‘Pot collapse really scared me,’ Hilda Baci speaks on Guinness jollof record

Nigerian chef and restaurateur Hilda Bassey aka Hilda Baci has spoken about a tense moment during her Guinness World Record feat for cooking the largest pot of jollof rice, when the giant custom-made pot unexpectedly collapsed.

In a video interview shared on X by HipTV on Tuesday, Hilda revealed how the incident shook her confidence. “When we had the mishap with the pot, my first few seconds, my heart was in my hands. I was very scared, very worried,” she said.

According to her, the priority at that point was feeding people, not the record itself.

“For me, the record was not the most important thing. It was important that people got to taste and enjoy the food we had spent hours making,” she explained, noting that the pot’s failure turned out to be helpful.

“I would say it was a good thing that the pot caved because it made food distribution a lot easier… it was a blessing in disguise.”

The dramatic scene unfolded on September 12 at the World Jollof Festival in Lagos, where Hilda and her team cooked nearly 8,780 kilograms (about 19,356 pounds) of jollof rice in a six-metre-wide pot designed to hold 23,000 litres.

As the crane hoisted the pot for weighing, one side gave way and the support legs collapsed, though the rice remained intact.

Her team submitted photographic and video evidence of the weighing to Guinness World Records, which later certified her as the official holder of the largest pot of jollof rice cooked at one time.

Hilda recalled how swiftly they had to respond, making sure the process remained credible and properly documented.

“So I reached out to our adjudicator, and I let him know that the pot caved… And he’s like, let’s just proceed…we had to look for different cameras to see if we had a recording, a clear recording of that, because for me, transparency is very, very important.

“So once we were able to establish that we had a clear recording of that, it was just straight to the next thing, like to distribute the food,” she said.

Reflecting on her back-to-back achievements, Hilda added, “It’s just a testament that God is good and I’m a child of grace. When I tell you grace is here and you doubt me, look at my track record. Trust the Lord.”

This recognition comes after her previous triumph in May 2023, when she set the record for the longest cooking marathon by an individual, clocking 93 hours and 11 minutes.