Last month we tag-teamed for a double hog roast effort with two professional chefs. 6,000 people is the amount of people that demanded catering from two Spitting Pig Chefs. The 6,000 strong contingent came together for the Soul Survivor festival which took place at the Bath and West Showground in Somerset. With so many people they’d got in touch with us for some extra hands and you know us, we’re always happy to oblige when we’re needed to make hog roasts.
There were many meetings before hand at the venue site between several groups to arrange properly and professionally the equipment and event logistics. From the get go this was a large-scale, professional, catering operation – and, not to mention, it was a marvellous opportunity to showboat hog roasting for 6,000 people!
We were on site and starting with the cooking as early as 5am. Organised neatly at the venue were a large bank of Spitting Pig machines and a mass of hired ovens, all of which clearly on display so that festival goers could admire and gawp at the gigantic hog roast.
The day flew by as there was lots of work to get through and little in the time for a break, when it came to midday we had already taken to carving joints of meat and began with a secondary wave of roasting. It was finally time to start roasting the pigs, what everybody had been waiting for. The festival was about to be hit by a feast like no other!
When I looked up at 3:30 I could see queues steadily building as festival attendees clocked on that it was nearly time to serve the pig. A team of Spitting Pig carvers worked on, carving chunk after chunk of tasty, textured meaty pork goodness. Thankfully we had helpers there too who helped distribute equipment, bread rolls were ferried to various stations, followed in tow by plenty of apple sauce and stuffing.
By the time 4 o’clock came it was serving time and we took to serving the spit pig rolls to wave after wave of hungry people. With only an hours time passed it was 5 o’clock and would you believe it but we’d fed over 5,000 people in that time. That’s 83 pig rolls served every minute or, to be more precise, 1.38 roast pig rolls served every single second. A mammoth quantity of food served at rapid speeds with the help of many great people.
The compliments then came in thick and fast, in much the same way as a damn breaking, with the satisfaction being heard loud and clear from the worlds biggest marquee. People couldn’t believe the freshness and succulent, juicy taste of a hog roast, neither could they believe the proficiency in which we cooked it all and the speed in which we served it.
The hog roast job was very satisfying to be involved in, especially when we finished it successfully.
Then on the 26th shortly after we catered a small but pleasant christening in a village hall. Not quite as active or rowdy as the festival, but just as exciting to be involved in.