A Big Stretch

A Beijing chef named Li Enhai stretched 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of dough into 65,536 noodles in 20 minutes week before last. The noodles, which were as fine as human hair, measured 328,680 feet end to end, the Xinhua News Agency said.

Noodle stretching is a Chinese technique of repeatedly stretching a lump of dough until the gluten spontaneously forms into strings. Li has stretched noodles at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where visiting dignitaries are entertained, and the Great Hall of the People, where China’s top leaders meet. He currently works in a five-star hotel in the Xinjiang region of China.

Xinhua claimed that the feat was a Guinness world record for noodle stretching, but Guinness spokesman Phillip Littlemore said the Guinness Book of Records has no such category.