Creating absurdly giant versions of normal foods -- for absolutely no reasons other than that "we can" and there's nothing impressive about sensible portions anymore -- has become something of a sport in the restaurant world. Eateries celebrate milestones not with free fries or specially decorated pancakes, but with ice-cream scoops big enough to cover football fields or 10,000-pound bowls of spaghetti.
While people literally employ cranes and tractors to make more food than anyone could want, ever, Maine restaurant owner Ben Grant shakes his head and sighs for the wasteful ways of modern humanity. So he decided to make a 100-pound cheeseburger, according to Grub Street.
Ah, the plot thickens: The burger didn't go to waste, and its proceeds went to charity.
Grant's restaurant Dirigo Public House celebrated its first anniversary in late July by good naturedly making fun of customers and their incessant desire for food to "go bigger."
"Everybody's like, 'Haha the burgers are really good; you should go bigger,'" Grant told NBC Nightly News. "It seems inappropriate... to do something that is excessive as this without some sort of community giveback."
The guy's got a point, considering many people can't afford the luxury of eating out, much less, you know, casually consuming dozens of pounds of beef for dinner.
The restaurant's celebratory sandwich consisted of a 70-pound patty (cooked almost perfectly medium), accompanied by a giant homemade bun and 30 pounds of lettuce, tomato and ketchup. Ticket-holding customers got pieces of the burger, and some of the proceeds went to the Good Shepherd Food Bank.
More than 50 people showed up to Dirigo's anniversary event and devoured the burger until only a bit was left over, according to their Facebook page.
Gluttony, apparently, can do some good.