Dare Babalola
Guinness World Records holder, Hilda Effiong Bassey, popularly known as Hilda Baci, has revealed that she reduced the quantity of rice at her ongoing attempt to cook the world’s largest pot of jollof rice from 250 bags to 200 to avoid exceeding the weight limit of her weighing equipment.
The celebrity chef, on Friday, commenced a culinary challenge at the Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos, drawing a large crowd of food lovers, celebrities, and dignitaries.
Baci, while speaking to newsmen, explained her reason for scaling down the rice. She had earlier announced that she would be using 250 bags of rice for the attempt but ended up using 200.
Noting that the decision was purely technical, the chef said the measuring crane and scale designed to weigh the final dish had a limit of 20,000 kilogrammes, including the weight of the custom-made pot.
She explained, “If you notice when we started we weighed the pot and we need to weigh every single thing that goes into the pot when we’re done.
“The goal was that by the time I was done making 5,000 kilogrammes, I was hoping to achieve about 17,000 to 18,000 kilogrammes. Right now, if I include the weight of the pot, that’s about 20,000.
“The average crane and the measuring device can only weigh 20,000 kilogrammes.
“It’s safer for me to go below 20,000 kilogrammes so that my scale can carry it all at the same time and basically that is why I had to cut down on the quantity and I only cut it down by a thousand kilogrammes.”
Baci maintained that the 200 bags cooked are enough to feed 20,000 people, adding that it still amounts to 4,000 kilogrammes of rice.
“This 4,000 kilogrammes of rice is 200 bags of rice and it will still feed 20,000 people so we’re still up there,” Hilda said.
She spoke on the effort she put in place for the preparation saying, “Honestly, Gino and I figuring this whole thing out was hectic. Figuring out how to fabricate the pots, it took Mr. Ayo two months to figure out and fabricate the pots.
“Then it took us about nine months to plan this event and it took us almost nine hours to make the entire meal.”
She continued, “We’re not done because we need to distribute the food and make sure that everybody who has come here eats to their satisfaction.
“So we’re still on it but so far I’m very happy, you know, with where we are and what we’ve been able to achieve today.”
