‘To Me, My Record Has Been Validated’ – Hilda Baci Speaks About Waiting On Guinness World Records

Nigerian Chef, Hilda Effiong Bassey, popularly known as Hilda Baci, has said left to her, her record for the longest cooking period by an individual has been validated.

Naija News reports that this is as the chef awaits Guinness World Records to officially confirm if she has broken the record of Indian chef, Lata Tondon, who cooked for 87 hours and 45 minutes.

Recall that Hilda Baci had recently broken the record of the longest cooking period by an individual in a cooking programme she tagged Cook-a-thon.

This platform, however, gathered that while she awaits validation, she said to her, she has it already and was just waiting for certification.

Baci told Daily Trust that ”To me, my record has been validated. What is coming in is just a certification. I mean, do you see what we have done? This is everywhere. People are talking about Nigeria from countries that we don’t even know existed. What more do you want? It goes beyond the certificate, and it has gone way beyond the plaque. I also know in my heart that we did everything by the books. We made sure that we left absolutely no stone unturned, when we looked at the guidelines.

”We got the timekeepers, we got the adjudicators, they ran their shifts, we measured every single meal that was made, we measured the yield, we counted the numbers, we have all the statistics, and we have all the documentation. It wasn’t child’s play. It was a very deliberate attempt, and we put in the work. We were live the entire time, so if there was anybody that had time and watched it from day one to day five, they would know that I did it.”

Giving her take on the Liberia chef, Wonyean Aloycious, who has vowed to challenge her cooking record, Baci said she didn’t break the record so that no one else would get there, so he can go on and try it.

She submitted that ”I have done it. He should try it. I didn’t do it so that nobody else will get there. You do 100 so that somebody else will do 110. That person that does 110 does it so that the next person will do 150. We will just keep increasing the number seeing how far we can go and expanding on what we are capable of. Maybe before now, nobody knew that it was possible to stand for 100 hours cooking.

”One of the major reasons why we were so intentional with filming the entire process was that when I went to attempt this, I went online to find videos of the previous chefs that did it, and I couldn’t find up to three videos. One of the reasons why I didn’t know I could sit, despite the fact that Guinness did not ask me to stand, was that in a few videos I saw, she was standing. Only after the attempt did I find a clip where she was sitting. That was when I realized ‘oh Hilda Baci, you could have sat’.

”For me, I knew that somebody else would want to do this after I have done it. So, I want to give you the template, I need you to see what it takes, so, you know what you’re getting yourself into.”