Nigerian chef Hilda Effiong Bassey, popularly known as Hilda Baci, who broke the Guinness World Record for longest individual cooking in 2023, has done and dusted the record, but is not slowing down at anytime soon. Hilda kept Nigeria, and indeed the world spell-bound as she spent nearly four exhausting days in May, cooking enough food to feed hundreds of Nigerians, and making Hilda cooked for four days non-stop, taking only one hour breaks every six hours. She neither slept nor slumbered. And what was more, she cooked in a make-shift kitchen in an environment that had crowd, music and other activities, as Nigerians trooped out in grooves to show their support and at same time eat some of the free food made by Chef Hilda, they even defied the rains to encourage her.
Hilda commenced the cooking feat, popularly called cook-a-thoon on May 11-May 15, and cooked for 100 hours, from which her rest hours would be deducted. The 26year old, had to wait for another one month before the Guinness Book of World Records would announce if she broke the record or not.
Before attempting the Guinness World Record cooking marathon, Hilda Baci, founded a restaurant and delivery service called “My Food by Hilda”, which is based in Lagos Nigeria, with a recent outlet in Abuja. Hilda had also appeared on various televised cooking segments and even won a Jollof rice cooking competition in Ghana. So, her world record attempt was in no way surprising, however, even though she cooked for 100hrs, she had to settle for an official time of 93hr and 11 minutes, because the Guinness World Record committee deducted nearly seven hours from that time, they cited that one of her allotted breaks lasted too long.
The good news was that Hilda Baci set a new record, which surpassed the previous record of 87 hours and 45 minutes achieved in 2019 by Indian chef Lata Tondon. It would be important to note that to win the Guinness World Record, there are a set of rules, which each competitor must adhere strictly to, which included that the attempter would do all the cooking, with only one sous-chef to help with food preparation and cleaning of the kitchen area.
So Hilda Baci cooked for four day straight, while preparing two meals at the same time with only a five minutes bathroom break or one hour sleep, which would also be accumulated if not taken.
Hilda Baci cooked 100 pots of food in a 35- item menu for spectators to enjoy during the cook-a-thon, which held at Amore Gardens in Lekki.
To prepare for the event, Baci created a 35-item menu to ensure that she had the necessary ingredients to make each recipe, though her team was able to procure other ingredients while the cook-a-thon was underway.
During the four days, Baci was able to cook more than 100 pots of food, each enough to feed up to 35 people. Nigerian spectators were invited to eat the freshly-cooked meals, while all leftovers were donated to the Festus Fajemilo Foundation in the African country.
For the first time, the Guinness World Record website crashed for two days, during Hilda Baci’s cook-a-thon as millions of viewers worldwide viewed the attempt through Intagram Live Stream and their website, “due to the immense volume of traffic we received from her legion of loyal fans,” the organization said.
Several celebrities and high-profile Nigerian figures visited Baci as she cooked, including Nigerian former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Gov Jide Sanwo-Olu and singer Tiwa Savage. Brands were not left out, as several brands such as Dano Milk, Access Bank, La Casera, Bold, Airtel, Le’ola Hotels etc, were on ground to support the cook-a-thon, while other brands such as BUA, Axa Mansard Insurance and Checkers Custard, all showed support to the chef via the online platforms.
It was an environment of fanfare and joy as Nigerians and the world celebrated Hilda Baci, and she ended the marathon cooking with a word of emotional prayer.
Days after Hilda completed her cooking marathon, she said via an Instagram video that she was still unable to sleep. “I’m still in awe, like I think I’m still in shock,” she said in the video. “I’m so happy and I’m so grateful to everyone.”
Post the Guinnes World Record Cook-a-Thon, Hilda Baci has been very busy, she has grossed up multi-million Naira endorsement deals with brands such as Vesti (a digital brand), Zaron (cosmetics brand), Viva (home care brand), Aquafina (a beverage brand), etc.
She has also been involved in several charity events to raise funds for support to widows and indigent people, by collaborating with brands, NGOs and individuals such as the Duke of Shomolu Productions, several restaurants across Nigeria.
While Hilda Baci had to wait for an excruciating 4 weeks to get her Guinness World Record confirmation and certificate, “Following a thorough review of all the evidence, Guinness World Records can now confirm that Hilda Effiong Bassey, better known as Hilda Baci, has officially broken the record for the longest cooking marathon (individual), with a time of 93 hours 11 minutes,” GWR said in a statement released on Tuesday, other Nigerians and Africans caught the Guinness World Record frenzy in an attempt to break or usurp Hilda’s record.
Immediately after Hilda’s attempt, Chef Dammy started her own cook-a-thon in Ekiti state, her attempt was highly criticized. However, Chef Dammy who cooked fro 120hrs, explained that she didn’t register her attempt with the Guinness World Records and that her cooking attempt was merely for fun and the church.
After her attempt, Chef Adeola also started hers in Ondo state and ended up cooking for 150hrs as well. However, both Chef Dami and Chef Adeola’s attempts were not acknowledged by Guinness World Record.
Their attempts attracted wide criticism to the point that the current Guinness World Record holder, Hilda Baci, had to acknowledge their attempts and also encouraged them to follow their dreams, in an interview Baci stated that she sees herself as a trailblazer, and a source of inspiration for numerous individuals, who are striving to break her record.
“I feel I started a trend or like I am pretty much a trailblazer because only a trailblazer will start something and other people will want to do it,” she said. Yes she is right because not only is Hilda Baci highly talented, she is creative, determined, focused, very stylish and very very beautiful in every aspect, with a full curvy figure to boast of. So yes, she was a trail blazer.
Hilda Baci after her Guinness World Record attempt, was given a royal reception by her home state of Akwa Ibom. Though garnering the fame and accepting cooking deals, Hilda was also very concerned about her brand and integrity. Hence why she turned down offers from unscrupulous brands or businesses, who wanted to use her popularity and exploit innocent individuals.
It would be interesting to note that Tata Tandon held the record of longest cooking by an individual for 5yrs, before being overturned by Hilda, but Nigerian youths emergency attempt to out-do Hilda was seen as not healthy at all, especially because most of the attempts were mediocre. Not only were there attempts for a cook-a-thon, there were attempts for cry-a-thon, kiss-a-thon, massage-a-thon, all sorts of a-thons by nigerians to the point that it became an embarrasment. Guinness world record had to state in their website that there is a due process and application mthod to be folloed as well as the category of attempts they accept and the rules that must be met.
That singular action ended the a-thon craze in nigeria. It would be worthy of note that while Chef Hilda made millions of naira from brands that supported her cook-a-thon event, by being at the cooking venue, Chef Dami disclosed later that she did not make up to N2m Nairar, despite being visit and celebrated by the state governor’s wife and other university council members.
The only endorsement chef Dami got was from herbal drink brand and it was wort N1m Naira. There is akso a Chef Temitope Adebayo who has applied to attempt a 140hr cook-a-ton and has been advised by Guinness to wait till November before he starts his attempt.
There is also a computer science lecturer at the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE) Joshua Hassan Bature, who has proposed a 150-hour teaching marathon which he calls ‘aca- a-thon”. The GWR people have given him an October 16, 2023, date. And then there is Oluwatobi Kufeji, Alejo Pataki, who proposed a 200-hour singing marathon called “Praise Worship-a-Thon”. Then Benue state based, Treasure Joseph, who wanted to set a record for the longest video on Instagram with a target of 125 hours, but eventually didn’t do it. Then popular evangelist Woli Arole joined the bandwagon by stating he wanted to do a “Prayer-a-thon” for 5,000 hours. Then another Nigerian lady proposed what she called “snails–a-thon”
Not forgetting Joyce Ijeoma, the Nigerian masseuse who tried to set a record for the longest hours for body massaging. But she collapsed in the process and had to be revived! Of course, Ekiti State based Sugartee’s proposed 72-hour “kiss-a-thon”, was immediately banned by the state government. They tagged it an “unhealthy, absurd and an attempt to denigrate the image of Ekiti state”.
Then there was the Guinness frenzy across the borders of Nigeria, in Cameroon, a 25-year-old lady Danny Lammy, announced a sex-a-thon. She proposed to have sex with able-bodied, strong men for 200 hours non-stop and so requested for strong men to line up. In Ghana, another lady proposed an “eat-a-thon”.
It is however importatn to state that some of the people who attempted to break the Guinnes World Record after Hilda Baci, were merely doing it to get attention and promote their own businesses or endeavors. For example, Sugartee of Ekiti state, who wanted to organize a kissing marathon, is now highly rated as a musician in the state and has been invited to perform at high octane events since then. So, most attempts were for clout-chasing or PR stunts.
Hilda Baci has continually been an ambassador to the young people, with her I-CAN attitude, and when in July she announced a new season of her cooking lectures and requested for registration from interested applicants at the sum of N35,000 per participant for a period of 3 weeks. More than 200 people registered to learn new culinary skills.
We are sure that it was not only Hilda’s culinary prowess that was the attraction, more like they wanted to get to know her, her drives, inspirations and above all astounding success in the cooking industry. Not to forget to add that almost all Hilda’s activities are turned into content for her social media handles, which has continued to grow into millions of followers.
So yes, Hilda Baci has definitely broken more barriers in the cooking industry and has set new targets for chefs and young minds alike….
