World's Largest Pancake Griddle
Penn Yan, New York
Although the flapjack cooked on this griddle is no longer the world's largest (it was surpassed in 1994) and the Buckwheat Festival that it promoted is no longer held (it ended in 1999), the World's Largest Pancake Griddle remains the unequaled size champion of its kind. It is a destination for those who feel that magnitude matters in a photo-op.
The griddle, now hung on the outside wall of the buckwheat mill that sponsored it, is 28 feet, 1 inch in diameter and weighs over ten tons. Its moment of glory came on September 27, 1987, when it cooked a two-ton pancake poured onto it by a sterilized cement mixer, flipped with a construction crane, and then topped with 15 gallons of syrup and a 68-pound vat of butter. It could feed an estimated 7,000 of the 30,000 people in attendance.
The griddle did its job -- too well. The festival became so popular that the buckwheat mill never needed to cook a bigger flapjack, and attendance grew to such numbers that the crowds eventually became too much to handle -- so the festival was canceled.
Today, the buckwheat tourists who visit Penn Yan are typically just fans of the griddle, a not insignificant but still smaller and more manageable crowd.