Hilda Baci Breaking Records and teaching lessons:

The 27-year old hit a 100-hour cook-a-thon target to surpass the former Guinness world book of records’ record holder and inspired resilience into her supporters.

While many describe her sumptuous food as finger-lickin’ good’ she loves a challenge and she shows us clearly that passion sprinkled with relentlessness, seasoned with prowess, marinated with excellence covered in determination does result into record-breaking meals and life-changing stories.

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Hilda Effiong Bassey, commonly known as Hilda Baci did again prove to the world what it means to be passionate and relentless in the pursuit of greatness while serving a little piece of herself to the people who came through to cheer her on. Now her name Baci is being associated with being resilient or being determined and focused as she broke an even bigger record, the prestigious GuinessWorld Book of Records’ ‘longest cooking marathon by an individual’ (cook-a-thon) on 15th May.

Easy to be a foodie but 100 hours in a cook-a-thon aren’t as easy as pie and it does get extremely wearisome. We have got to give it to her, she is a great person and some people have described her as extremely determined. In a statement by Mrs. Akande-Sadipe, the representative of Oluyole Federal Constituency, took to her social media handles, describing her as a brave champion. She went on to commend her personality in a heartfelt message saying that that was a testament to the remarkable strength and resilience that women possess. “Your dedication to this extraordinary challenge inspires us all and reminds us that there are no limits to what we can accomplish when we set our minds to it. Your commitment to pushing boundaries and surpassing expectations is truly commendable”, she added as she continued to call upon people to support her on her journey to the world record

After hours and days of cooking, Baci’s supporters were now fully wrapped up in the admiration of her resilience as she kept them on their toes as she constantly churned out a new meal and new recipes to the extent many of them even went ahead to brave the rain to physically show support to her in the Amore Gardens in Lekki Lagos State, Nigeria.

Winning is nothing new to her but has always fuelled her fire that has pushed her towards bigger and better challenges, having won $5000 in a face-off back in 2021, the “Jollof-faceoff”. As a restaurateur and chef, Hilda has proven that delayed gratification does actually yield amazing results, in her businesses as well as in her cooking marathon.

The real cheers started when she hit and passed the former champion’s record, Lata Tondon, an Indian chef who broke the then existing record in 2019 with 87 hours 45 minutes record uninterrupted cooking, and this was when social media started to swarm with videos of the 27-year old record breaking chef. With this record in hand, which she secured on Monday 15th may after four days of non-stop cooking back to back, it’d only made sense according to her friends, her and her brothers that she broke the 100 hour record. She mentioned adding, "What promoted us or me to change the hours to 100? It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, it was just my friends pretty much talked me into it and psyched me into it like, you can actually do 100 hours".

A ‘few’ hours later, Hilda who was initially scheduled to stop at her original 96-hour target which is way above the current Guinness world book of records World Record holder of ‘the longest cooking marathon by an individual’ pressed on to the 100-hour mark which she finally hit.

Even prior to hitting the 100-hour target she had already started to receive awards for her character, prowess and determination from several individuals and companies. For starters, she has secured a year’s worth of free tickets for all her domestic travels-by Dana Air and three months of free flight tickets for her mother. The airline that boasts of continued support for innovation, craft and creativity of the young Nigerians that are true patriots to their nation in a statement following their token of appreciation mentioned saying, “We have always blazed the trail in terms of support for the arts and entertainment industry, health care, and culture and our corporate social responsibility has been all-encompassing.”

Even President Muhamadu Buhari applauded the chef for her strength and focus. This 100-hour story tells us about character, strength, resilience and even more about empowerment of women world-over. In spite of the fact that the Guinness world book of records team wasn’t present, they took to their twitter and described her attempt at the record as ‘amazing’ and promised to review all of the evidence  before confirming the record.

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