Chefs in Guatemala City have cooked their way into the record books with a salad so big that Guinness World Records said it was heavier than a giraffe.
On 24 October 2026, at the Centro Comercial Cayala in Guatemala City, a team of chefs and volunteers led by Toledo Alimentos prepared a fiambre salad weighing 4,325.9 pounds (1,962.2 kilograms), officially setting a new Guinness World Records title for the largest fiambre salad ever assembled. Guinness published the record on 28 October.
52 ingredients, two tonnes of tradition
Fiambre is a chilled salad traditionally made on 1 and 2 November for All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, with recipes handed down through families. To break the record, the team pulled together 52 different ingredients: hard-boiled eggs, cured sausages, cold cuts, various meats, sweet corn, peppers, crisp lettuce and onions, all tossed in a spiced traditional dressing and mixed with giant wooden paddles.
Guinness World Records adjudicator Susana Reyes was on site with a team of professional weighers. The bar to set the record was 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds); the Guatemalan team cleared it by more than 3,200 pounds, topping out at 1,962.2 kilograms. When Reyes officially declared it a record, the crowd went wild.
More than a stunt
The event was not just a stunt to land a title. It was a public celebration of Guatemalan culture and tradition, held just before the dates when families across the country serve fiambre, and it helped raise funds for culinary scholarships. The dish is a cornerstone of Guatemalan identity, a symbolic bridge between the living and the deceased, served as a communal meal that brings families together during a period of reflection and remembrance.
It is also, as Guinness helpfully noted, the only world record that ends with a nap. Two tonnes of salad, 52 ingredients, one giraffe’s weight in food — and a tradition that tastes of home.
Sources: Guinness World Records, 28 Oct 2026; Times of India, 1 Nov 2026; UPI, 29 Oct 2026.
