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‘There was a point…I was seeing the stage upside down’ – Hilda Baci.
Nigerian chef record breaker Hilda Baci explained in detail how it was cooking for 100 hours 40 minutes claiming that there came a time when she saw the stage upside down.
Hilda ‘Baci’ Bassey talked to the press on Thursday, May 18th, about how challenging the cook-a-thon was.
Hilda Baci is well-known both worldwide and locally as the 27-year-old who set the record for the greatest amount of time spent cooking. She made over 100 dinners in over 100 hours, but it wasn’t easy.
The anxiety and fear of failure almost crippled her. “I had to deal with the anxiety of failure, that was the first thing I struggled with, anxiety makes you feel pain from your shoulders to your ribs, you can’t function, but you have to keep going.”
“There was a point I could barely see, I was seeing the stage upside down.”
“I don’t know if it was the anxiety, but I wasn’t eating and I wasn’t drinking water because I didn’t want to have to pee because I was trying to save much of my break so I could sleep even if it was for just 20 minutes. I was not hydrated as much as I should have been. When they took my vitals, my blood sugar was low. My dad and everyone were worried because that sort of affected my vision a bit.”
“I did a lot of improvisation because I was cooking meals I had made over a million times. I wasn’t tasting the meals, they had to beg me to taste it because that was the only way I could eat.”
She wasn’t eating and that made her weaker. “At some point, they told me the coconut rice wasn’t sweet, so I would taste it. There was a time my assistant had to direct me through because I was half asleep, half awake. It was hard, I even would slap myself to stay awake.”
Hilda was also on her period and she had cramps. “I picked the worst time to do the cook-a-thon. I have the worst cramps, my legs and ankle are still swollen. My back still hurts, and my neck still hurts, but I know it was for something worthwhile. I am doing physical therapy and taking vitamins just to replenish what my body lost.”
Before announcing that she broke the record and awarding her the certificate, the Guinness Book of World Records is still examining the available evidence.