Yes, it’s true. America has been surpassed as a world leader in yet another field. The crown for makers of the largest omelette has passed to 50 cooks in Ankara, Turkey, who celebrated World Egg Day by cooking a 110,000-egg omelette. The awful truth, the official notice of America’s world empire entering its twilight period, was broken to Uncle Sam with the above YouTube video, which is one of the absolute weirdest things I’ve ever seen.
What we yanks don’t realize, though, is that the scepter of world rule in the giant-omelette category slipped from our buttery fingers some time ago; according to Armenian news (Armenia is shouting distance from Turkey) the last record was held by South African cooks, who cooked up an omelette weighing over three and a half tons. If they’re referring to 2009’s legendary Capetown Omelette, however, I’m not so sure it was a legitimate record, since there were only 60,000 eggs involved.
Before that, the record was set in 2002 by a team of Ontario omeletteers, and before that, in 1994, by cooks in Yokohama, Japan. The claimed number of eggs in the Japanese omelette was 160,000, calling into question the verifiability of the Turkish claim.
I don’t want to be the one to break any of this to the owners of WorldsLargestOmelette.com, who apparently just this past summer had a go at the crown in a charity event in the Mohawk Valley near the Adirondacks of New York masterminded by Scott Tranter, The Diner Wizard at Crazy Otto’s Empire Diner. You can show your love for America (assuming you love it, or give a damn one way or the other) by watching this fine video:
Sadly, our American team used an anemic 45,000 eggs, leading a YouTube commenter to slap those New Yorkers straight:
¿Largest? You’re few littles omelettes. Realy Giant Omelettes are in Abbeville (Lousina) or Canada (Granby), France (Bessieres and Frejus) Belgique (Malmedy), New Caledonia (Dumbea, french territory near Australia) and Argentina (Pigue). Since 1974, every year in this cities.You can see some videos here in You Tube.
Doh! SNAP! But But they’ve got the URL, and in this wired era, that’s what counts. At press time, WorldsLargestOmelette.ly was still available.