It took five men, two dollies, a car jack, forklift and several ratchet straps and 2-by-4s to move an 800-pound, 9-foot-long provolone into carving position Thursday at Mazzaro's Italian Market in St. Petersburg. The largest provolone ever to be shipped to the United States, it will be cut and sold in what has become an annual market tradition. (Last year’s cheese weighed 250 pounds.) The provolone from Italy took 8,800 gallons of milk to produce and loses 10 to 12 percent of its water weight each year of aging. The result is a more crumbly, crystalline texture and sharper flavor than ordinary provolone. Store manager Kurt Cuccaro expects the $14.99-a-pound cheese to be gone by Christmas.

Seriously cheesy, this big boy is roughly the weight, if not the shape, of a grand piano. Like a grand piano, moving it presented some logistical challenges. Store shoppers gawked during the 40 minutes it took to wrangle the Auricchio cheese from where it has hung in the cheese room for the past year and a half. The big cheese caught Mazzaro's eye at an Italian trade show, at which point they commissioned one of their own. They've already put in an order for an 1,100-pound provolone for next year. Cheese escalation, certainly, but nowhere near the world record. That honor goes to a Quebec, Canada cheesemaker who produced a whopping 57,518-pound cheddar cheese in 1995.

According to Cuccaro, the shipping of this cheese cost nearly as much as the cheese itself (about $2,000). On Saturday morning, Mazzaro's will begin cutting -- first with a wire (the circumference is too large for a knife), then each large round will be cut into wedges. Cuccaro suggests eating this very sharp, cheddar-like cheese out of hand, as a snacking cheese (as opposed to cooking with it). Of course, it could also come in handy if you have a serious mouse problem.