Irish Chef Dethrones Hilda Baci, Breaks New Guinness World Records

The Nigerian chef Hilda Baci was beaten by Irish restaurateur and chef Alan Fisher of Japan to become the new record holder for the longest cooking marathon.

At 119 hours and 57 minutes, Fisher became the individual record holder for the longest cooking marathon. That surpasses the previous record by over 24 hours, which was held by Hilda Baci, a Nigerian cook.

Alan also declared that his 47 hours and 21 minutes baking marathon was the longest (individual). With a time of 31 hours 16 minutes, Wendy Sandner (USA) held the previous record.

What was more impressive is that Alan took on both attempts back to back, meaning he was at work in the kitchen for over 160 hours with just over a day of rest in between.

During the record attempt, Alan had to overcome different types of obstacles as time went by. During the longest baking marathon (individual) record attempt, it was his back that caused him trouble. Because Alan was mixing dough by hand, his posture got distorted, and as a result, his back got tight and sore.

Towards the end of the longest cooking marathon (individual) record attempt, Alan had to endure fatigue and sleepiness.

He said: “I peeled roughly 300 kg of potatoes during the cooking marathon. For the first few days, I would look forward to this each evening as it gave me a chance to sit down.”

“Towards the end of the cooking marathon however, as fatigue started to take hold I would find it more and more difficult to stay awake whenever I sat down to start peeling. The rhythm of the peeling would almost hypnotize me. I had one hallucination on the second-to-last day. I turned to ask someone to pass me something, like I would on any normal day only to realize there was no one there.”

Despite the challenges, Alan said it was the people of the town who supported his record attempt who gave him the push to carry on.

“It got to the point where I definitely couldn’t give up. In my mind, I was representing myself, my family, and Irish food, and through these attempts, I was sharing our story. As time went by it became clear that many people in Matsue were also wishing me well. As if I had been adopted into this community over 9,000 km from my home. How could I not persevere? That was the only option.”

After nine days of baking and cooking, Alan had made 357 kg worth of soda bread and 590 kg worth of dishes (3,360 portions consisting of 32 recipes). But it was all worth it when he received his two world record certificates.