Peruvian Amazon celebrates festival with 1,600 pound Juane, record-breaking rice dish

Gently tucked inside a thick exoskeleton of bijao leaves, a giant mixture containing more than 2,000 eggs and six sacks of rice was steaming when it was dunked into the oversized pot of boiling water last month in Iquitos, Peru. 

Surrounded by a group of excited – and hungry – volunteers, the Amazonian jungle community was celebrating their annual Fiesta de San Juan on 24 June. 

Yet before the celebrations could officially begin, dozens of cooks, local authorities, business representatives, and members of the public united to assemble the largest Juane (Peruvian style rice cake) of all time. 

Each year at the end of June, the traditional dish is made across Peru to celebrate the holiday. And this year, two days before the festival kicked-off in Iquitos, the banking company Yape (Peru) joined the festivities to help make a Juane of record-setting proportions.

After cooking 1,000 pieces of chicken and 661 lbs (300 kg) of rice, a team of volunteers mixed the eggs, spices, and olives into the mash, and layered it within a 4.9 ft (1.5 m)-tall pot. Using a crane, they dunked the Juane into boiling water to finish the process – and after four hours, they finally had a total of 1,638.22 lbs (743.10 kg) to share with the public!

And despite the record-breaking size of this Juane, the dedicated chefs who prepared this dish were determined to make sure that it was also delicious.

“The goal is to surpass everything,” said Alejandro Cácares Ruíz, who helped during the attempt. “Not only the size, but the flavour!”

Read more stories about giant meals and regional cuisine in our dedicated Food and Drink section!

Preparations for the event took multiple days, as the team sourced fresh ingredients and obtained all the extra-large materials they’d need to cook a Juane of this size. 

And it truly was all-hands-on-deck, as they brought in over a dozen volunteers to help – including prize-winning Juane chefs from across Iquitos and the Amazon. 

The cooking process started a day before the actual event, as the volunteers spent hours chopping chicken, heating rice, stirring in spices, and mixing the filling. 

Yet the entire time, spirits were high – as music played, laughter and conversations floated over the food, and the chefs swapped stories and advice for how they cook the dish at home. 

Finally, at 1 p.m. on 22 June, the meal was ready – and hundreds of hungry attendees streamed into the centre of the celebrations, eager to try a free bite of the record-breaking Juane. 

Guinness World Records Adjudicator Natalia Ramirez witnessed the weighing of the pot, and she was delighted to announce to the crowd that they were officially now a part of culinary history. 

“This is a record with real soul,” she said. “The Juane represents the identity of an entire region, and today Iquitos showed the world that Amazonian gastronomy deserves a place in the record books. 

“It was an honour to be here to certify it,” she continued.

So congratulations to everyone in Iquitos, and the chefs who created this record-breaking Juane – you are now all Officially Amazing!