Inspired by Montevideo's historic asado, Colonia attempts world's largest chivito

At least with the barbecue there was some competition. But the world's biggest chivito?

Last Friday, Colonia set out to set a record in the Libro Guinness for the world's largest chivito, a steak sandwich that, to my knowledge, is only made in Uruguay. The stunt followed the wildly successful Asado más grande del Mundo, in April, where 1,252 cooks piled into a stadium at the Rural del Prado to cook 26,455 pounds of meat on 4,921 feet of grills. That beat the previous record, set in Mexico with 17,637 pounds of beef, a feat confirmed by an honest-to-goodness Guiness judge who flew in for the event, which was also witnessed by at least 15,000 hungry participants.

I doubt Colonia has much competition for its record. But just in case, the 22 chefs went all out, constructing a chivito that measured 14.2 feet in length and was 17 inches thick and 5 inches tall, El País correspondent Pedro Clavijo reported in Sunday's paper, marveling at the “estupenda elaboración gastronómica” ("incredible culinary creation"). It took 216 colonienses to consume that creation, with as many as 2,000 people cheering them on at the third-annual “Colonia Está en su Plato” ("Colonia is on your plate") festival. In addition to an absurd amount of beef, the sandwich contained 200 eggs, 22 pounds of ham, 11 pounds of pancetta, 22 pounds of mozzarella, 11 pounds of mayonnaise (I had thought they put that much mayo on a regular-sized chivito!), 200 lettuce leaves and 200 tomato slices.

Travel Channel host and chivito fanatic Anthony Bourdain was not on hand. (Bourdain, in a recent piece on Uruguayan cuisine, gushed: "Really, the chivito is too good to be true; it’s almost impossible to eat because of how tall it is. Moreover, the idea of putting together beef, bacon, ham and cheese in the same bite, without counting all the other things it contains, is incredible. What’s more, in the U.S. you could be arrested for daring to eat something like this. For me, any country that embraces this as its national sandwich is great!")

But there was at least one celebrity in the Colonia crowd: Graciela Carbonaro, the daughter of the creative genius behind the chivito, an Uruguayan hero who, at least among the patrons of the Esquina del Chivito and Chivilandia in downtown Montevideo, must rank somewhere near José Artigas in prestige.

As Carbonaro tells it, the chivito was born late one night in 1944, when a customer approached her father, Antonio, at his Punta del Este restaurant, El Metejón, and ordered a chivito, or little goat. Antonio Carbonaro, then only 29, answered that Uruguay is a goat-free land. But sticking by the motto that in his home, "nadie se va sin comer" ("nobody leaves without eating"), he scrambled to assemble a dinner plate with the few ingredients left in the kitchen.

He soon emerged with the new sandwich, telling his guest, "señora aquí tiene su chivito" ("Ma'am, here you have your chivito"). I don't know if she was pleased. But the chivito, “una de las delicias más preciadas de la gastronomía uruguaya” ("one of the most esteemed dishes in Uruguayan cuisine") is now all but inescapable, as iconic as other lunch favorites including milanesa and empanadas, only perhaps even more Uruguayan.

Photo of the Colonia chivito extravaganza from El País; photos of a chivito sandwich at Chivitolandia, on Ejido, and of José Artigas' mausoleum, beneath Plaza Independencia, by Benjamin N. Gedan.