An idea jokingly cooked up over some wine about a year ago is about to become reality. During the annual Italian-American Club of Hilton Head Island dinner last year, Joe Sullivan, owner and chef of Mulberry Street Trattoria, and other club members were casually chatting about making the world’s largest meatball, and on Saturday during the Italian Heritage Festival, their hard work will be weighed and judged.

The meatball, which was made out of about 2,600 pounds of meat, began cooking at 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to Christopher Sullivan who helped mix the ingredients, and it will cook day and night in a large oven designed and constructed by Italian-American Club members Joe Carpinteri and Kevin Lawless.