. Made-to-order cupcakes are arriving from San Diego’s CB’S, which are softball sized and topped with a vast choice of candy. Both fulfill the sugar needs and zany dimensions of promising fair food.
The fair’s largest vendor, Juicy’s, will bring back their number one stunner, The Outlaw Grill. This 83-foot grill is hauled by big rig and can cook 1,500 giant turkey legs at once, making it the world’s biggest outdoor barbecue. “We buy about a half a million turkey legs a year,” says Bill Witt, Juicy’s rep.
While upscale Top-of-the-Park restaurant touts great racetrack views and a dressy menu, Juicy’s has the most popular food sections for their mix of spectacle, half-pound burgers, giant sausages, and eleven-inch funnel cakes. “We work hard to make it the best experience around, way beyond just goofy fair food, but high-quality everything, from food to service.” Witt adds, “We have bands and DJs playing, all the fair food everyone loves. It’s really a whole fair experience beyond food or entertainment. Whether you’re a thirteen year-old or a 65-year old grandma, we want our service to really form great fair memories.”
Eating at the Fair wouldn’t be half as fun without returning vet Chicken Charlie, he of the legendary obsession with deep-frying everything from White Castle burgers and S’mores, to Twinkies and frog’s legs. Charlie returns, as always, with a few new victims for his fryer this year, and while other stalls sell deep-fried sweets, they are mostly ripped from Charlie, whose versions are still the best.
Nearly everything seems to be available “on-a-stick” here; we suggest you skip caramel apples for the more unique cheesecake, key lime pie, and chocolate mousse on-a-stick.
You also can’t walk the fairgrounds without tripping over funnel cakes in every size, and this is the chance to get your annual intake, with specimens up to five pounds.
Scharffen-Berger chocolate ice cream from Dr. Bob’s and traditional Spam dishes from Brody’s Hawaiian Barbecue are two other edibles that novices shouldn’t pass up. For meat lovers wanting something beyond burgers, everything from menudo to half-pound sausages and pounds of crawfish abound.
That’s our basic plan of attack for eating at the County Fair, though with end-of-summer heat, a thick blanket of smoke, long lines, and wavering prices, we’ll see if our wills collapse before our arteries do. You’ve been notified L.A., you have 3 days to save some room for Saturday.
The L.A. County Fair
September 5th-October 4th,
1101 W. McKinley Ave.
Pomona, CA 91768
Admission: $6-$17, kids under 5 free.
By: Hadley Tomicki
Article Link: GrubStreet.com Los Angeles: What to Eat at The L.A. County Fair, Open Saturday