NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) – Whom would you expect to bump into at the World’s Biggest Bowl of Spaghetti? Of course, it’s Joe Piscopo from Saturday Night Live!
Joe is a celebrity, and so is this pasta. It’s served in a bowl that’s eight feet in diameter.
It has 500 pounds of pasta, 150 gallons of sauce, or as they call it gravy and 50 pounds of cheese.
That’s why it’s the World’s Biggest Bowl of Spaghetti.
WGNO News with a Twist features reporter Wild Bill Wood needs the world’s biggest fork to dig into this dish and this story.
It’s served at New Orleans Hilton Riverside in the grand ballroom. The dish is called Pasta con Sardi which is the traditional St. Joseph dish.
The recipe has sardines! That’s right, sardines instead of red meat.
And the sauce gets even more interesting. It has fennel, pine nuts and raisins. And it’s topped with St. Joseph bread crumbs that have been toasted and are sprinkled on top.
The group behind the big bowl is the Italian American Marching Club. It’s one of the largest ethnic organizations in the Southeastern United States. You can find out about the club’s Saturday parade on the website.
It was started by a man named Joseph Cardenia and his friends back in 1970.
Lately, more than 1,500 members have signed up.
The objective of the Italian American Marching Club is to keep Italian heritage alive and delicious in New Orleans.
It makes sense.
New Orleans was the destination of many of the current members’ ancestors back in the 19th and 20th centuries.