Feast of the long table
2007-09-27
THE Annual Cultivaria Festival kicked off on Thursday evening by placing itself, and Paarl, in the Guinness Book of Records.
A total of 1020 guests dined in style in Paarl Main Street at the Black Tie dinner table which stretched almost half a kilometre.
More than ten tons of catering equipment, including tables, chairs and cutlery were used to set up this unique dining experience.
To feed the masses, chefs used amongst others 40kgs of salmon, 300kgs of lamb loin and 130kgs of chocolate.
Organisers started work on preparing the table at 08:00 on Thursday morning and once the last guests had left, the table was immediately cleared and taken apart to open the road to traffic on Friday morning.
Paarl restaurateurs, Marc Friederich, Abe Conradie, Grant Willoughby, Cas Abrahams and Jochen Riedel assisted the main chef, Mark Maingard, in devising and preparing the dishes.
Catering students from Boland College lent a hand at the kitchen stations with the preparation and plating of the food.
Maingard said that the chefs were not doing this for any profit, but to put Paarl well and truly on the map as a culinary capital of South Africa.
Egoli stars Eckard Rabe and Brümilda van Rensburg hosted the evening, together with a star-studded live entertainment programme including Mathys Roets and Kevin Leo.
One of the highlights of the evening was when an artwork of festival artist, Kevin Brand, came under the hammer.
Although guests were hesitant to fork out money for this painting, R42 000 was eventually raised which will be added to the Cultivaria bursary fund. This bursary will fund the studies of a worthy Paarl student in the tourism and hospitality industries.
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