Evette Quoibia, a passionate Liberian-Australian chef, has cooked her way into the record books after completing a staggering 140-hour cooking marathon.
According to guinnessworldrecords.com, her remarkable feat not only showcased her culinary endurance but also celebrated African cuisine on a global stage.
“I’ve always loved cooking. Since I was probably the age of eight, while other people were playing with toys, I was cooking with little cups,” she said. The eldest in a big family, she would always help out in family meals, and found joy in sharing her love of good food with others.
Now, that ambitious little girl has grown up to be a successful restaurant owner and chef, who can add Guinness World Records titleholder to her list of culinary accomplishments.
Evette just completed an exhausting yet incredibly rewarding 140 hr 11 min 11 sec cooking session – that’s over five straight days – to claim the title for longest cooking marathon (individual).
And she did so by sharing the flavours of her native Liberia with her community – for six days, she kept the doors of her kitchen open to anyone in Melbourne, Australia who wanted to try the delicious cuisines of West Africa.
“I was born during the war, and we moved a lot. My parents fled to the Ivory Coast, then Ghana, then I came to Australia,” said Evette.
“I always dreamed of being great, or doing something out of the ordinary. I’m very ambitious, I dream big. But due to the life I had, I feel like I didn’t have the opportunity to do things that permit me to be the person I wanted to be,” she continued. “Until I found out about the Guinness World Records longest cooking marathon.”
“Then I was excited, I was like ‘well this is something that’s within my skills’ – because I always loved cooking, and I had a restaurant, so I was basically already in that field,” she said. “So this is a good opportunity to achieve something big, or to do something different.”
So she applied to Guinness World Records to take on the record, which is on an applicant-only basis because of the potential risks in endurance titles.
But Evette’s story and determination was compelling, so she was invited to make an attempt.
She decided to take on the record after two months of preparation, which she spent speaking to an event planner, her church, an assistant chef, and her team of kitchen volunteers.
And after starting a GoFundMe and crowdsourcing for money for kitchen supplies, Evette also bought some of the ingredients she would need for her recipes in a massive grocery haul.
Her cart was laden with semolina flour, pounded yam, cassava, tomatoes, and giant bags of rice – staple items she would need while cooking. Everything else could be bought from the grocery store across the street from the culinary school where she was making her attempt.
Evette wanted to cook international-friendly Liberian food for the event, so she prepared dishes like: jollof rice (Liberian-style), cassava leaves, and a variety of soups and stews like pepper, okra, and cabbage, which could be served with white rice.
She also made dishes with flavours inspired by Nigerian, Asian, and Australian cooking – “I wanted everyone to be able to eat the food we were making there,” she explained.
So they marinated meat, pounded fufu, chopped vegetables, and organized spices, all while making sure the kitchen was set up for the big day.
And her attempt in February 2024 started off strong – despite some initial electrical problems in the venue, Evette and her team soldiered on, inspired by everyone in her community who came to support her. She was especially motivated by her family, including her son.
She helped serve all the dishes herself, and made sure everyone had takeaway containers full of food to take home with them as well!
Ooh, we’re getting hungry!
But Evette’s record time to beat was 119 hr 57 min 16 sec by Alan Fisher (Ireland) in Japan – which would require her to cook for over five days if she wanted to secure the record by a considerable amount.
So although she started off strong, cooking for such a long time is difficult – and eventually all the standing, concentrating, manual labor, and heated conditions began to take a toll.
“Unfortunately, it was a really difficult time for me,” said Evette. “I just had to keep pushing myself mentally, because I was targeting something and I had to remember that.”
Applicants are permitted one 20-minute break every four hours, but Evette found out her rest spot five minutes away would cost her a total of 10 minutes going to-and-from her break, which hurt.
“For the remaining 10 minutes I would sometimes take a nap, or sometimes refresh myself by eating, drinking, or other stuff,” she said. But she quickly discovered that the short power naps were sometimes doing her more harm than good.
“The power nap was more damaging to me, because everytime I took a power nap I found it more difficult to get into routine, so I really struggled to stay awake during those times,” Evette said. “There were times where I almost overslept – luckily, the team, which I was really grateful for, assisted in keeping me awake.”
Around day four or five, she said she particularly began to struggle: “I relied on my team a lot because I was very weak mentally. I wasn’t there. I also found myself very slow, I would say. I couldn’t process things properly, because not sleeping for that long is an extreme thing to do.
“But thank God for my team, who helped me during my process, and helped me stay on track.”
Despite all the hard times, Evette was able to power through, and found encouragement in her team, her family, her community, and her church.
“There were times where it was really stressful, and there were times where I really enjoyed it,” she said. “For example, the times where there were a lot of people, and people were having fun and cheering me on – I gained my energy from that.
“The times where there was not much happening, I found it much harder to keep going – I had to push myself extra harder to continue, and also I was motivated due to my goal and what I was targeting… and that was what kept me grounded.”
And before she even realized – she had taken the record.
“Honestly, I was not in the mental state to know where I was [time-wise]. I just kept going until someone from my church made an announcement and drew my attention to the time and said ‘Evette, we are actually reaching the time of your record-breaking moment, and we need to celebrate… you have broken your record!’” she said. “And I was extremely excited, and very happy.”
Evette celebrated with her community and her friends, by dancing to music, and handing out the rest of her delicious meal.
And then, of course, she took a long and well-deserved nap (“about three days!” she said) before processing what her accomplishment truly means.
“People don’t always know what they’re capable of doing, or how far they can go, until they try. And record-breaking gives people the opportunity to test themselves to the highest limit,” she said. “I wanted to encourage women, single moms, young women, and everyone else, that whatever you’re doing right now, if you have a dream to do it big, there’s hope for you. There’s a chance for everyone.”
And even though she doesn’t know how long her record will last, Evette said she finds it exciting that someone else will have the opportunity to achieve their dream.
“I love to bring people together, and I like to create an environment of happy moments,” she said, reflecting on all the love that was in the kitchen with her that day. “I wanted my life to be an example that there’s a place for every single one of us to do big things and achieve great things and there’s hope out there.
“So I think these things helped me take this adventure on, and also accomplish it!
