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As Cirque du Soleil Heads To Baltimore, A Look At Their Traveling Kitchen

BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Cirque Du Soleil performers are headed to town for a string of shows at Royal Farms Arena starting Wednesday, but first trunks of costumes and miles of rigging are being hauled into the venue.

Cirque Du Soleil travels with 20 semi-trucks and one of them is reserved just for the kitchen. Everybody has to eat three meals a day, seven days a week, so a makeshift kitchen is set up in every city they visit.

Lunch on Tuesday was pulled pork and coleslaw.

"We bring everything that's in the cases, the oven, the flattop," says chef .

Imagine the pressure, cooking for 50 performers coming from 20 different countries. They are fantastically trained, finely tuned artists.

"There are artists that come through with scales," says. "They weigh out their proteins, they weigh out their starches, they weigh out their everything. They have these little scales they travel around with."

Many of them have specific calorie and nutrient requirements because "they're flipping around all day," she says.

"They have seven shows a week, two-hour show... so it's 14 hours of show, plus a lot of training, workouts" says . "So they need to have a very good diet."

And so do the 50 men and women behind the scenes - a traveling community all relying on the talents of just five chefs.

The chefs always prepare one dinner native to the city they're visiting, too, so this Saturday they'll have Old Bay biscuits, soft shell crabs, Maryland-style stuffed ham and crab pretzels.

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