The world’s largest ball of yarn is just so passé. This Saturday, local chefs will attempt to build the world’s largest ... Caprese salad. An extensive Google search turned up nothing conclusive on other oversize salad attempts. So after this weekend, the record for biggest Caprese salad is estimated to be: 24 feet (long).
The tall-order tossing takes place at The Mercato, the Little Italy farmer’s market celebrating its 1-year anniversary this month. The salad will be forked up by three chefs -- Eric Bauer of Anthology, Rob Conaway of The Glass Door and Joe Magnanelli of the currently-being-re-vamped Cucina Urbano (formerly Laurel) -- and three culinary students.
Organizers estimate it will take less than an hour to make history and rock the Cabrese world. The supersalad will be portioned off and sold to the viewing audience. Proceeds will go to Kinder Garden, an actual garden program run by Washington Elementary School.
Mercato meistra Catt White is proud of how far the farmer’s market has come in one year.
“Every farmer’s market has its own characteristics,” White said. “We’re European-style, with a focus on farmers.”
In the beginning, there were 38 booths; now there are 82. There’s room for about 15 more.
On any given weekend (The Mercato is held every Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.), upward of 3,000 people come to shop. But you can image that with the record-size Caprese salad going up, years from now 10 times that amount will claim to have been there.
Ron Donoho is a regular contributor to NBCSandiego.com and a contributing editor to sandiego.com. His Web site (sandiegoDTOWN.com) is dedicated to news, sports, culture, happy hours and all things downtown.
