Did this Mississippi college just make the world’s largest jambalaya?
Published 2:14 pm Saturday, May 8, 2021
A Mississippi community college says it’s broken the Guinness World Record for the largest-ever jambalaya.
WXXV25-TV reports that Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College worked to make the dish as part of a May 1 fundraiser in Ocean Springs for campus food pantries.
Event Coordinator Carin Platt told WXXV25 before the event that the college was planning to make around 3,700 pounds of jambalaya. That amount would be enough to beat the current record of 3,371 pounds set by the Jambalaya Festival Association in Gonzales, Louisiana in 2009.
“It’s going to be a lot,” Platt told the television station. “It includes 900 pounds of sausage, 900 pounds of ham, more than 620 pounds of rice.”
This week, Platt said the college had succeeded in its goal, raising more than $3,200 for food pantries in the process. Over 2,000 people in need were fed during the event.
Now, all the school needs to do is file paperwork with Guinness World Records.
The Largest Jambalaya event is the second event of its kind held by the college. The first was Largest Pulled Pork BBQ in 2018.
Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s food pantries provide frozen items, dry and canned goods, and personal hygiene products for students in need. They also have pop-up food pantries located around campus with snacks.
Platt said food insecurity is much more prevalent on college campuses than most realize.
“We don’t want our students to be worried about where their next meal is coming from and want to make sure that they have what they need to succeed in college,” she told WXXV25.
Event sponsors included The Pelican, MGCCC Food Pantries, Smithfield Foods, Southern Event & Party, Justin Wilson’s Southern Products, Lynchburg Landing, and System Scales Corporation Mobile.