This Nigerian Chef Just Set the World Record for the Largest Pot of Jollof Rice
Hilda Baci, whose winning dish weighed more than 19,000 pounds, had previously been awarded a Guinness World Record for the longest cooking marathon
:focal(2100x1400:2101x1401)/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/19/a5/19a53773-1f73-4fa2-a71e-e8ff33c31089/gettyimages-2234418866.jpg)
It’s official: A Nigerian celebrity chef has achieved a Guinness World Record for cooking the largest-ever pot of jollof rice—the first attempt at such a record.
On September 12, Hilda Baci cooked up more than 19,000 pounds of jollof rice, a one-pot rice dish with tomatoes, onions and various spices. The dish is a staple in West African countries, which argue over who makes the best version of the recipe in a rivalry dubbed the “Jollof Wars.”
After eight months of planning, Baci clinched a significant record for Nigerian jollof, according to Deutsche Welle’s Azeezat Olaoluwa.
“It took nine hours of fire, passion and teamwork,” Baci said after cooking and serving her massive pot of jollof, per the Associated Press.
Fun fact: The most people cooking simultaneously
A group of 2,853 chefs in Poland broke the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people cooking simultaneously in 2015.Thousands of people flocked to Victoria Island, Lagos, where Baci cooked up the dish in a pot measuring nearly 20 feet across, with the help of her mother and other chefs, per Deutsche Welle. The team used stepladders, giant cooking instruments and 200 bags of rice to make the dish, which also featured fresh goat meat and Baci’s own jollof pepper mix.
The day wasn’t without its challenges. During weighing, the massive pot collapsed under a crane, reports the AP. Thankfully for hungry attendees, the dish survived.
No food was allowed to be wasted, per Guinness stipulations, so the dish was distributed among the thousands of onlookers. A spontaneous chant of “Hilda, we want jollof” broke out among attendees, according to a statement from Guinness.
Baci is no stranger to world records. In 2023, she clinched the record for the longest cooking marathon, tapping out at 93 hours and 11 minutes. The highly competitive record was broken soon after by an Irish chef, who cooked for 119 hours and 57 minutes. In February 2024, an Australian chef broke the record again, clocking 140 hours and 11 minutes.
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/52/f0/52f0a27f-4e72-4985-9c98-86fc8fc1c23c/gettyimages-2234419204.jpg)
Still, Baci’s cooking marathon sparked “record-breaking fever” across the region, per Guinness. West Africans soon went after the world records for longest book reading, the longest skipping rope session and the longest speech, reports the AP.
This time around, Baci says she didn’t initially set out to break another record.
“We honestly just wanted to create an experience, wanted to bring people together, you know, through food,” Baci tells Deutsche Welle. “We just wanted to create something incredible and create something exceptional.”
But along the way, the chef realized her desire to celebrate Nigerian jollof had record-breaking potential.
“It was like, yeah, we’re doing this, we might as well just get a Guinness World Record out of it,” she says.