WORLD CUP USA ’94 / THE FIRST ROUND : IN CASE YOU DON’T LIKE BARBECUE

Before the World Cup first-round game between Spain and South Korea, Dallas treated its Spanish visitors to a Texas-sized cookout at the Loews Anatole hotel. Chef Antonio Galbris was flown in from Valencia, Spain, to whip up enough paella to serve . . . 5,000.

In two satellite-dish sized frying pans, Galbris and a team of piano movers carefully blended the ingredients of the traditional Spanish dish: 600 pounds of rice, 18,000 jumbo shrimp, 60 pounds of squid, 660 pounds of chicken, 30 pounds of green beans, 30 pounds of bell peppers, 100 pounds of tomatoes and 16 ounces of saffron.

And just a pinch of salt. Twenty pounds, to be exact.

Actually, for Galbris, this was a rather intimate gathering.

In 1992, the chef made paella for 100,000, which earned him a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.