Burrito Grande : Eating: UCSD cooks create world’s largest burrito at 1,116 pounds, then slice it up to distribute to homeless.

If there were any doubts about UC San Diego’s status as a world-class university, they were laid to rest Friday in the dining hall at Muir College.

While UC Berkeley has Nobel laureates in quantum physics and Stanford its atomic particle smasher, UCSD earned its superlative ranking during a lunch break Friday, when a team of cooks, food suppliers and students built a bean burrito the likes of which the world has never seen.

It weighed 1,116 pounds. It was 23 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 8 inches high. It was the world’s biggest, surpassing the old record by more than 300 pounds.

Building the burrito was a dining hall tag-team event, complete with brass band and pep squad, said Muir Commons manager Mark Ditman, who organized the tortilla and bean convergence. The pace was hectic, but the cooks successfully negotiated the challenges posed by big-time cuisine.

Forty pairs of hands donned plastic gloves and hefted 900 pounds of donated refried beans (actually, the beans were rehydrated refrieds). They patted the beans down with 40 dozen tortillas, slathered it with 5 gallons of guacamole, and let 80 pounds of grated Cheddar rain down. A small tributary of salsa, a modest dollop of sour cream and chopped olives added to the monstrosity’s aesthetic appeal.

“One quick question,” Joy Havorth, the Muir Commons supervisor blurted when the burrito reached completion. “How do you want me to cut it?”

After the five-hour bean-steaming period, it took just under an hour to assemble the burrito, said Peter Robson, UCSD’s banquet manager. Not exactly fast food, but the world record was for size, not speed, he said.

A videotape of the ordeal and a report on ingredients, quantities and construction methodology will be sent to New York-based Facts on File, the American publishing franchise for England’s Guinness Book of World’s Records. Affidavits must be submitted before the record becomes official, Ditman said.

If UCSD’s effort is accepted, it will dwarf the existing King of Burritos, an 800-pounder masterminded by taco shop keepers in Newton, Kan.

Kansas?

“When I heard that the biggest burrito was from the Midwest, it bothered me,” Ditman said. “I couldn’t let that happen. Mexican food goes with Southern California, not Kansas.”

Others felt the same, including representatives from Santiago Foods, donor of beans and sauce, and Porkyland tortilla makers. Still, striving to be the best was not the only motive.

“When we first heard about it, I thought it was a great platform to market our products,” said Basic American Foods regional sales manager, Stu Heine. Basic Foods is distributor for Santiago. Wearing a broad sombrero, Heine hunkered over the burrito and mugged for newspaper and television cameras.

Officials at the Guinness World of Records in Niagra Falls, Ont., said they were not aware of a record for burrito size. Tracy Hurd, assistant manager at Guinness, added that food categories are declining in recent years because of public safety concerns.

“We found that people were eating themselves to death,” Hurd said. “You can only stuff so much into your mouth before you keel over.”

She said, however, that events such as Friday’s burrito fest are benign, because they concentrate on building large-scale food items. Only when the focus turns to eating massive quantities do deaths occur. “We discourage those kind of gorging events.”

The UCSD burrito was cut into 15-pound chunks and delivered to homeless shelters around the county, said Hank Hinkley of Love’s Gift, a group that distributes perishable food to the needy. With average portions measuring three-quarters of a pound, the burrito can help feed more than 1,500 people, Hinkley said.

There were a few cases of burrito envy around town, even as news spread Friday night.

Ralph Pesqueira, owner of the popular El Indio Shop, said he had heard reports years ago of the world’s longest burrito. He didn’t recall the length, but remembers thinking: “What an easy thing to do.”

The record for weight, he said, was more of an achievement.

“That sounds like it was a lot of fun,” Pesqueira said.