The 10 wildest Thanksgiving-themed Guinness World Records

June 2024 · 3 minute read
Updated 2020-11-26T15:08:50Z

If you think your Thanksgiving table is piled high with traditional festive foods, you've clearly never seen a 3,699-pound pumpkin pie the size of a small pond.

Guinness World Records tracks the most extreme creations, stunts, and accomplishments on the planet. Come Thanksgiving time, some of these milestones include record-breaking pies, cranberry sauce speed-eating, and balloon floats visible from miles away.

Here are 10 Thanksgiving-related Guinness World Records we're thankful for.

The world's largest serving of green bean casserole weighed 1,009 pounds.

The world's largest green bean casserole. Courtesy of Guinness World Records

Green Giant broke the record on November 20, 2019.

The world's largest pumpkin pie weighed 3,699 pounds.

The world's largest pumpkin pie. Courtesy of Guinness World Records

New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers prepared the record-breaking pie at New Bremen Pumpkinfest in New Bremen, Ohio, on September 25, 2010.

The largest sweet potato pie in the world weighed 703 pounds, 4 ounces.

The world's largest sweet potato pie. Courtesy of Guinness World Records

On April 7, 2018, Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Expressway Company Limited in Japan baked the largest sweet potato pie in the world.

The heaviest turkey in the world was an 86-pound bird named Tyson.

Male turkeys usually weigh between 16 and 24 pounds. david scott dodd/Shutterstock

Tyson belonged to Philip Cook of Leacroft Turkeys Limited in Peterborough, UK. The bird won the last annual heaviest turkey competition held in London on December 12, 1989, and was auctioned for charity for £4,400 (equal to $6,692 in 1989).

The Guinness World Record for fastest turkey carving is three minutes and 19.47 seconds.

Turkey carving takes skill. Richard Theis/EyeEm/Getty Images

Paul Kelly became the world's fastest turkey carver on June 3, 2009 at Little Claydon Farm in Essex, UK.

The largest pecan pie ever made weighed in at 41,586 pounds.

Pecan pie. Thomas Yau/South China Morning Post/Getty Images

The enormous pie was prepared at Cohen Stadium in El Paso, Texas, on May 22, 1999. It contained 1,500 pounds of pecans, 13,350 pounds of sugar, 850 pounds of margarine, 200 pounds of salt, 6,700 pounds of eggs, and 9,700 pounds of corn syrup.

The fastest time anyone has eaten 500 grams (17.6 ounces) of cranberry sauce is 42.94 seconds.

Cranberry sauce isn't usually eaten plain. EBMarketa/Getty Images

The feat was achieved by Andre Ortolf in Augsburg, Germany, on August 19, 2016.

To give you an idea of how much cranberry sauce that is, the average can contains 397 grams, or 14 ounces.

The largest serving of mashed potatoes weighted 2,641 pounds.

Mashed potato. Joe Gough/Shutterstock

Jason Lin, Colin Stockdale, Tyler Hubeny, and Evan Armstrong made the world's largest serving of mashed potatoes in East Binghamton, New York, on June 20, 2015.

Macy's Annual Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City remains the world's largest inflatable parade.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City features balloon versions of recognizable characters. Carlo Allegri/Reuters

There won't be a live audience this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the parade is still on.

The first-ever video game character float to appear in the parade was Sonic the Hedgehog in 1993.

Sonic the Hedgehog became a regular parade float. Charles Sykes, File/AP

Unfortunately, Sonic's debut didn't go very well. Strong winds pushed the float into a lamppost and popped it. The famous hedgehog had better luck in subsequent years.

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