2023: HOW NIGERIAN CHEF, HILDA BACI, SETS NEW GUINNESS WORLD RECORD FOR LONGEST COOKING MARATHON 

Did you know that Lata Tondon from Indian held the previous Guinness World Record for the longest cooking time for a single individual having cooked for 87 hours, 45 minutes before Nigerian Hilda Baci set a new record?

Nigerian chef, Hilda Effiong Bassey, popularly known as Hilda Baci, on Monday, 15 May 2023, has set a new Guinness World Record for the “longest cooking marathon by an individual” held by former title holder Lata Tondon.

Lata Tondon cooked for 87 hours, 45 minutes to win the title in 2019. Unlike Hilda Baci who is an African and Nigerian, Tondon is an Asian from India. She comes from a small community known as Madhya Pradesh. She is the first woman to hold the global title. 

In claiming the spot in 2019, she cooked using different Indian flavours and explored a variety of ways in making eaters of her dishes salivate for more. Tondon cooked 1,600kg of food grains, 400 vada-pavs, 250 sandwiches and others food items for four marathon days.

Over 20,000 visitors, including orphanage children, persons with disabilities and aged persons who attended the event, ate the food. The chef proved to be an environmental activist when she encouraged her supporters to purchase over 17,000 young trees and planted them to conserve nature.

Tondon broke the record set by a single cooking individual Rickey Lumpkin, an American from Los Angeles. He won the home kitchen competition in 2018 after cooking for 68 hours, 30 minutes and 1 second. He is said to have taken part in the race in order to raise funds to sponsor children education in Africa through World Vision. According to Guinness World Records, Lumpkin has raised over $45,000 through running marathons and holding fundraisers to achieve his dream.

Hilda, 27, owns a food brand in Lagos called "My Food by Hilda". According to the GWR one must be 16 years old and above to submit an application for the race. She started the cooking on Thursday, May 11th, 2023, and to complete the target time frame by the evening of Monday, May 15th, 2023.

In her attempt to set a new record, Hilda is aiming to cook for 96 hours, using extra 9 hours to break the world record as the first human on earth to spend such an amount of time in a marathon cooking. She tagged the cooking project "Cook-a-thon", a phrase literally coined from the word "marathon".

In the race to beat the record held by Tondon, Hilda cooked for 4 days non-stop. Other conditions to be met are that: she must stand to cook as she is not permitted to sit while cooking; she’s not allowed to take coffee, stimulants, or any energy drink to artificially boost her energy and bodily strength while cooking, though she's allowed to eat food, drink water or fruit juice, and take glucose.

The cooking took place at Amore Gardens in Lekki, Lagos State, Nigeria. She cooks round the clock without sleeping. She has just 5 minutes rest per hour, that's an hour break in every 12 hours. Other sources claim she gets a 30-minute break every 6 hours; she spends the 30mins in a medical van which is just close by, within which she can nap, use the restroom, and also get a medical assessment or checkup by the medical team available on the spot.

Whatever she cooks is shared to the people at the venue for FREE, as she is not selling the food. She cooks different meals simultaneously and she is at liberty to cook any meal she likes as there are no restrictions as to what she can cook or not cook. The World Record title is about cooking within a time frame, not about what is cooked. As long as she is cooking, she is on track. Every meal cooked and every plate served is recorded. 

During the exercise she appeared exhausted, but the people around her cheered her on to boost her morale. Most of the food items, ingredients, utensils, etc she used for this project are provided by her sponsors. So, the money expended on this project is not 100% from Hilda or her Food brand. Uber, one of her partners is offering a 40% discounted ride to the venue for people who wishes to join and cheer her up at the venue.

As of Monday morning, Hilda, whose mum is also a chef and owns a food brand called "Calabar Pot", smashed the 87 hours 45 minutes record set by now-former Guinness World Record holder, Lata Tondon. And she is not stopping.

On why she decided to embark on the mission to put her name in the Guinness World Record, she said that it started as a claim to fame, as she remembers just saying it a few years before now, how she wonders if that’s ever been done, never quite thinking she would do it. She was obsessed with The Book of Guinness World Records at a younger age and there was a desire to have her name written inside it. She also wants to inspire young Nigerian women to do great things and believe in themselves. She also wants to make a name for her restaurant and brand.

Sources: Twitter | FIJ | Pulse