Nigerian Chef, Hilda Baci Breaks Guinness World Record For ‘Longest Cooking Time’

Nigerian chef, Hilda Effiong Bassey, popularly known as Hilda Baci, has finally broken the Guinness World Record for the longest cooking time by an individual.

On April 2, 2023, Hilda Baci announced via her Instagram page that she was going to make her five-year-long dream a reality, stating that she will cook for four days and four nights to break the 87 hours, 45 minutes, set by Chef Lata London in Rewa, India in 2019.

Originally scheduled to begin on April 28th, the event was moved to May 11th to accommodate the additional attendees who registered for the cook-a-thon at Amore Gardens, Lekki, Lagos.

On Sunday, May 14, the Nigerian chef replied to a tweet where Guinness World Records wrote “today is a good day to break a world record”, stating that she was “on it.”

Hilda Baci, who launched into the competition at exactly 4pm when she put on her cooker on Thursday, May 11, smashed Lata Tondon’s record on Monday morning, May 15.

Despite breaking Tondon’s 87 hours 45 minutes record, Hilda is still aiming to cook for 96 hours, setting a new world record as the first human on earth to spend such an amount of time cooking.

The restuarer has continued to receive a wave of support from well-meaning Nigerians including government officials, celebrities, clerics, and others despite a heavy downpour in the wee hours of Monday morning.

This comes one week after Nigerian Singer, Rema made it to the Guinness World Book of Records after his song “Calm Down” made history as the first No.1 Hit on The Official MENA Chart (the world’s first regional streaming chart).