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MANITOWOC, WI (WTAQ) — Wisconsin is a land of agricultural wonder.
“Here in our state we have fruits, vegetables, livestock animals,” said Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center Program Manager Abigail Martin. “As well as specialty crops, like ginseng and Christmas trees.”
Those, with the exception of Christmas trees, create culinary wonder.
“There’s such a great flavor to it, and such a uniqueness to it that makes [our food] so ‘Wisconsin’,” says Wisconsin Cafe head chef Dustin Goetsch.
Brats are obvious. Cheese is obvious. But the big menu item hitting plates at the Wisconsin Cafe at the Farm Wisconsin Discovery Center in Manitowoc contains neither. It’s called: “The Big Porker”, and it is the biggest plate of breakfast in Wisconsin.
It’s six eggs, six pieces of bacon, six pieces of sausage, a huge ham steak, four pieces of toast, a pile of breakfast potatoes, and three giant pancakes–and it’s sourced locally.
If you’re looking for how many calories it is, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.
It’s more than just a big plate of food, though: it’s a challenge, and a tribute to all things Wisconsin food.
“The challenge is you have to eat all of that within 30 minutes,” Goetsch said. “It costs $30, but if you do it, you get the meal for free, you get some merchandise, and we put your picture up on the wall of fame.”
But who, exactly, is on this wall of fame? Whose stomach has the capacity to take down six eggs, six pieces of bacon, six pieces of sausage, a huge ham steak, four pieces of toast, a pile of breakfast potatoes, and three giant pancakes?
It isn’t Abigail Martin.
“I have not tried it. Everything individually I tried, and it’s delicious, but that’s a lot of food.”
She’s in perfectly fine company, however. As of Thursday, there’s nobody on the wall of fame.
That’s something I wanted to change. That day had come. I, Rob Sussman, News Anchor and Chief Gastronomic Researcher at WTAQ Green Bay, will be the first.
So I thought–and Martin agreed. My coworker and WTAQ afternoon anchor Casey Nelson didn’t. There was but one way to find out.
I had seen pictures of this massive beast before, but pictures don’t really do it justice. The gravity of my situation wasn’t really clear until Goetsch invited me into the kitchen, where I watched him crack half a dozen eggs in between flipping pancakes the size of hubcaps, each with the thickness of a phone book. I fled the kitchen, knowing I needed to steel my nerves ahead of this gargantuan meal. I did everything right. I hadn’t eaten in well over 12 hours at this point.
I was ready. I was without fear.
Fear is the mind killer. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
I had to think, I had to strategize. When the food was brought out in front of me it was larger than I even anticipated having seen the man himself assembling it. It is a truly massive plate of food. To call the pancakes “gigantic” is to do a kindness to giants, as these were larger. They were surrounded by beautifully cooked meats, eggs, and delicious toast.
My strategy was simple: I was to make sandwiches of the meal. I would place potatoes, meat, and eggs in between massive cuts of toast and slices of fluffy pancake. The first sandwich I assembled was the sort of sandwich you’d pay ten bucks for, by itself, at any brunch restaurant in the state of Wisconsin–and it wasn’t even an eighth of the food on the plate. I got the first one down easily. It was extremely delicious. Goetsch is a heck of a chef.
At around eight minutes in, I was feeling good. Dustin told me I was actually on a pretty good pace compared to other challengers. At about the 12 minute mark, however, something changed. My mind spun. This pancake, had I eaten even a single bite? Why does it suddenly seem larger than it had mere moments ago? Fear had set into me, a physical terror that manifested immediately. My hand froze, my body pulled back in full revolt against my mind whenever I willed it closer to the dreaded giant, Lake Michigan sized pancakes. It took every ounce of my willpower to continue on, but continue on I did.
One thing that was unassailable was the unending march of time. When I looked up, I was being counted down. My time was up.
“I’ll take a to-go box,” I asked Abigail.
She brought me three. Each one was filled.
I failed. But the end result doesn’t matter, what matters is the journey.
“What a great way to highlight Wisconsin products and bring a little fun and energy to the Wisconsin Cafe,” Martin waxed.
“We’ve got a culture out here,” Goetsch said. “There are different heritages that have blended together that have brought all their unique styles together to really form what Wisconsin food is.”
If you’re thinking “oh, wow, you barely ate anything at all”–I assure you, I did. If my word isn’t enough…why don’t you go try it yourself?
