Toronto’s latest food-related record breaker: Bob Blumer, who made 168 pizzas in one hour

Over the weekend, celebrity chef and food adventure seeker Bob Blumer successfully broke the world record for making the most pizzas in an hour, whipping up a whopping 168 cheese and tomato pizzas in 60 minutes—flying past the previous record of 142. Blumer attracted quite the crowd in Corso Italia as he cranked out a pizza about every 21 seconds. The scene got us thinking about some other food-related world records Toronto has claimed. Not surprisingly, this hungry city has several notable food feats to its credit. Perhaps Blumer can use this roundup as he sets out cracking all sorts of bizarre gastronomical world records in season five of Glutton for Punishment.

Most oysters shucked in one minute
Leslieville restaurateur Patrick McMurray became the shucking marvel of the oyster world by separating 38 oysters from their shells in under one minute last June. McMurray told the Star that he thinks he could do 44 next time. Since the last record was set by him, we have no doubt he’s determined to take a stab at it.

Most food donated by a city in 24 hours
Back in 2008, the Toronto Daily Bread Food Bank smashed the previous world record by about 18,000 kilograms after collecting 119,068 kilograms of food in one day. We figure generating food for charity makes up for the gluttony exhibited by our other world records.

Most potato latkes consumed
Toronto bodybuilder Pete Czerwinski won the 2008 National Latke Eating Contest in Lake Grove, New  York, after downing 46 potato latkes in eight minutes. Bubbes everywhere shone with pride.

Fastest time to eat a 500 mL tub of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream
Toronto’s Sam Stilson polished off a tub of Ben and Jerry’s Half-Baked in a record two minutes and 4.01 seconds. No word on whether or not he kept it down, but we bet for sure he will never want to eat the flavour again.

To come: world’s biggest smoothie
The Dairy Farmers of Canada will fire up all the blenders they can get their hands on this Thursday as they strive to make a 1,000-litre blueberry smoothie at the Canadian Milk Tent on Queens Quay. The spectacle may not be worth the time, but the free samples certainly will be. Someone has to finish that smoothie.