By IANS
New Delhi : A crane lowered around 3,000 kg of vegetables and then 3,000 kg of rice into a gigantic vessel with 1,200 litres of simmering oil. Creating a new record amid much fanfare, more biryani was cooked here Saturday than anywhere in the world before.
Lalitt Gattani, CEO of Showcraft, one of the organisers, said the aim of cooking such a humongous amount of biryani was to break the last record created by them and maintain India’s position in the category.
“We created the last record of making 12,886 kg of biryani and this time we are going to break our own record. Kaoru Ishakawa, the record manager from the Guinness Book of World Records was checking all the procedures before announcing the record,” Gattani told IANS.
Holding long ladles and wearing masks and gloves, 60 cooks stirred the pot from a high pedestal, while the crowd salivated.
“It’s a unique event,” remarked Sushil Kapoor, one of the cooks. “It’s not easy to cook such a large amount of biryani. We started in the morning and took more than six hours to cook. But we enjoyed doing it.”
While the cooking was in progress at one side of the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium grounds, a cultural show was on at the other side to entertain the audience.
“After the biryani is cooked, we will distribute it to the visiting crowds free of cost. We are expecting around 50,000 people. We will also distribute the biryani in the slums and orphanages free of cost,” Gattani said.
“We were hoping that the biryani was non-vegetarian but although it’s not, we are excited to taste it anyway,” said Abhinav Garg, who had come with his friends to watch the unique event.
Shambhavi Sharma, however, was more excited just to see the cooking in progress.
“I have never seen such a big vessel…and the way the crane was lowering the vegetables, it was fantastic! I had come to watch the cooking and I must say it’s impressive.”
According to Gattani, it took the organisers over six months to plan the cooking record.