Hey buddy, got a match?

We call it the world's largest outdoor pork barbecue.  And for good reason.  First, there are the custom-made 24 foot long grills.  Next we add about 8 thousand pounds of premium grade charcoal.  Then we have an army of volunteers, many involved in one aspect or another of the pork industry, many more who are just "old-timers" (that's code for: they were grilling meat to perfection long before a lot of us were even born).

We serve between 30 thousand and 32 thousand  butterfly chops and pork burgers in a little under 30 hours over Hog Fest weekend (the grills are in operation from 5 to 9 PM on Friday; 11 AM to 9 PM on Saturday and Sunday; and 11AM  to 5 PM on Monday).  That works out to about a thousand sandwiches (or more) an hour every hour without stop all the time the grills are in operation. Depending on peak demand, a lot more than a thousand pieces of meat in some of those hours around lunch and supper time!

But what happens if it rains?  Or it's cold?  Or people don't show up for their shift?  Or someone's feet hurt from standing too long?  Well, as they say: "the show must go on" and somehow it does and so far it has for 57 consecutive years. And we haven't even touched on (although they have our undying gratitude and admiration as well) all the folk under the big top who make and bag those 30-some thousand sandwiches, sell the tickets, deliver sandwiches to those incapacitated in elder-care and rest homes.  Oh yeah, and did we mention it's not only a weekend but also a holiday weekend and most of these volunteers have regular fulltime jobs and families like everyone else but don't mind giving up their personal time to do something nice for their community so that friends and neighbors and visitors can have something fun to do for the last holiday of the summer?   WOW!   And that pretty much sums it up!

So there you have it. The Big "Q!"  It's like an assembly-line grilling machine.  We think Henry Ford would be proud!