I have read with a blend of amusement and askance comments of Nigerians about a lady in Ekiti taking the gauntlet to break the Guinness record on marathon cooking. She has set 120 hours goal of unabated cooking except for standard breaks for freshening up, quick nap and medical check-up not lasting more than one hour per day. Hilda Baci had all that too.
In the first place, do people understand the concept of challenge? In a free world, any one can validly participate in a challenge to outdo the accomplishment of another. Hilda Baci did exactly that. Or was she the pioneer of the cookathon? No. It has been a normal challenge in the Western world, especially in the United States. It may involve a single person with just a handful of support staff or a group of cooks. The one that is the subject of Guinness record is that of a lone cook fighting fatigue, sleep and mental breakdown for extraordinarily long hours. Our Ekiti cook is gunning for 5 full days of working wakefulness.
Some commentators have alleged her of insensitivity and jealousy. Where and how they came about that conclusion is befuddling. I even read that she is “unpatriotic”. These extreme views are certainly not in the spirit of competition.
On record, before Baci’s achievement (yet to be confirmed by Guiness), two people have attempted to hold the cookathon record. The first is an American. A male chef known as Ricky Lumpkin who cooked for 68 minutes, 30 minutes and 1 second in 2018. The second is an Indian. A female chef named Lata Tondon who surpassed Lumpkin by clocking 87 hours, 45 minutes in 2019. No one else, on the record, has trumped the two individuals except our own Hilda Baci.
The question now is: what’s the big deal in another person trying to beat the same record? Let’s keep it in mind that the American and the Indian took the challenge for purely charitable causes. The American attempted the record to raise funds for the education of poor African children while the Indian spent her hours cooking for children from orphanages, persons with disability and the aged. She is also an environmental activist who succeeded in getting her supporters to buy thousands of young trees which she planted to promote conservation in India.
Hilda Baci and the Ekiti chef may have taken the challenge for fame. Hilda has certainly got that but it is not and shouldn’t be her exclusive preserve.
“Too bad”, someone wrote about the Ekiti attempt. Too bad wipe kini? That she gathered her own resources to legitimately purse a record? So the fact that Victor Osimhen broke the African goal scoring record in Italy Serie A is a disqualification for any other Nigerian player to outscore Osimhen next season?
I read a funny side to the issue yesterday. Her critics alleged that he turned off the cooking gas while she concentrated on picking beans. I’ll play the Devil’s advocate here. Edakun, what are the stages of cooking? I have noted three standard kitchen activities. The first is pre-cooking.
This involves selection of food stuff and ingredients. It also include picking and washing of vegetables and pepper. Part of it also is general picking, washing, weighing, cutting, blending, garnishing, embellishing, marinating, wrapping etc. In fact, as long as your not idle in the kitchen, you’re deemed to be cooking. 😁
The second activity is cooking gangan. Utensils are on duty and the fire keeps burning. Hands are pouring, stirring and scooping. Tasting too is part of it.
The third activity is post-cooking even though, in a cook-a-thon, this has to be for a very brief moment. It involves dishing and serving meals to onlookers and assessors. Then the chef goes back to repeat the three activities.
My take on picking beans and “offing” gas is that our Ekiti chef cannot be deemed to have taken a break from cooking. “If she knows she can’t afford lots of gas, why attempt the challenge”, the critics queried. I say she is managing her resources and there’s nothing bad in that. What is required is that she stays in the kitchen performing one form of cooking duty or the other, including picking beans. Is picking beans different from peeling off outer layers of onions, breaking off the shells of eggs, knifing off stems of vegetables or removing unpalatable parts of a fish?
I hope Ekiti people will troop out to encourage her. If she clocks around 70 hours when she would’ve beaten Ricky Lumpkin’s record, I’ll expect the Governor of Ekiti to pay a visit. Ekiti is not Lagos so we are not expecting the glitz and pomp of celebrities living close by to steal parts of the show. However, I expect Baami Elemure Ekiti to visit and sing for an hour. It will be nice to throw in some local content. Goroso Ekiti (a bosom friend of my Egbon, Yinka Afonja) should give us a comedy cameo. 😁
On a serious note, let no one begrudge the lady for at least trying. 120 hours of cooking is like climbing Everest or Kilimanjaro but records are always there to be broken. She is not trying to steal Hilda Baci’s thunder. Her own attempt is over and done with. Period.
Meanwhile, before Hilda’s celebrated attempt, another Nigerian by the name Victor Richard Kipo achieved SEVEN certified Guinness records in ball juggling/free styling. He won the last one last year. Why are now making a mountain out of a molehill over a cook-a-thon? There are thousands of Guinness World Records out there from the sublime to the ridiculous. There is a record about the volume of raw pepper eaten by an individual at once. 🤣