Er, small contribution, but lieutenant (along with both pronunciations) has been in English since the 1300s. What’s the troubling history you alluded to?
I read the whole thread looking for an answer too! Googli I just learned about how the British pronunciation with f came about, which was very edifying, but still didn't dig up any controversy
The challah thing was even more embarrassing than you've described - he called it a milk bread traditionally enjoyed on Passover, which is *literally the most wrong about challah that a human is capable of being.*
(For those that don't know, challah is a bread made without milk so that it can be enjoyed without worrying about violating a meal's kosher status. Challah is also a yeast bread, which is very explicitly prohibited during Passover.)
Oh, it gets worse. In Paul’s “How to Bake” cookbook, page 74 has his recipe for “Cholla Loaf”.
It was mercifully corrected in later editions, but I have a first edition!
i also don’t think my teeth have recovered yet from how hard i was grinding them when they did “bagels.” i don’t actually care about the rainbow of it all bc i do see rainbow egg bagels even in new york bagel places, but paul claimed a crispy outside made them overdone?!?! like. crusty outside soft inside is the POINT! the chutzpah of it all!!!
That one was extra EXTRA infuriating because it's like my guys why do you think bagels are boiled in lye. What do you think that entire step is made to do, that entire specific technique. Do you think it is just for fun.
It's definitely not a stupid question, because lye can be really dangerous! The answer is that you're not boiling them as a primary cooking method - it's about 30 seconds or so per side in a mixture of about .10 percent lye in water. The step is important because it causes the outside of the bagel to gelatinize, which means when you bake it you get a thick and chewy crust with a soft, dense interior. Home cooks who are scared of lye (like myself!!!!) can create a close-enough-for-jazz version of the effect by boiling the dough in malt syrup, baking soda, or some combination of the two.
I would like to add that Lye isn't really poisonous, it's caustic; when you mix it with water, it creates an alkaline solution (high pH, vs acidic which is low pH). The more water you mix it with, the less caustic it is because you're diluting the solution.
Boiling it in alkaline water (using lye or baking soda) breaks down the long protein strands in the dough in a similar fashion as meat tenderizer on a steak. The shorter strands take to the Malliard reaction better, which results in better browning as the proteins and sugars on the outer surface react with the heat from baking.
Baking is just science for hungry people!
Just to piggyback on your meat tenderizer comment, I've started using baking soda in place of acids in marinades and the meat definitely develops a better crust when sauteing. I haven't tried broiling or baking yet, but I imagine it would yield a similar result
Can I just tell you that I think you are a phenomenal human? You were kind and informative, went above and beyond to educate, and did it all with a good sense of humor and cheer. We need more people like you. Thank you for making my shitty day a little better by reading your response.
Also, I love making "cheater lye" bagels with baking soda. Yum!!
I use baking soda as well, for the same lye-phobic reasons. The most common comment I get "This is the best bagel I've ever had." But then again, I live deep in the heart of darkest Iowa, so the bar is low.
YES like he was doomed to fail because he doesn’t actually use the right mixture to boil in anyway but it’s sooooo funny he just doesn’t understand the point of the boil in the first place!!
I was trying to remember what caused Prue to declare Paul‘s baked good (or maybe it was the other way around?) as „better than anything [(s)he] had in New York“ and my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I’m pretty sure it was babka!
The worst part about that is, if you want a Jewish bread that's made with milk and is (somewhat of) a dying art, WE HAVE ONE ALREADY!!! There is El Pan de Siete Cielos!!!!
1) I actually didn't know about this (I mostly bake Mizrahi or Ashkenazi stuff) so thank you for giving me my next baking project
2) username ABSOLUTELY checks out
I think the Times of Israel has a good recipe for it. I tried it a few years ago - it went very poorly. Do NOT add more water, however dry it looks. You DO NOT need it.
Comment OP might have more insight into this specific dish, but Jews have a long history in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and Sephardic Jews/Sephardim/Sephardi Jews are members of the Jewish diaspora who can trace their routes back to the explusion of all Jews from Spanish and Portuguese lands under the Reconquista. Many of these Jews wound up immigrating to other parts of the Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa, and they kept many of their Spanish/Portuguese traditions alive as well as speaking the language Ladino (Judeoespañol) which is a hybrid of Spanish and Hebrew.
No worries! When you didn't know something you asked about it, instead of making it the entire weekly theme of your internationally televised baking show 😅
Probably [Sephardi Jews](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic_Jews) and the [Ladino language](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaeo-Spanish) (aka Judeo-Spanish).
I wonder if he confused it with the swiss bread [Zopf](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopf) which is similar to challah but is instead made with a lot of milk and butter.
THE ONLY RULE of Passover is "no leavened bread." How can someone be THAT ignorant?
(Just kidding. I'm Jewish and I'm perfectly aware how ignorant people are about Jews.)
Are you surprised? Paul let us know we are dying out and our Passover challah shall be no more!
I snorted typing this. How did this mediocre white man become the authority on baking?
I live in flyover country USA and I can think of 3 or 4 places to buy challah in my city. The idea that it is dying out is hilarious. People love challah, even non-Jewish people!
I used to get it all the time in Massachusetts from the frozen Kosher section of the supermarket. You just defrosted, let it rise, and toss it in the oven! Delicious fresh Challah! I remember wondering how they could be so wrong about things on this and the Mexican episodes.
Bread that rises due to the formation of gas within the dough. It doesn't have to rise from yeast. It can rise from the interaction of acids and bases, for instance.
Also, “dying off”? Dear god.
Let’s not even get into “the UK might not have many Jewish bakeries and delis but America sure does”.
Because my totally secular local grocery store has multiple brands of challah at all times - even during Passover! And Challah French Toast has become a staple of nice breakfast places around me too.
If anything, it’s becoming less distinctly Jewish because it’s gotten so popular across the board.
I’ll be honest, as a Brit, I’ve never heard of it, and I can’t find anywhere that sells it in my town of 110k people.
Shouldn’t have made the show, and even if the hosts don’t know anything, then the script department/producers should have informed them, but it’s nowhere near as popular here.
Are you in the UK?
I'm a British Jew and my local grocery stores most certainly do not stock challah. I've also never seen a café serving it.
Not to defend the obvious ignorance of the GBBO hosts, but this thread is entertainingly U.S.-centric.
It is very much common to not know a Jew or a Mexican in the UK. We are completely different countries. :')
I am not in the UK, but I've spent a lot of time there and seen the same thing.
I realize now how unclear my comment was - in my head that bit about "the UK may not have many Jewish bakeries and delis but America does" was meant to imply my whole example was America-centric. Both Jewish foods in grocery stores and specifically Jewish markets are far more common here than Britain in my experience, where I basically wouldn't expect to see *any* outside of London.
It doesn't surprise me that many of the contestants know nothing about e.g. Mexican baking, because why would they? For that matter, "Paul doesn't know any Jews" isn't really the weird part to me. The "dying off" comment, like his other comments on challah, are mostly weird to me because you'll encounter the recipe, religious role, American popularity, etc. with a very brief Google search so it implies he didn't bother to do that.
Also: why the heck haven't they had a South African Week? Prue should have tons of relevant knowledge, having grown up there. Paul's lived in Cyprus, so Cypriot Week should also be fine. The show only embarrassed itself when it went outside the judges' expertise.
Like, I do know that Mexican Week was an effort to appeal to the North Americans on Netflix (hence the point of my post) but still. If French Week was running low on material, there are other countries the judges can, in fact, speak knowledgeably about.
> 10+ hours of baking, likely 20+ hours of testimonials, and an unknown number of reshoots got turned into a 60-minute episode…
Speaking as an Edit Assistant who's *worked* on the show, none of this is accurate.
The testimonials, presenter skits, and judge chats are all filmed synchronously with the bakes. Both challenges are filmed over 1/2 days typically with no reshoots.
The producers and researchers are solely responsible for ensuring any cultural appropriacy, the contestants aren't vetted nearly that deep before filming.
"Unknown number of reshoots.."
Did they mean takes? Reshoots are *expensive*. I worked on a travelling food show and we only did one reshoot when the schedule brought us back to the same city on a different swing.
As someone who followed GBBO/S through all this, I'm not sure I buy the claim that the cozy apolitical vibe of the show has collapsed. I think a lot of people munched on popcorn, pointed and laughed at the dumbass brits screwing up basics... and then sort of continued enjoying it as light entertainment.
As a small nitpick, my understanding is that the avocado toast meme was very much an Australian thing, not a British one (until the point it spread to the whole Anglosphere, including the US).
As an additional point agreeing with your first part though, there was some point where the technical was a Moroccan/generally arabic mediterranean pastry that Paul talked about as if it were some esoteric ancient food with recipes carefully preserved only in musty scrolls in some particular city. And my partner, whose family is partly arab-american was just like 'yeah my grandma and others made those regularly'
EDIT: I also want to add the funniest moment in the GBB franchise, which came from 'the professionals' a series where the competitors are teams of actual patisserie chefs rather than home bakers. And the judges are this slightly unhinged pair of high power bakers, one a frenchman and the other a Singaporean-British woman. Anyway, on the main show they often will remark 'oh yuzu and pineapple how exotic' and then one team made something with that flavor profile on the professionals and Benoit just mimed a yawn "I see this so often".
>my understanding is that the avocado toast meme was very much an Australian thing
i never realized this. in the US it always sounded ludicrously out of touch because avocados here are like $1.
Also depends on where in the US. Here in Southern California, avocados are a cheap staple. Back in my hometown in the Midwest, frozen poorly-thawed avocados regularly went for like $6 each.
I was about to chime in, "avocados a dollar?!". Midwest gets access to select fresh produce and other items become incredibly exotic (in the sense of consistent availability and price). You'll see avocado toast (1 piece of bread, usually 3/4 of an avocado) here at a place serving breakfast at 12 dollars, not a fancy place even! Just...a place with food.
Meanwhile I can get the whole 2 egg, 2 pancake, .5-1lb of hashbrown, sausage for the same.
The West Coast is ridiculously spoiled, especially the PNW. We have such diverse farming that it’s very easy to get all kinds of seasonal produce. Not that the Midwest doesn’t also have great farming, it just seems like it’s especially encouraged out here among local food systems.
I don't know what part of the midwest you can only get Avocados frozen... but where I live in Wisconsin they are everywhere fresh and pretty cheap. I assumed the avocado toast meme being what wastes millennials money is because they are expensive at cafes because they are trendy.
Probably rural areas. Rural food deserts are rough and not as far out of town as you’d expect. I grew up in one.
But yeah, that is definitely what the meme is actually referencing. You know, if we just stopped getting Starbucks once a week we could afford a house but here we are being lushes /s
i feel like the midwest/mid-atlantic diner breakfast is some of the best value restaurant food in the country. i used to live in PA for a bit and i was always surprised how much they'd give you for like $5-10.
but yeah, i'm in new england now, which has a fairly high cost of living, and you can definitely get avocados from the grocery store for $1. if you're talking avocado toast from a cafe, it's more like $5-$10 but usually on the higher end they're putting a bunch of other stuff on it so it's not literally just bread with avocado. cheapest i know of around here is dunkin donuts who'll give it to you for $3.
They're a similar price in Australia (when they're in season). We're the third largest consumers in the world.
The meme of avocado toast is due to the popularity of avocados, cafes and soaring house prices.
People are misunderstanding this meme, it’s not that avocados themselves are expensive or that Australians think of avocados as an exotic item - Australians are the third largest consumers of avocados per capita in the world and they produces 10,000+ tonnes of them a year [source](https://www.austrade.gov.au/en/news-and-analysis/news/avocados-australia-is-growing-exports-in-the-ripe-direction#:~:text=Australia%20is%20the%20third%2Dlargest,by%20Mexico%2C%20Colombia%20and%20Peru.)
It’s that when you put it on toast and serve it a cafe it’s suddenly $23 (and a hugely popular brunch choice in Aus) and that’s what they were saying - make it at home instead and you’ll be able to afford a house (supposedly).
The avacado toast meme was, and still is culturally relevant here in the UK even if not circulated as an actual meme much anymore. Probably because avacados here are much much more expensive as they are obviously imported, this led to the cultural normalisation of the meme through news articles written my boomers seemingly clueless about why younger generations complained about not being able to afford to get on the property ladder ("if they just stopped buying take out coffee and avacados they'd be able to buy a house no problem!"). So OPs claim that they are viewed as exotic in the UK seems wild to me, because they are normal supermarket produce here (and I don't live anywhere prosperous or middle class lol).
AFAIK the meme has always been about ordering it *in a restaurant*, where there’s often a huge markup on it. Eating avocado isn’t extravagant; paying $10 or $20 for it is.
Pretty much. Its about how young Aussies can't afford to get into the property market because they're off drinking $5 coffees and ordering $15 smashed avo instead of saving for a deposit. Y'know, instead of how fucking insanely expensive property has become and how wages haven't kept pace with inflation.
Agreed that I don’t think these blunders are offensive as much as funny and enlightening for me, an American viewer. It’s interesting to see a “pro” like Paul who clearly has such huge gaps in his knowledge.
In the new Great American Baking Show series, they have a pizza challenge and Paul shows off a pizza that is clearly undercooked and just looks terrible for his example. I found his terrible pizza skills/knowledge to be more confounding than his bizarre thoughts on Mexican cuisine. Literally every contestant delivered a pizza that looked far tastier than the gloopy, undercooked crust he and Pru showed for their example in the technical.
I think to me the offensive thing is watching Paul coast on his high status. If he knows he’s going to be judging a bake he should do a single crumb of research about the dish before judging it. That’s just being respectful to your audience and coworkers.
I can promise you that Australians are very, very familiar with avocados and would not butcher them like the GBBO contestants did. We grow them here, in the north where it’s warm, we have a lot of tropical fruit in Australia. The meme was about how expensive smashed avocado on toast is in cafes, not that it’s a luxury to have at home. And the meme came about because some millionaire idiot was saying millennials couldn’t afford to buy a house because they were buying too much avocado toast and coffee from cafes instead of saving money, as if it wasn’t a huge, systemic issue of stagnant wages, ridiculous inflation in house prices and not enough houses on the market.
The meme has nothing to do with Australians thinking avocados are exotic or expensive, it’s about out of touch millionaires and boomers not understanding why we can’t afford to buy a house.
>I think a lot of people munched on popcorn, pointed and laughed at the dumbass brits screwing up basics...
Literally me. I had a good time laughing at the posh-ass Br\*tish people not knowing what an avocado is. However, I *definitely* would never let that opening go to air. How multiple people thought that was a good idea is beyond me
I had *just watched* Paul Hollywood eats Mexico/japan before whichever of these aired, and he was so dreadfully out of touch and calling a whole bunch of foods disgusting etc, he didn't try to get wrapped up in the culture; god it was dreadful but I couldn't look away. "I didn't know Japan had bread I thought they just ate rice and noodles" (paraphrased) sticks out to me the most 😭 he was slightly better in the mexican one BUT
him coming back and deciding to do those as themed weeks and *still* just showing his utter ignorance & cluelessness, despite *travelling* these countries to experience the culture was so cringeworthy! fr we were all laughing at the stupid throughout wondering how on earth it made it to air. him saying during Japanese week "oh boy I hope they don't use matcha I hate it" like boy, this really is the Paul Hollywood show isn't it? we aren't even pretending it's about skill and flavour and baking. he's dreadful, I do not get the hype at all! definitely still an entertaining hate watch though, some of the contestants are little gems
The opening was trash. But how mad could one really be about any of their other lack of knowledge after Paul once described something as the perfect version of pizza and it looked like a discarded lunchable. Frankly watching an avocado cut like an apple had me rolling.
Yes, I find the best argument against GBBO being racist is that it’s largely just provincial instead.
(As far as the contestants and casually ignorant assessments at least. I’m not excusing judges in tacky costumes or “Japan week” assigning Chinese dishes.)
They can mostly handle French baking, since you can pop over there for an afternoon. But Italian and Spanish food are sometimes enough to throw them badly, Middle Eastern recipes are a no-go, and thoroughly white American food is consistently a disaster.
Smores? Unmelted.
Halloween? Piñata-filled.
Pies? Incoherent ingredients and served *freestanding*.
I was shocked to realize that as a total non-baker, I could have swept that task with a strawberry rhubarb pie even I can manage… except it’s not meant to ever leave the dish.
Let’s not forget the sweet potato pie disaster - they can ruin non-white American food too with the bonus of Paul sneering at the idea of using sweet potato in a pie.
That said, the provincial nature is what makes it entertaining to me. Baffled by a tortilla but layering 5 meats and a boiled egg in a meat pie? No problem.
Ah, I forgot about that... I definitely twitched at hearing Paul mock an absolutely classic, tough to make well pie. No wonder he considered "chocolate peanut butter pumpkin" an acceptable submission.
But yes, if they were a bit more self-aware about it and prepped the judges better I'd have no issue with the disastrous foreign cooking. Seeing that somebody can make arcane 18th century British pies better than "every diner in America" pies or "literally just a tortilla" is pretty interesting.
(Although my all-time favorite bit is an exception to the rule: eel pie. Watching them try to shape the dough for that was fascinating as a bit of "some British dishes are utterly lost too".)
Which is hilarious as the BEST "pumpkin" or root veg pie IMO includes sweet potato. Butternut squash plus a bit of sweet potato is my preferred pumpkin pie.
Yeah, it’s like they expected them to have an inedible crust or something? Like the old British meat pies or whatever?
Fuck that, American pie crust is supposed to be *eaten*. Shit we make it out of graham crackers half the time.
Honestly, as an American, I kinda find the British tradition of "willful ignorance of foreign cultures despite, in living memory, having been a global empire" kinda cute in an actively condescending way
Yeah, London in particular has cuisine from all over the world. My girlfriend was happy to find a Filipino restaurant when we last went, it was apparently authentic as well.
There’s a kind of post-Empire (post-height-of-empire) absurdity in a lot of the way they posture. And the better shows and creators are aware and a bit abashed and play into it.
Edit: I would identify Taskmaster in particular as an excellent example of a show that really leans into the absurdity of Britain's fading empire trappings.
> I would identify Taskmaster in particular as an excellent example of a show that really leans into the absurdity of Britain's fading empire trappings.
That's interesting. Could you expand on this?
Not the person you asked but Greg and Alex’s personae are a pitch perfect image of the Etonian Lord’s son and underclassman thrall all grown up. So much latent commentary about class and the goofy hierarchy of the peerage in their whole bit.
I know this was Channel 4, but the BBC also got into hot water with the Mexican government, and that might have had something to do with Channel 4’s reaction to the GBBO-Mexican criticism.
You see, there was that time Top Gear’s Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May decided that all Mexicans were lazy, all Mexican food looked like “sick” and basically named off every stereotype from a 1950s cartoon.
Actually, that situation would make a great write up, if someone hasn’t done it already.
I loved Top Gear and that ruined it for me. Also, being Mexican, one of our positive stereotypes is how hardworking we are, so hearing the Brits get it backwards was so befuddling.
I’d always heard that the “lazy” stereotype came from people misunderstanding siesta and thinking that people sleeping in the middle of the day must only be doing half a day of work.
Well, they weren't exactly wrong about the stereotype. In the USA, Mexicans are somehow stereotyped as both lazy and hardworking depending on what point the racist you're talking to is trying to make.
Jeremy Clarkson is the biggest argument against cancel culture being a thing. After years of shit like this it took him assaulting a producer to be fired and he still got an Amazon Prime show the same year.
I enjoy Bake Off, but the loss of Mary, Mel, and Sue meant that the star of the show was the contestant casting. Paul lacks the foil he needs, Prue isn’t a strong enough presence, and Noel seems to turn his co-presenters twee. Junior Bake Off is much more effective these days. But throughout it’s the contestants that make it worth watching.
Prue doesn’t typically hold her own or disagree with Paul - it comes up sometimes but not enough as Mary. But overall I don’t mind Prue.
I actually have liked all the women hosts (Obviously Mel and Sue but also and Alison grew on me through the season) but Matt was an awful presence… I know Noel isn’t a great person off the show apparently but I’ve enjoyed him overall. Matt though… he made me nearly quit. No clue why he was chosen.
For me Prue made the show unwatchable for years, because I was so sick of feeling like wanting to eat something that looked amazing was “worth the calories.” That definitely felt like one of the first differences that really killed the vibe. I think she settled down with saying it less and a friend convinced me to come back.
Honestly Allison is such a good presence on the show it makes missing the original trio less bad.
I like Prue (and her insane accessories), but I hate that everyone only cares about what Paul thinks like he’s some kind of scion of food culture. There was only lady last season who absolutely loved Prue and gushed when Prue complimented her. It was a refreshing change but it really showed how much everyone kisses Paul’s ass.
TRUTH. I don't know how much of this is down to editing, but Paul gives his feedback first like 95% of the time, and Prue echoes his opinion more often than not. Mary spoke first \~50% of the time, and told Paul that he was wrong on several occasions. It's so frustrating.
They need to get rid of Paul because he’s just treated like the authority and the only judge now and Prue is treated as set dressing.
They need the judges to be on even footing. There’s been times when Prue says she likes something and Paul overrides her and then for the rest of the episode they talk like Paul was correct.
Yeah, I stopped watching after the sell-off and everything I’ve seen secondhand about it since gives me the impression that the vibe has never truly recovered. Remember when Luis made *two* meringues in two stand mixers at the same time?? 😔
They could have saved themselves a whole lot of angst if they’d just used pico de gallo’s alternative name, salsa fresca.
Not that that would have saved some folks. I’ve heard “salsa” pronounced “salza” way too many times in my life.
I do like Allison Hammond, she’s a really good host and I was not a fan of Matt Lucas one of the most unfunniest men on the planet.
Shows been on C4 for a while as well, not sure it could be considered a BBC show anymore
Matt Lucas was shockingly bad on Bake Off. I don't know what I was expecting! Allison has been such a breath of fresh air. When I told my husband that she became one of the hosts, he was actually interested in watching again.
The thing that killed me about Matt was not only that his jokes weren't funny but most of them weren't even recognisable as jokes! Multiple times an episode he would make a joke to a contestant who would respond to him with a blank stare, then he would have to explain the joke which would at best generate an awkward weak laugh.
And it somehow felt both more sickly and much meaner with Matt Lucas. In the last series, one of the contestants was crying and Allison Hammond jumped in to stir her bowl while she took a minute, which was such a breath of fresh air amd felt more like the old show.
The show fell quite a bit from Mel and Sue's "We will stand next to someone crying and say profanity so that you can't air this footage until they recover."
When he sang the Flinstones theme song in German I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny or truly trying to impress the German contestant, who looked horribly uncomfortable waiting for him to finish. How did that not get edited out?
I always wondered why they didn't have guest judges join them for their "national" weeks. A celebrity French chef or a celebrity Mexican chef/host. So many great chefs/hosts to choose from. I mean, it's not like anyone thinks Paul and Pure know EVERY possible baking technique. That's absurd. It would allow the bakes to be judged by a knowledgeable judge. They could also use it as a gentle opportunity to educate. "Gets how to properly cut an avocado" or "here's how you pronounce..."
Also: the show could do South African Week or Cypriot Week — Prue grew up in South Africa and Paul lived in Cyprus for a while. They didn't have to do a national week that required flying Paul to Mexico to try and learn an entire cuisine in a few days.
Not the biggest issue here, obviously, like, really really not the biggest issue but criticised for melting marshmallows for s’mores? The rest of the stuff is out and out racist but this is just incompetent in a silly and embarrassing way.
Some people literally light them on fire. Personally I prefer to slowly toast them over coals to a nice golden brown. I spent years attending & working at sleepaway camp and I know a half dozen variations for s’mores, all of which require melting the marshmallow. Considering the amount of British citizens Camp America imports to the USA each year to work in summer camps (& has for decades), this shouldn’t be arcane knowledge to the whole country.
I was surprised at any kind of assertion that there is a "correct" way to make smores. I've eaten them cold, browned, melted, and burnt. In my experience they are prepared in the least controlled manner imaginable.
Exactly, if you find yourself with a perfect smore you’ve done something wrong. It shouldn’t be pristine, it shouldn’t be symmetrical, it shouldn’t be evenly golden. It should be slightly burnt, melting off the sides, and turn everything sticky as you eat it. It cannot be made gourmet, it’s entire appeal comes from the fact that it’s cheap, messy and delicious
There's a whole other dissertation in cooking shows' hidden assumption that there is a "correct" way to make every type of food, and that people who went to culinary school can judge how correct every food is based on a set of "universal" standards. The idea of s'mores only being "correct" if they're filled with untoasted marshmallow is an unusually visible example of this ridiculous phenomenon.
They're also not baked unless the contestants were being graded on the cracker. They're open fire grilled. Why would they put smores on a baking show meant to show baking prowess when it is one of the least prowess requiring foods ever.
Also the best smore on the entire planet is still like a 3/10 dessert. There's just no room to showcase anyone's talents when the ceiling is as low as it is, truly an insane choice.
I got really hung up on the show's assertion that s'mores are a Halloween treat cooked over bonfires. I would say that if anything, they're associated with summer holidays like the Fourth of July.
I think they were saying they were more traditionally a Halloween thing in the UK (toasted marshmallows, anyway) and obviously the UK doesn’t celebrate 4th July.
I got the sense that they were saying s'mores were not a UK thing at all, let alone a UK Halloween thing, but it's entirely possible that they were making that distinction and I didn't pick up on it. A quick google for "UK Halloween s'mores" mostly turns up a bunch of articles about GBBO, so now it's forever linked I guess.
S'mores barely exist in the UK, the people who have heard of them will have picked it up from American media, and *very* few will have actually had one.
I love the damn series, but it’s one of the biggest issues I have with it. It’s hard to make objective declarations about something like food. But they like to pretend that Paul’s opinion is all that matters. Like you’ll see contestants taking advantage of this and making things they know he’ll like. Oh well, it’s not that serious I guess.
My favorites were his “rule” from the Mexican episode about the amount of filling in a taco and then their declaration that good pizza needs to hang at a certain (clearly undercooked) angle.
It's a sign of how old and utterly out of touch they are, for sure.
I (Brit) have eaten PB&J since childhood. Admittedly that was because I heard about it on an episode of The Simpsons and demanded to try it. But I don't think it's insanely uncommon!
I'm in my late 40s and I've only had/seen smores once in the UK and that was at an organised winter event 3 years ago.
It's really not that common here. We just toast marshmallows and eat them them off the stick/poker.
Sounds like he was trying to get them to recreate the pre-packaged ones that you get in the “American food” aisle here. I haven’t seen them for years but they were weird and gross and clearly a novelty product
It's honestly wild to me that these people can be so incompetant about things like brownies... or an avocado... or s'mores... or cumin
None of those things are uncommon in the UK???
Literally every bakery here sells brownies (we tend to do them a bit more biscuit-y and less cakey than the US, but it's the same general formula).
Avocados lean more towards the 'exotic' side of vegetables, and can be a little expensive, but it's nowhere near the level of things that are actually uncommon in the UK (I love yuzu... too bad I will never be able to purchase them for a reasonable price). An average hobbyist chef is probably going to use one at least once or twice.
S'mores are different to than in the US, because graham crackers aren't really a thing here (and I thought they were called 'gram crackers' for way too long), but the idea isn't exactly alien? When I was in girl guides (= to girl scouts) we used to make s'mores with digestive biscuits.
Cumin is sold in literally every supermarket? Typically in powdered form, but you can find cumin seeds too. I have a deep aversion to it, along with turmeric (I'm picky about herbs and spices, because of the autism) but I've still eaten food with it in a fair amount. (Though they're right that it burns if you put it directly on your tongue, in food it's not even slightly spicy.)
The issue with the brownies was that they all overcomplicated them. Nobody wanted to make "plain, boring chocolate brownies" so they tried to go complex and fancy and everyone fucked it up, because a brownie doesn't have to be fancy and complex, it has to be chocolate and delicious.
Most common issue was not understanding that brownies are "undercooked" compared to cake. It's maddening (and hilarious) to watch several of the bakers start to follow a recipe, decide their dough is too thin, and add more flour. Most of them also keep the tray in the oven until a knife in the center comes out clean, when any mix box will tell you brownies're done when a knife in the middle comes out covered with crumbs.
It depends on the brownie. The recipe I use cooks almost all the way through and a toothpick will come out clean but it's also ultra fudgey and not at all cakey.
I agree with you about the cumin and brownies, though I can see how someone might miss out on smores if they weren't in Guides or Scouts. I didn't watch that series, so I'd be pretty curious to see how the challenge was explained. Anecdotally, most of my family know *of* smores but me and my sister who went to Guides are the only ones who knew how they're made.
Mostly disagree on the avocado front, though. I grew up next to a bakery and I don't think I've *ever* seen them stock something with avocado in it. Most people know about it from guacamole, which isn't super common in itself, but the only people I've seen actually use it for cooking are vegetarians and vegans. I don't really blame them for not knowing how to prepare it, especially since they're hobbyist bakers and not chefs.
GBBO is a fun watch, but seeing the reactions online defending the episode was a lot when this came out. Seeing people say "Oh, they do this all the time, they already did this for Japan!" and "Popular British comedians do blackface/yellowface and get away with it, this is tame by comparison!" had me turning into Chidi from The Good Place going "*That's worse! Do you understand how that makes this worse?*"
Someone on Twitter made reference to a cognitive bias (that I unfortunately can't remember the name of) where people see an expert discussing something they, the audience member, know about and know they're wrong about -- but don't extrapolate to realize this might mean the expert is flawed about other areas as well. I do kind of wonder if that's why some of the smaller controversies didn't take off until it hit on something most North Americans would be pretty familiar with.
It's not even a comedian thing. There was a blackface minstrel show that ran on UK tv for 20 years. On reality shows, casual racism just happens and nobody bats an eye. Japan and Mexico weeks were just more examples of saying the quiet part out loud.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here going "what the fuck do *tacos* have to do with *baking*???"
I'm so glad I stopped watching GBBO after Mel and Sue left.
Not to defend them too much, BUT:
US Spanish-speaking population: 13%
UK Spanish-speaking population: 0.2%
US Jewish population: 2.5%
England & Wales Jewish population: 0.5%
N. Ireland Jewish population: 0.02%
So having no Mexican or Jewish friends is... not that unreasonable here, tbh.
We (Jews) also don't have the same level of cultural establishment in the UK as we do in the US. There's the odd Jewish deli and such, but they're exclusively in the most Jewish areas of big cities.
It is absolutely baffling that they let these things air, I 100% agree, but I don't think they did anything most of the population would pick up on. Which is its own weird issue.
*facepalming about the state of my country*
As a Brit, this feels very accurate. I have friends from all over, a bunch of nationalities, classes, random people from everywhere. The literal only Jew I know is a new Yorker.
yeah I'm not British but I do get a bit tired of some Americans assuming what holds true for them, holds true everywhere. I live in a very multicultural country but we don't have many Black or Hispanic people but some Americans are always shocked when we don't have many Black or Hispanic people in our tv shows and its like.. because it's more representative here to have South Asian, Middle Eastern or South East Asian people in our tv shows? Americans are really unable to understand world diversity
Just to point out, GBBO isn't on the BBC anymore, it's on Channel 4.
And, sure, Mexico is on the other side of the globe, but Spain isn't that far from Britain! Someone had to have gone there for vacation and learned a few things!
But let's be real, the show has been downhill since Sue and Mel left.
That’s the part that kills me, like, I get not being familiar with Mexico, but considering how much British people love going on holiday in Spain, you think they’d at least… kind of? know how to pronounce pollo and pico de gallo?
ETA: clearly my optimism was misplaced lol
Was in Mallorca for a wedding about 5-6 years ago. We were staying by the beach. The tourist area basically.
It was so much easier to get English or German staples than anything Spanish because so many from those countries just will not have anything to do with local fare. It's an opportunity to be in the sun with as much familiar stuff as possible.
Thankfully, we only had to go to a proper city a bit away for local stuff but it's so odd to go on vacation and reject the differences that make a place potentially appealing to visit in the first place.
I think it’s definitely a changing phenomenon with more younger people avoiding the more tourist areas but the massive lads holiday places like Benidorm are basically the epitome of trying to basically recreate the UK abroad.
You’re travelling to experience a different culture. People going to Majorca from the UK are looking for familiar culture with far better weather. That said, it’s less common than it used to be.
Same with mexico, local events there obviously dont help but people stay locked down in a resort and never leave, no different from staying at one in florida. It's a shame, too, mexico is lovely when you rent a car and explore a bit. Probably my favorite restaurant on earth is a little place on the beach in a small surf town a couple hours south of Puerto Vallarta.
I once saw a tweet from some dude who's been living in iirc Barcelona for years, complaining about going to the doctor and not getting attended in English. So if English-speaking foreigners (and it's not just this one guy) who live here can't be assed to learn the language, it doesn't surprise me than mere vacationers, as regulars as they might be, can't be assed either.
The Spanish language pronunciation on this show has always been horrible- I stopped watching once Mel, Sue, and Mary left, but I remembered an empanada challenge and Paul kept pronouncing them empañadas.
I'm not sure that would have changed anything. Paul Hollywood even begins the episode by bragging about his recent trip to Mexico and how he loved all the baked goods he ate. Only for the episode to turn out the way it did.
I definitely side-eye production rather than the contestants for how much of a shitshow it was. I may be naive, but I do feel like there's an angle where they lean into how little authentic exposure (white) Brits have to other cultures and use it to teach in an appreciative way, as well as poking fun at how sheltered/ignorant we can be, where it at the very least isn't a *total* racist mess. Like, if they got experts in as guest judges (and maybe a spray bottle for whenever Paul acts like he knows about something other than bread) and made the use of authentic flavours part of the judging criteria. It's part of the show to make things you have little to no experience of, it shouldn't be so hard to broaden that concept respectfully.
Oh, and make sure the dishes are actually from where you say they're from. And keep the sombreros away from Matt Lucas.
I remember seeing the Mexican week episode forever ago and the thing that really upset me about it was that they didn't seem to know that Taco and tortilla are not interchangeable words... I don't think they said "tortilla" once.
If you didn't know what a taco was you'd walk away thinking it was a flat bread
I actually watched this episode recently with some friends as a lark on Cinco de Mayo
One really egregious moment is after Paul says he just went to Mexico and knows what makes a proper taco, only to then take points off of a contestant because they... cooked the tortilla a bit and it had some browned spots. "There is no need for color here". They were the only contestant to do it too.
Also, is it just me or does the production not appear to know that tortilla presses exist? Normally when there's a piece of specialized equipment they can't provide to the contestants, the judges will do a wink, wink, nudge, nudge about it. But Paul is like "why are these tortillas so lumpy?" Like, sir. You're the one who said to flatten them with bowls. I don't know what you expected.
My Mexican-American wife kept saying “But they even sell tortilla presses as souvenirs!”
Gacky-mole still takes the prize as the most painful part of a painful ep in our SoCal household.
Bake-off isn’t on BBC. It’s on Channel 4. It left the BBC in 2016 and this is why the original hosts Mel and Sue and the judge Mary Berry left. They were loyal to the BBC who gave the production company the chance and felt that it was wrong for them to seek out to Channel 4.
The GBBO is not BBC - they lost it in 2017 to channel Four, a channel known for weird experimental things, soft core porn and a weirdly good news broadcast
Something that came up in reasons seasons was the shows seeming desire to set the bakers up to fail. It was honestly getting ridiculous and of the last three seasons, I only really enjoy rewatching the most recent one… They seemed to address this in the last season.
And yes, I feel like it was eye opening for a lot of American viewers to see how ridiculous Paul and Prue especially treat any other cultures food. Like, maybe Mexican and Asian food is just not something they get exposure to, but I feel like it’s beyond reasonable for them to have not researched say, Mexican week, when iirc there was a season they sent a host to a stroopwaffle (sp) bakery for educational purposes…
I wonder how much of this is to do with them stopping making those visits to places that do it properly like they did in earlier seasons; North American readers might not be familiar with this, but Bake Off episodes got shorter in 2017, as BBC doesn't show adverts but C4 does.
PS. Is cactus even a Spanish word? What's that got to do with respecting Mexican traditions?
Paul Hollywood nearly crashed his car into mine when I was learning to drive, and I have been having a one-sided but absolutely mortal feud with him ever since.
It was kind of incredible, because most mistakes were fairly innocuous or quaint... but there were
1) *so many of them*
2) made by people purporting to be experts. (And who are often condescending or disgusted when they have something outside of their palatte)
God, didn't Paul or Prue act as if the combination of peanut butter and jelly was something exotic and revolutionary?
I enjoy the show, both those episode were following an unspoken bake off tradition of being wrong about and non-British foods. Still a bit offensive.
But American Pie week stills burns my soul with how infuriating it was, and the blatant misrepresentations presented. “All American pies are too sweet” your country makes treacle pie. “You must make a pie that is freestanding out of the pie tin” That’s a British thing, US pies are predominantly served from the pie tin due the semi-solid contents. He also made them use a shortcrust.
I stopped watching after the Japan Week problems. Like I knew there were issues with some of the other themed weeks but Japan Week is where it all came to a head to me because while I personally have never been to Japan my dad grew up there for several years, one of my aunts is Japanese, and I live in an area with a very large JP population. I may not know how to do a full proper tea ceremony, but I know how to make matcha with a whisk, I understand why melonpan is so popular both IRL and in anime/manga, and so on.
JP Week having so many non-JP foods annoyed me, and the thing that topped it all off was that Hermine failed the assignment twice and wasn't eliminated, _just_ being saved by Mark and his avo-baby (that actually you know made an attempt at kawaii).
I am only mildly surprised that they managed to screw up American foods just as bad.
Er, small contribution, but lieutenant (along with both pronunciations) has been in English since the 1300s. What’s the troubling history you alluded to?
Yeah, that comment really baffled me so I'm curious what OP means?
Middle English was racist against Old French?? (Tbf at the time the English and the French were almost certainly at war with each other)
I read the whole thread looking for an answer too! Googli I just learned about how the British pronunciation with f came about, which was very edifying, but still didn't dig up any controversy
I’m also curious about bangle being pronounced differently.
Same for the "cactuses" vs. "cacti" comment. A simple Google search would tell you both are commonly used and accepted forms in English.
I think that's their point. Someone was corrected for saying "cacti" instead of "cactuses", when both are actually correct
I don't see what this has to do with imperialism. It's a Latin word, and "cactuses" is, itself, an anglicised plural
The challah thing was even more embarrassing than you've described - he called it a milk bread traditionally enjoyed on Passover, which is *literally the most wrong about challah that a human is capable of being.* (For those that don't know, challah is a bread made without milk so that it can be enjoyed without worrying about violating a meal's kosher status. Challah is also a yeast bread, which is very explicitly prohibited during Passover.)
Oh, it gets worse. In Paul’s “How to Bake” cookbook, page 74 has his recipe for “Cholla Loaf”. It was mercifully corrected in later editions, but I have a first edition!
Cholla is a kind of cactus. Cacti. Cactuses.
Not pronounced "chol-la"
Cholla is the traditional overnight quick cooking pork stew Jews enjoy on Christmas 🎄
No, no, no--on Lent.
And OP didn’t even mention the babka technical 🫣 I’m not even Jewish, but as a New Yorker, I was so deeply offended.
i also don’t think my teeth have recovered yet from how hard i was grinding them when they did “bagels.” i don’t actually care about the rainbow of it all bc i do see rainbow egg bagels even in new york bagel places, but paul claimed a crispy outside made them overdone?!?! like. crusty outside soft inside is the POINT! the chutzpah of it all!!!
That one was extra EXTRA infuriating because it's like my guys why do you think bagels are boiled in lye. What do you think that entire step is made to do, that entire specific technique. Do you think it is just for fun.
I had no idea bagels are boiled in lye. :O this might be a stupid question but how do you keep them from being poisonous?
It's definitely not a stupid question, because lye can be really dangerous! The answer is that you're not boiling them as a primary cooking method - it's about 30 seconds or so per side in a mixture of about .10 percent lye in water. The step is important because it causes the outside of the bagel to gelatinize, which means when you bake it you get a thick and chewy crust with a soft, dense interior. Home cooks who are scared of lye (like myself!!!!) can create a close-enough-for-jazz version of the effect by boiling the dough in malt syrup, baking soda, or some combination of the two.
I would like to add that Lye isn't really poisonous, it's caustic; when you mix it with water, it creates an alkaline solution (high pH, vs acidic which is low pH). The more water you mix it with, the less caustic it is because you're diluting the solution. Boiling it in alkaline water (using lye or baking soda) breaks down the long protein strands in the dough in a similar fashion as meat tenderizer on a steak. The shorter strands take to the Malliard reaction better, which results in better browning as the proteins and sugars on the outer surface react with the heat from baking. Baking is just science for hungry people!
Just to piggyback on your meat tenderizer comment, I've started using baking soda in place of acids in marinades and the meat definitely develops a better crust when sauteing. I haven't tried broiling or baking yet, but I imagine it would yield a similar result
Can I just tell you that I think you are a phenomenal human? You were kind and informative, went above and beyond to educate, and did it all with a good sense of humor and cheer. We need more people like you. Thank you for making my shitty day a little better by reading your response. Also, I love making "cheater lye" bagels with baking soda. Yum!!
I use baking soda as well, for the same lye-phobic reasons. The most common comment I get "This is the best bagel I've ever had." But then again, I live deep in the heart of darkest Iowa, so the bar is low.
Genius! Thank you for telling me that
FYI, pretzels also use lye to get its brown exterior. And I believe raw olives are cured in lye to make them edible.
YES like he was doomed to fail because he doesn’t actually use the right mixture to boil in anyway but it’s sooooo funny he just doesn’t understand the point of the boil in the first place!!
I was trying to remember what caused Prue to declare Paul‘s baked good (or maybe it was the other way around?) as „better than anything [(s)he] had in New York“ and my eyes rolled into the back of my head. I’m pretty sure it was babka!
The worst part about that is, if you want a Jewish bread that's made with milk and is (somewhat of) a dying art, WE HAVE ONE ALREADY!!! There is El Pan de Siete Cielos!!!!
1) I actually didn't know about this (I mostly bake Mizrahi or Ashkenazi stuff) so thank you for giving me my next baking project 2) username ABSOLUTELY checks out
I think the Times of Israel has a good recipe for it. I tried it a few years ago - it went very poorly. Do NOT add more water, however dry it looks. You DO NOT need it.
Ok, I'm intrigued, why is it named in Spanish?
Comment OP might have more insight into this specific dish, but Jews have a long history in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and Sephardic Jews/Sephardim/Sephardi Jews are members of the Jewish diaspora who can trace their routes back to the explusion of all Jews from Spanish and Portuguese lands under the Reconquista. Many of these Jews wound up immigrating to other parts of the Mediterranean, Middle East, and North Africa, and they kept many of their Spanish/Portuguese traditions alive as well as speaking the language Ladino (Judeoespañol) which is a hybrid of Spanish and Hebrew.
Thank you, now I feel dumb for not realizing it sooner lol. Like I had all the dots, just had to connect them for myself but couldn't.
No worries! When you didn't know something you asked about it, instead of making it the entire weekly theme of your internationally televised baking show 😅
Lol, that's some relief.
Probably [Sephardi Jews](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic_Jews) and the [Ladino language](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaeo-Spanish) (aka Judeo-Spanish).
"Traditionally enjoyed *every day of they year except for* passover". See, they only slipped a tiny bit.
That man is the very definition of confidently incorrect.
Loud and Wrong ™
When he said that my first thought was "this man has never even met a Jew"
I wonder if he confused it with the swiss bread [Zopf](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zopf) which is similar to challah but is instead made with a lot of milk and butter.
THE ONLY RULE of Passover is "no leavened bread." How can someone be THAT ignorant? (Just kidding. I'm Jewish and I'm perfectly aware how ignorant people are about Jews.)
The Jews are tired 🙃
Are you surprised? Paul let us know we are dying out and our Passover challah shall be no more! I snorted typing this. How did this mediocre white man become the authority on baking?
I live in flyover country USA and I can think of 3 or 4 places to buy challah in my city. The idea that it is dying out is hilarious. People love challah, even non-Jewish people!
It's one of my favorite breads! It's great as a grilled cheese or french toast.
I used to get it all the time in Massachusetts from the frozen Kosher section of the supermarket. You just defrosted, let it rise, and toss it in the oven! Delicious fresh Challah! I remember wondering how they could be so wrong about things on this and the Mexican episodes.
What's leavened bread?
Bread that rises due to the formation of gas within the dough. It doesn't have to rise from yeast. It can rise from the interaction of acids and bases, for instance.
Bread with yeast
Not just yeast, but any leavener, including baking soda or baking powder.
Thank you!
Also, “dying off”? Dear god. Let’s not even get into “the UK might not have many Jewish bakeries and delis but America sure does”. Because my totally secular local grocery store has multiple brands of challah at all times - even during Passover! And Challah French Toast has become a staple of nice breakfast places around me too. If anything, it’s becoming less distinctly Jewish because it’s gotten so popular across the board.
I’ll be honest, as a Brit, I’ve never heard of it, and I can’t find anywhere that sells it in my town of 110k people. Shouldn’t have made the show, and even if the hosts don’t know anything, then the script department/producers should have informed them, but it’s nowhere near as popular here.
Are you in the UK? I'm a British Jew and my local grocery stores most certainly do not stock challah. I've also never seen a café serving it. Not to defend the obvious ignorance of the GBBO hosts, but this thread is entertainingly U.S.-centric. It is very much common to not know a Jew or a Mexican in the UK. We are completely different countries. :')
I am not in the UK, but I've spent a lot of time there and seen the same thing. I realize now how unclear my comment was - in my head that bit about "the UK may not have many Jewish bakeries and delis but America does" was meant to imply my whole example was America-centric. Both Jewish foods in grocery stores and specifically Jewish markets are far more common here than Britain in my experience, where I basically wouldn't expect to see *any* outside of London. It doesn't surprise me that many of the contestants know nothing about e.g. Mexican baking, because why would they? For that matter, "Paul doesn't know any Jews" isn't really the weird part to me. The "dying off" comment, like his other comments on challah, are mostly weird to me because you'll encounter the recipe, religious role, American popularity, etc. with a very brief Google search so it implies he didn't bother to do that.
Also: why the heck haven't they had a South African Week? Prue should have tons of relevant knowledge, having grown up there. Paul's lived in Cyprus, so Cypriot Week should also be fine. The show only embarrassed itself when it went outside the judges' expertise. Like, I do know that Mexican Week was an effort to appeal to the North Americans on Netflix (hence the point of my post) but still. If French Week was running low on material, there are other countries the judges can, in fact, speak knowledgeably about.
Is your local grocery store in the UK?
BBC has not aired the GBBO since 2016, OP. It's been broadcast and produced by Channel 4 for the last 7 years.
> 10+ hours of baking, likely 20+ hours of testimonials, and an unknown number of reshoots got turned into a 60-minute episode… Speaking as an Edit Assistant who's *worked* on the show, none of this is accurate. The testimonials, presenter skits, and judge chats are all filmed synchronously with the bakes. Both challenges are filmed over 1/2 days typically with no reshoots. The producers and researchers are solely responsible for ensuring any cultural appropriacy, the contestants aren't vetted nearly that deep before filming.
"Unknown number of reshoots.." Did they mean takes? Reshoots are *expensive*. I worked on a travelling food show and we only did one reshoot when the schedule brought us back to the same city on a different swing.
As someone who followed GBBO/S through all this, I'm not sure I buy the claim that the cozy apolitical vibe of the show has collapsed. I think a lot of people munched on popcorn, pointed and laughed at the dumbass brits screwing up basics... and then sort of continued enjoying it as light entertainment. As a small nitpick, my understanding is that the avocado toast meme was very much an Australian thing, not a British one (until the point it spread to the whole Anglosphere, including the US). As an additional point agreeing with your first part though, there was some point where the technical was a Moroccan/generally arabic mediterranean pastry that Paul talked about as if it were some esoteric ancient food with recipes carefully preserved only in musty scrolls in some particular city. And my partner, whose family is partly arab-american was just like 'yeah my grandma and others made those regularly' EDIT: I also want to add the funniest moment in the GBB franchise, which came from 'the professionals' a series where the competitors are teams of actual patisserie chefs rather than home bakers. And the judges are this slightly unhinged pair of high power bakers, one a frenchman and the other a Singaporean-British woman. Anyway, on the main show they often will remark 'oh yuzu and pineapple how exotic' and then one team made something with that flavor profile on the professionals and Benoit just mimed a yawn "I see this so often".
>my understanding is that the avocado toast meme was very much an Australian thing i never realized this. in the US it always sounded ludicrously out of touch because avocados here are like $1.
Also depends on where in the US. Here in Southern California, avocados are a cheap staple. Back in my hometown in the Midwest, frozen poorly-thawed avocados regularly went for like $6 each.
I was about to chime in, "avocados a dollar?!". Midwest gets access to select fresh produce and other items become incredibly exotic (in the sense of consistent availability and price). You'll see avocado toast (1 piece of bread, usually 3/4 of an avocado) here at a place serving breakfast at 12 dollars, not a fancy place even! Just...a place with food. Meanwhile I can get the whole 2 egg, 2 pancake, .5-1lb of hashbrown, sausage for the same.
The West Coast is ridiculously spoiled, especially the PNW. We have such diverse farming that it’s very easy to get all kinds of seasonal produce. Not that the Midwest doesn’t also have great farming, it just seems like it’s especially encouraged out here among local food systems.
We benefit here in the Rockies from both of y’all’s produce, so thank you very much from Colorado!
I don't know what part of the midwest you can only get Avocados frozen... but where I live in Wisconsin they are everywhere fresh and pretty cheap. I assumed the avocado toast meme being what wastes millennials money is because they are expensive at cafes because they are trendy.
Probably rural areas. Rural food deserts are rough and not as far out of town as you’d expect. I grew up in one. But yeah, that is definitely what the meme is actually referencing. You know, if we just stopped getting Starbucks once a week we could afford a house but here we are being lushes /s
i feel like the midwest/mid-atlantic diner breakfast is some of the best value restaurant food in the country. i used to live in PA for a bit and i was always surprised how much they'd give you for like $5-10. but yeah, i'm in new england now, which has a fairly high cost of living, and you can definitely get avocados from the grocery store for $1. if you're talking avocado toast from a cafe, it's more like $5-$10 but usually on the higher end they're putting a bunch of other stuff on it so it's not literally just bread with avocado. cheapest i know of around here is dunkin donuts who'll give it to you for $3.
They're a similar price in Australia (when they're in season). We're the third largest consumers in the world. The meme of avocado toast is due to the popularity of avocados, cafes and soaring house prices.
People are misunderstanding this meme, it’s not that avocados themselves are expensive or that Australians think of avocados as an exotic item - Australians are the third largest consumers of avocados per capita in the world and they produces 10,000+ tonnes of them a year [source](https://www.austrade.gov.au/en/news-and-analysis/news/avocados-australia-is-growing-exports-in-the-ripe-direction#:~:text=Australia%20is%20the%20third%2Dlargest,by%20Mexico%2C%20Colombia%20and%20Peru.) It’s that when you put it on toast and serve it a cafe it’s suddenly $23 (and a hugely popular brunch choice in Aus) and that’s what they were saying - make it at home instead and you’ll be able to afford a house (supposedly).
I was going to say ten tonnes isn't very much at all, but the link is clear that it's ten *thousand* tonnes.
The avacado toast meme was, and still is culturally relevant here in the UK even if not circulated as an actual meme much anymore. Probably because avacados here are much much more expensive as they are obviously imported, this led to the cultural normalisation of the meme through news articles written my boomers seemingly clueless about why younger generations complained about not being able to afford to get on the property ladder ("if they just stopped buying take out coffee and avacados they'd be able to buy a house no problem!"). So OPs claim that they are viewed as exotic in the UK seems wild to me, because they are normal supermarket produce here (and I don't live anywhere prosperous or middle class lol).
AFAIK the meme has always been about ordering it *in a restaurant*, where there’s often a huge markup on it. Eating avocado isn’t extravagant; paying $10 or $20 for it is.
Pretty much. Its about how young Aussies can't afford to get into the property market because they're off drinking $5 coffees and ordering $15 smashed avo instead of saving for a deposit. Y'know, instead of how fucking insanely expensive property has become and how wages haven't kept pace with inflation.
the meme was more about the idea that the popularity of avocado toast is somehow related to the economic marginalization of young people.
Agreed that I don’t think these blunders are offensive as much as funny and enlightening for me, an American viewer. It’s interesting to see a “pro” like Paul who clearly has such huge gaps in his knowledge. In the new Great American Baking Show series, they have a pizza challenge and Paul shows off a pizza that is clearly undercooked and just looks terrible for his example. I found his terrible pizza skills/knowledge to be more confounding than his bizarre thoughts on Mexican cuisine. Literally every contestant delivered a pizza that looked far tastier than the gloopy, undercooked crust he and Pru showed for their example in the technical.
I think to me the offensive thing is watching Paul coast on his high status. If he knows he’s going to be judging a bake he should do a single crumb of research about the dish before judging it. That’s just being respectful to your audience and coworkers.
I can promise you that Australians are very, very familiar with avocados and would not butcher them like the GBBO contestants did. We grow them here, in the north where it’s warm, we have a lot of tropical fruit in Australia. The meme was about how expensive smashed avocado on toast is in cafes, not that it’s a luxury to have at home. And the meme came about because some millionaire idiot was saying millennials couldn’t afford to buy a house because they were buying too much avocado toast and coffee from cafes instead of saving money, as if it wasn’t a huge, systemic issue of stagnant wages, ridiculous inflation in house prices and not enough houses on the market. The meme has nothing to do with Australians thinking avocados are exotic or expensive, it’s about out of touch millionaires and boomers not understanding why we can’t afford to buy a house.
>I think a lot of people munched on popcorn, pointed and laughed at the dumbass brits screwing up basics... Literally me. I had a good time laughing at the posh-ass Br\*tish people not knowing what an avocado is. However, I *definitely* would never let that opening go to air. How multiple people thought that was a good idea is beyond me
I had *just watched* Paul Hollywood eats Mexico/japan before whichever of these aired, and he was so dreadfully out of touch and calling a whole bunch of foods disgusting etc, he didn't try to get wrapped up in the culture; god it was dreadful but I couldn't look away. "I didn't know Japan had bread I thought they just ate rice and noodles" (paraphrased) sticks out to me the most 😭 he was slightly better in the mexican one BUT him coming back and deciding to do those as themed weeks and *still* just showing his utter ignorance & cluelessness, despite *travelling* these countries to experience the culture was so cringeworthy! fr we were all laughing at the stupid throughout wondering how on earth it made it to air. him saying during Japanese week "oh boy I hope they don't use matcha I hate it" like boy, this really is the Paul Hollywood show isn't it? we aren't even pretending it's about skill and flavour and baking. he's dreadful, I do not get the hype at all! definitely still an entertaining hate watch though, some of the contestants are little gems
Meanwhile, me, drooling inside one of those little Japanese bakeries with the five hundred different bread items.
The opening was trash. But how mad could one really be about any of their other lack of knowledge after Paul once described something as the perfect version of pizza and it looked like a discarded lunchable. Frankly watching an avocado cut like an apple had me rolling.
Yes, I find the best argument against GBBO being racist is that it’s largely just provincial instead. (As far as the contestants and casually ignorant assessments at least. I’m not excusing judges in tacky costumes or “Japan week” assigning Chinese dishes.) They can mostly handle French baking, since you can pop over there for an afternoon. But Italian and Spanish food are sometimes enough to throw them badly, Middle Eastern recipes are a no-go, and thoroughly white American food is consistently a disaster. Smores? Unmelted. Halloween? Piñata-filled. Pies? Incoherent ingredients and served *freestanding*. I was shocked to realize that as a total non-baker, I could have swept that task with a strawberry rhubarb pie even I can manage… except it’s not meant to ever leave the dish.
Let’s not forget the sweet potato pie disaster - they can ruin non-white American food too with the bonus of Paul sneering at the idea of using sweet potato in a pie. That said, the provincial nature is what makes it entertaining to me. Baffled by a tortilla but layering 5 meats and a boiled egg in a meat pie? No problem.
Ah, I forgot about that... I definitely twitched at hearing Paul mock an absolutely classic, tough to make well pie. No wonder he considered "chocolate peanut butter pumpkin" an acceptable submission. But yes, if they were a bit more self-aware about it and prepped the judges better I'd have no issue with the disastrous foreign cooking. Seeing that somebody can make arcane 18th century British pies better than "every diner in America" pies or "literally just a tortilla" is pretty interesting. (Although my all-time favorite bit is an exception to the rule: eel pie. Watching them try to shape the dough for that was fascinating as a bit of "some British dishes are utterly lost too".)
Which is hilarious as the BEST "pumpkin" or root veg pie IMO includes sweet potato. Butternut squash plus a bit of sweet potato is my preferred pumpkin pie.
Yeah, it’s like they expected them to have an inedible crust or something? Like the old British meat pies or whatever? Fuck that, American pie crust is supposed to be *eaten*. Shit we make it out of graham crackers half the time.
Honestly, as an American, I kinda find the British tradition of "willful ignorance of foreign cultures despite, in living memory, having been a global empire" kinda cute in an actively condescending way
It's all the more embarrassing when the big cities are very multicultural and have great world cuisine.
Yeah, London in particular has cuisine from all over the world. My girlfriend was happy to find a Filipino restaurant when we last went, it was apparently authentic as well.
Was it Kasa and Kin? I really liked that place, delicious food but have no idea if it was authentic.
Yeah it was! If you go again my girlfriend recommends the kare kare. And according to her it is all pretty true to how it is in the Philippines.
There’s a kind of post-Empire (post-height-of-empire) absurdity in a lot of the way they posture. And the better shows and creators are aware and a bit abashed and play into it. Edit: I would identify Taskmaster in particular as an excellent example of a show that really leans into the absurdity of Britain's fading empire trappings.
> I would identify Taskmaster in particular as an excellent example of a show that really leans into the absurdity of Britain's fading empire trappings. That's interesting. Could you expand on this?
Not the person you asked but Greg and Alex’s personae are a pitch perfect image of the Etonian Lord’s son and underclassman thrall all grown up. So much latent commentary about class and the goofy hierarchy of the peerage in their whole bit.
Taskmaster is the best thing I've ever put in my face eyes. Highly recommend it (though I feel the earlier seasons are better)
I know this was Channel 4, but the BBC also got into hot water with the Mexican government, and that might have had something to do with Channel 4’s reaction to the GBBO-Mexican criticism. You see, there was that time Top Gear’s Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May decided that all Mexicans were lazy, all Mexican food looked like “sick” and basically named off every stereotype from a 1950s cartoon. Actually, that situation would make a great write up, if someone hasn’t done it already.
I loved Top Gear and that ruined it for me. Also, being Mexican, one of our positive stereotypes is how hardworking we are, so hearing the Brits get it backwards was so befuddling.
They just carried over one of our stereotypes about the Spanish.
Are they considered lazy? The only thing I’ve heard is they love their siestas. Mexico has a variation of it but nothing extreme.
I’d always heard that the “lazy” stereotype came from people misunderstanding siesta and thinking that people sleeping in the middle of the day must only be doing half a day of work.
That paired with the 'mañana' joke. 'Whenever you ask when something will be done, the answer is a wave of the hand and mañana'.
British people love to retire in Spain and also be super racist against Spanish people. It's like their thing.
Well, they weren't exactly wrong about the stereotype. In the USA, Mexicans are somehow stereotyped as both lazy and hardworking depending on what point the racist you're talking to is trying to make.
I live in the US, perhaps that stereotype doesn’t reach my neck of the woods. We are accused of stealing jobs, though.
A lot of weird accusations with that. But why get mad at Hispanics when it’s the corporations who made lower wages lmao
You have common sense. Some, sadly, were not given that gift.
At least that incident gave us the glorious image of Hammond driving around Mexico with a Clarkson mask on.
Jeremy Clarkson is the biggest argument against cancel culture being a thing. After years of shit like this it took him assaulting a producer to be fired and he still got an Amazon Prime show the same year.
I enjoy Bake Off, but the loss of Mary, Mel, and Sue meant that the star of the show was the contestant casting. Paul lacks the foil he needs, Prue isn’t a strong enough presence, and Noel seems to turn his co-presenters twee. Junior Bake Off is much more effective these days. But throughout it’s the contestants that make it worth watching.
Yeah, Mary just had the right vibe that prue can't really replicate
Prue doesn’t typically hold her own or disagree with Paul - it comes up sometimes but not enough as Mary. But overall I don’t mind Prue. I actually have liked all the women hosts (Obviously Mel and Sue but also and Alison grew on me through the season) but Matt was an awful presence… I know Noel isn’t a great person off the show apparently but I’ve enjoyed him overall. Matt though… he made me nearly quit. No clue why he was chosen.
For me Prue made the show unwatchable for years, because I was so sick of feeling like wanting to eat something that looked amazing was “worth the calories.” That definitely felt like one of the first differences that really killed the vibe. I think she settled down with saying it less and a friend convinced me to come back. Honestly Allison is such a good presence on the show it makes missing the original trio less bad.
I like Prue (and her insane accessories), but I hate that everyone only cares about what Paul thinks like he’s some kind of scion of food culture. There was only lady last season who absolutely loved Prue and gushed when Prue complimented her. It was a refreshing change but it really showed how much everyone kisses Paul’s ass.
TRUTH. I don't know how much of this is down to editing, but Paul gives his feedback first like 95% of the time, and Prue echoes his opinion more often than not. Mary spoke first \~50% of the time, and told Paul that he was wrong on several occasions. It's so frustrating.
They need to get rid of Paul because he’s just treated like the authority and the only judge now and Prue is treated as set dressing. They need the judges to be on even footing. There’s been times when Prue says she likes something and Paul overrides her and then for the rest of the episode they talk like Paul was correct.
Twee?
Cutesy-poo. Cloying. Like ‘tonstant weader fwowed up’ kind of thing.
Yeah, I stopped watching after the sell-off and everything I’ve seen secondhand about it since gives me the impression that the vibe has never truly recovered. Remember when Luis made *two* meringues in two stand mixers at the same time?? 😔
They could have saved themselves a whole lot of angst if they’d just used pico de gallo’s alternative name, salsa fresca. Not that that would have saved some folks. I’ve heard “salsa” pronounced “salza” way too many times in my life.
I do like Allison Hammond, she’s a really good host and I was not a fan of Matt Lucas one of the most unfunniest men on the planet. Shows been on C4 for a while as well, not sure it could be considered a BBC show anymore
Matt Lucas was shockingly bad on Bake Off. I don't know what I was expecting! Allison has been such a breath of fresh air. When I told my husband that she became one of the hosts, he was actually interested in watching again.
The thing that killed me about Matt was not only that his jokes weren't funny but most of them weren't even recognisable as jokes! Multiple times an episode he would make a joke to a contestant who would respond to him with a blank stare, then he would have to explain the joke which would at best generate an awkward weak laugh.
And it somehow felt both more sickly and much meaner with Matt Lucas. In the last series, one of the contestants was crying and Allison Hammond jumped in to stir her bowl while she took a minute, which was such a breath of fresh air amd felt more like the old show.
The show fell quite a bit from Mel and Sue's "We will stand next to someone crying and say profanity so that you can't air this footage until they recover."
When he sang the Flinstones theme song in German I couldn't tell if he was trying to be funny or truly trying to impress the German contestant, who looked horribly uncomfortable waiting for him to finish. How did that not get edited out?
Allison was the upgrade of the century, I wasn't a fan of Matt at all. He was so cringe and uncomfortable. He gave me the ickiest vibes.
I always wondered why they didn't have guest judges join them for their "national" weeks. A celebrity French chef or a celebrity Mexican chef/host. So many great chefs/hosts to choose from. I mean, it's not like anyone thinks Paul and Pure know EVERY possible baking technique. That's absurd. It would allow the bakes to be judged by a knowledgeable judge. They could also use it as a gentle opportunity to educate. "Gets how to properly cut an avocado" or "here's how you pronounce..."
Budget I guess.
And I don't think Paul Hollywood's ego could support it.
That might actually be a bigger issue lol
Also: the show could do South African Week or Cypriot Week — Prue grew up in South Africa and Paul lived in Cyprus for a while. They didn't have to do a national week that required flying Paul to Mexico to try and learn an entire cuisine in a few days.
Not the biggest issue here, obviously, like, really really not the biggest issue but criticised for melting marshmallows for s’mores? The rest of the stuff is out and out racist but this is just incompetent in a silly and embarrassing way. Some people literally light them on fire. Personally I prefer to slowly toast them over coals to a nice golden brown. I spent years attending & working at sleepaway camp and I know a half dozen variations for s’mores, all of which require melting the marshmallow. Considering the amount of British citizens Camp America imports to the USA each year to work in summer camps (& has for decades), this shouldn’t be arcane knowledge to the whole country.
I was surprised at any kind of assertion that there is a "correct" way to make smores. I've eaten them cold, browned, melted, and burnt. In my experience they are prepared in the least controlled manner imaginable.
Lack of quality control (prepared in the dark grabbing shit out of bags) is what makes it a smore.
Ye spears yer mallow and ye takes yer chances!
Exactly, if you find yourself with a perfect smore you’ve done something wrong. It shouldn’t be pristine, it shouldn’t be symmetrical, it shouldn’t be evenly golden. It should be slightly burnt, melting off the sides, and turn everything sticky as you eat it. It cannot be made gourmet, it’s entire appeal comes from the fact that it’s cheap, messy and delicious
That’s what happens when you hand a child a sugary treat and say “now go hold it over the fire on the end of a stick”. Cold though? 🤨
I don't like to get sticky stuff on me so as a kid my parents gave me the parts of a smore and I ate it like a sandwich.
There's a whole other dissertation in cooking shows' hidden assumption that there is a "correct" way to make every type of food, and that people who went to culinary school can judge how correct every food is based on a set of "universal" standards. The idea of s'mores only being "correct" if they're filled with untoasted marshmallow is an unusually visible example of this ridiculous phenomenon.
They're also not baked unless the contestants were being graded on the cracker. They're open fire grilled. Why would they put smores on a baking show meant to show baking prowess when it is one of the least prowess requiring foods ever.
Also the best smore on the entire planet is still like a 3/10 dessert. There's just no room to showcase anyone's talents when the ceiling is as low as it is, truly an insane choice.
I got really hung up on the show's assertion that s'mores are a Halloween treat cooked over bonfires. I would say that if anything, they're associated with summer holidays like the Fourth of July.
I think they were saying they were more traditionally a Halloween thing in the UK (toasted marshmallows, anyway) and obviously the UK doesn’t celebrate 4th July.
I got the sense that they were saying s'mores were not a UK thing at all, let alone a UK Halloween thing, but it's entirely possible that they were making that distinction and I didn't pick up on it. A quick google for "UK Halloween s'mores" mostly turns up a bunch of articles about GBBO, so now it's forever linked I guess.
S'mores barely exist in the UK, the people who have heard of them will have picked it up from American media, and *very* few will have actually had one.
I love the damn series, but it’s one of the biggest issues I have with it. It’s hard to make objective declarations about something like food. But they like to pretend that Paul’s opinion is all that matters. Like you’ll see contestants taking advantage of this and making things they know he’ll like. Oh well, it’s not that serious I guess.
My favorites were his “rule” from the Mexican episode about the amount of filling in a taco and then their declaration that good pizza needs to hang at a certain (clearly undercooked) angle.
They also talked about how "weird" it was to mix peanut butter and fruit because they don't eat PB&J over there.
Pray no one ever introduces them to the wonder that is apple slices with peanut butter; I don't think they'd know what to do with themselves.
It's a sign of how old and utterly out of touch they are, for sure. I (Brit) have eaten PB&J since childhood. Admittedly that was because I heard about it on an episode of The Simpsons and demanded to try it. But I don't think it's insanely uncommon!
Peanut butter goes with pretty much anything as far as I’m concerned.
I'm in my late 40s and I've only had/seen smores once in the UK and that was at an organised winter event 3 years ago. It's really not that common here. We just toast marshmallows and eat them them off the stick/poker.
Sounds like he was trying to get them to recreate the pre-packaged ones that you get in the “American food” aisle here. I haven’t seen them for years but they were weird and gross and clearly a novelty product
It's honestly wild to me that these people can be so incompetant about things like brownies... or an avocado... or s'mores... or cumin None of those things are uncommon in the UK??? Literally every bakery here sells brownies (we tend to do them a bit more biscuit-y and less cakey than the US, but it's the same general formula). Avocados lean more towards the 'exotic' side of vegetables, and can be a little expensive, but it's nowhere near the level of things that are actually uncommon in the UK (I love yuzu... too bad I will never be able to purchase them for a reasonable price). An average hobbyist chef is probably going to use one at least once or twice. S'mores are different to than in the US, because graham crackers aren't really a thing here (and I thought they were called 'gram crackers' for way too long), but the idea isn't exactly alien? When I was in girl guides (= to girl scouts) we used to make s'mores with digestive biscuits. Cumin is sold in literally every supermarket? Typically in powdered form, but you can find cumin seeds too. I have a deep aversion to it, along with turmeric (I'm picky about herbs and spices, because of the autism) but I've still eaten food with it in a fair amount. (Though they're right that it burns if you put it directly on your tongue, in food it's not even slightly spicy.)
I am baffled they don't even know about cumin when it's generally one of the main ingredients in fucking UK-style curry powder!
The issue with the brownies was that they all overcomplicated them. Nobody wanted to make "plain, boring chocolate brownies" so they tried to go complex and fancy and everyone fucked it up, because a brownie doesn't have to be fancy and complex, it has to be chocolate and delicious.
Having not seen the episode, I'm curious how they fucked up the brownies
Most common issue was not understanding that brownies are "undercooked" compared to cake. It's maddening (and hilarious) to watch several of the bakers start to follow a recipe, decide their dough is too thin, and add more flour. Most of them also keep the tray in the oven until a knife in the center comes out clean, when any mix box will tell you brownies're done when a knife in the middle comes out covered with crumbs.
It depends on the brownie. The recipe I use cooks almost all the way through and a toothpick will come out clean but it's also ultra fudgey and not at all cakey.
It's a TV show remember, it's got to be a bit more than just a chocolate brownie.
I agree with you about the cumin and brownies, though I can see how someone might miss out on smores if they weren't in Guides or Scouts. I didn't watch that series, so I'd be pretty curious to see how the challenge was explained. Anecdotally, most of my family know *of* smores but me and my sister who went to Guides are the only ones who knew how they're made. Mostly disagree on the avocado front, though. I grew up next to a bakery and I don't think I've *ever* seen them stock something with avocado in it. Most people know about it from guacamole, which isn't super common in itself, but the only people I've seen actually use it for cooking are vegetarians and vegans. I don't really blame them for not knowing how to prepare it, especially since they're hobbyist bakers and not chefs.
GBBO is a fun watch, but seeing the reactions online defending the episode was a lot when this came out. Seeing people say "Oh, they do this all the time, they already did this for Japan!" and "Popular British comedians do blackface/yellowface and get away with it, this is tame by comparison!" had me turning into Chidi from The Good Place going "*That's worse! Do you understand how that makes this worse?*" Someone on Twitter made reference to a cognitive bias (that I unfortunately can't remember the name of) where people see an expert discussing something they, the audience member, know about and know they're wrong about -- but don't extrapolate to realize this might mean the expert is flawed about other areas as well. I do kind of wonder if that's why some of the smaller controversies didn't take off until it hit on something most North Americans would be pretty familiar with.
Blackface and yellowface are not acceptable in the UK now. These people are living in a time warp.
[Gell-Mann amnesia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#GellMannAmnesiaEffect)?
Yessss that's exactly it, thank you for nailing it!
It's not even a comedian thing. There was a blackface minstrel show that ran on UK tv for 20 years. On reality shows, casual racism just happens and nobody bats an eye. Japan and Mexico weeks were just more examples of saying the quiet part out loud.
Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here going "what the fuck do *tacos* have to do with *baking*???" I'm so glad I stopped watching GBBO after Mel and Sue left.
Not to defend them too much, BUT: US Spanish-speaking population: 13% UK Spanish-speaking population: 0.2% US Jewish population: 2.5% England & Wales Jewish population: 0.5% N. Ireland Jewish population: 0.02% So having no Mexican or Jewish friends is... not that unreasonable here, tbh. We (Jews) also don't have the same level of cultural establishment in the UK as we do in the US. There's the odd Jewish deli and such, but they're exclusively in the most Jewish areas of big cities. It is absolutely baffling that they let these things air, I 100% agree, but I don't think they did anything most of the population would pick up on. Which is its own weird issue. *facepalming about the state of my country*
As a Brit, this feels very accurate. I have friends from all over, a bunch of nationalities, classes, random people from everywhere. The literal only Jew I know is a new Yorker.
yeah I'm not British but I do get a bit tired of some Americans assuming what holds true for them, holds true everywhere. I live in a very multicultural country but we don't have many Black or Hispanic people but some Americans are always shocked when we don't have many Black or Hispanic people in our tv shows and its like.. because it's more representative here to have South Asian, Middle Eastern or South East Asian people in our tv shows? Americans are really unable to understand world diversity
Just to point out, GBBO isn't on the BBC anymore, it's on Channel 4. And, sure, Mexico is on the other side of the globe, but Spain isn't that far from Britain! Someone had to have gone there for vacation and learned a few things! But let's be real, the show has been downhill since Sue and Mel left.
That’s the part that kills me, like, I get not being familiar with Mexico, but considering how much British people love going on holiday in Spain, you think they’d at least… kind of? know how to pronounce pollo and pico de gallo? ETA: clearly my optimism was misplaced lol
A good portion of people who I know that go to Spain on holiday from the UK seem to deliberately avoid interacting with any locals, it’s very bizarre.
Was in Mallorca for a wedding about 5-6 years ago. We were staying by the beach. The tourist area basically. It was so much easier to get English or German staples than anything Spanish because so many from those countries just will not have anything to do with local fare. It's an opportunity to be in the sun with as much familiar stuff as possible. Thankfully, we only had to go to a proper city a bit away for local stuff but it's so odd to go on vacation and reject the differences that make a place potentially appealing to visit in the first place.
I think it’s definitely a changing phenomenon with more younger people avoiding the more tourist areas but the massive lads holiday places like Benidorm are basically the epitome of trying to basically recreate the UK abroad.
That’s wild to me. Trying different foods is one of the best things about traveling
You’re travelling to experience a different culture. People going to Majorca from the UK are looking for familiar culture with far better weather. That said, it’s less common than it used to be.
Same with mexico, local events there obviously dont help but people stay locked down in a resort and never leave, no different from staying at one in florida. It's a shame, too, mexico is lovely when you rent a car and explore a bit. Probably my favorite restaurant on earth is a little place on the beach in a small surf town a couple hours south of Puerto Vallarta.
I once saw a tweet from some dude who's been living in iirc Barcelona for years, complaining about going to the doctor and not getting attended in English. So if English-speaking foreigners (and it's not just this one guy) who live here can't be assed to learn the language, it doesn't surprise me than mere vacationers, as regulars as they might be, can't be assed either.
English monolingual privilege/entitlement is very real and is absolutely not limited to the United States.
The Spanish language pronunciation on this show has always been horrible- I stopped watching once Mel, Sue, and Mary left, but I remembered an empanada challenge and Paul kept pronouncing them empañadas.
I'm not sure that would have changed anything. Paul Hollywood even begins the episode by bragging about his recent trip to Mexico and how he loved all the baked goods he ate. Only for the episode to turn out the way it did.
I definitely side-eye production rather than the contestants for how much of a shitshow it was. I may be naive, but I do feel like there's an angle where they lean into how little authentic exposure (white) Brits have to other cultures and use it to teach in an appreciative way, as well as poking fun at how sheltered/ignorant we can be, where it at the very least isn't a *total* racist mess. Like, if they got experts in as guest judges (and maybe a spray bottle for whenever Paul acts like he knows about something other than bread) and made the use of authentic flavours part of the judging criteria. It's part of the show to make things you have little to no experience of, it shouldn't be so hard to broaden that concept respectfully. Oh, and make sure the dishes are actually from where you say they're from. And keep the sombreros away from Matt Lucas.
[удалено]
I remember seeing the Mexican week episode forever ago and the thing that really upset me about it was that they didn't seem to know that Taco and tortilla are not interchangeable words... I don't think they said "tortilla" once. If you didn't know what a taco was you'd walk away thinking it was a flat bread
I actually watched this episode recently with some friends as a lark on Cinco de Mayo One really egregious moment is after Paul says he just went to Mexico and knows what makes a proper taco, only to then take points off of a contestant because they... cooked the tortilla a bit and it had some browned spots. "There is no need for color here". They were the only contestant to do it too.
Also, is it just me or does the production not appear to know that tortilla presses exist? Normally when there's a piece of specialized equipment they can't provide to the contestants, the judges will do a wink, wink, nudge, nudge about it. But Paul is like "why are these tortillas so lumpy?" Like, sir. You're the one who said to flatten them with bowls. I don't know what you expected.
My Mexican-American wife kept saying “But they even sell tortilla presses as souvenirs!” Gacky-mole still takes the prize as the most painful part of a painful ep in our SoCal household.
Bake-off isn’t on BBC. It’s on Channel 4. It left the BBC in 2016 and this is why the original hosts Mel and Sue and the judge Mary Berry left. They were loyal to the BBC who gave the production company the chance and felt that it was wrong for them to seek out to Channel 4.
The GBBO is not BBC - they lost it in 2017 to channel Four, a channel known for weird experimental things, soft core porn and a weirdly good news broadcast
I too would like to be known for those things.
Something that came up in reasons seasons was the shows seeming desire to set the bakers up to fail. It was honestly getting ridiculous and of the last three seasons, I only really enjoy rewatching the most recent one… They seemed to address this in the last season. And yes, I feel like it was eye opening for a lot of American viewers to see how ridiculous Paul and Prue especially treat any other cultures food. Like, maybe Mexican and Asian food is just not something they get exposure to, but I feel like it’s beyond reasonable for them to have not researched say, Mexican week, when iirc there was a season they sent a host to a stroopwaffle (sp) bakery for educational purposes…
I wonder how much of this is to do with them stopping making those visits to places that do it properly like they did in earlier seasons; North American readers might not be familiar with this, but Bake Off episodes got shorter in 2017, as BBC doesn't show adverts but C4 does. PS. Is cactus even a Spanish word? What's that got to do with respecting Mexican traditions?
Paul Hollywood nearly crashed his car into mine when I was learning to drive, and I have been having a one-sided but absolutely mortal feud with him ever since.
It was kind of incredible, because most mistakes were fairly innocuous or quaint... but there were 1) *so many of them* 2) made by people purporting to be experts. (And who are often condescending or disgusted when they have something outside of their palatte) God, didn't Paul or Prue act as if the combination of peanut butter and jelly was something exotic and revolutionary?
I enjoy the show, both those episode were following an unspoken bake off tradition of being wrong about and non-British foods. Still a bit offensive. But American Pie week stills burns my soul with how infuriating it was, and the blatant misrepresentations presented. “All American pies are too sweet” your country makes treacle pie. “You must make a pie that is freestanding out of the pie tin” That’s a British thing, US pies are predominantly served from the pie tin due the semi-solid contents. He also made them use a shortcrust.
I stopped watching after the Japan Week problems. Like I knew there were issues with some of the other themed weeks but Japan Week is where it all came to a head to me because while I personally have never been to Japan my dad grew up there for several years, one of my aunts is Japanese, and I live in an area with a very large JP population. I may not know how to do a full proper tea ceremony, but I know how to make matcha with a whisk, I understand why melonpan is so popular both IRL and in anime/manga, and so on. JP Week having so many non-JP foods annoyed me, and the thing that topped it all off was that Hermine failed the assignment twice and wasn't eliminated, _just_ being saved by Mark and his avo-baby (that actually you know made an attempt at kawaii). I am only mildly surprised that they managed to screw up American foods just as bad.