"... an endless source of cheeky innuendo, serious amateur baking and absolutely nothing else. The worst thing imaginable was that someone’s Battenberg cake would come out a bit asymmetrical, or that one baker might accidentally use another baker’s custard.... But over its 12 years on the air, the worst thing imaginable on Bake Off has gotten worse, again and again. Last week, the hosts, Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas, strolled up a grassy slope dressed in fringed serapes and straw sombreros to introduce 'Mexican Week' with tired puns, saying they shouldn’t make 'Mexican jokes' but proceeding to do just that. The show had hit rock bottom, revealing what it had managed to obscure in the past with a bit of charm.... The 'Bake Off' clips were shared incredulously and angrily on Twitter, days before the episode even aired. The phrase 'Mexican Week' quickly became shorthand for profound culinary blunder, presented with a sense of naïve triumph. An image of a cursed avocado, lopped away with a knife, became the episode’s unofficial mascot, as if a home cook unfamiliar with peeling an avocado should feel humiliated."
From "‘Mexican Week’ Was Not an Accident for ‘The Great British Baking Show’/After 12 years, the show’s long, inexorable journey from comfort to cringe is complete" (NYT).
From the top comments over there:
Like so many articles in the New York Times that cover accusations of racism or cultural appropriation, readers are left pondering what actually happened. Other than straw sombreros, an abused avocado and a reference to a reference about “tired puns”, there’s no real reporting in here that actually informs readers about what was done that was so bad.
And:
I watched the episode. There was much adoration and respect expressed by all the people in the show, contestants, judges, and hosts, for Mexico and its culture. Just because people are ignorant of a different culture when they set out to explore it, doesn't mean they're racist. It was an example of how people would set out to learn. But instead of celebrating people taking an interest in learning about another culture, we condemn them for not knowing it automatically. How are we to ask people to explore other cultures and respect other people when we shame them as they learn?
And:
I'm sorry, its not 'The Great British Baking Show' that has hit a nadir, but we here in America being so woke that even the slightest bit of bad humor is considered a monumental transgression....
Posts
55 comments:
True. Any reference to race which is not in the mood of sliming white Americans is verboten. Oops.
Why would Mexicans be offended over "Mexican week"?
The assumption made by the White left and their delicate speech code crimes are usually wrong.
How insulting to Mexicans that they are being told by the White Left that they should be offended.
I love the show.
Cancel Cult White leftists can stuff it. Sod off Swampy speech crime leftists. you ruin everything.
Alternate headline: White leftists faint over the mere word "Mexican"
- thus revealing that the White Left are the real racists.
I watched this episode, and while it didn't seem offensively racist, it was definitely cringey. It wasn't just the bad ethnic jokes and mispronunciations of very common Spanish-derived words ("tortilla" doesn't rhyme with "vanilla"), but the fact that "Mexico" was presented as a single entity -- rather than a large country with a variety of regions, climates, ethnic groups, and culinary variations. (Imagine if someone described "American food" as nothing but hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and a chocolate layer cake with an American flag design on top.)
This is far from the first time "The Great British Baking Show" has presented an entire, wide-ranging culture (including many European cultures) in terms of stereotypes and a single bland food item. But it's much more noticeable when they devote an entire episode to it.
Every now and then the Times' commenters bring me the pleasant reminder that just because they read a crap newspaper doesn't mean all their opinions have to be crap.
Just now and then, though.
OMG who bakes with a fucking avocado? What brutes!
its not 'The Great British Baking Show' that has hit a nadir, but we here in America being so woke that even the slightest bit of bad humor is considered a monumental transgression....
That's NOT FUNNY!
Images of Fonzie in a serape and straw hat water skiing and jumping over a mangled avacado? Have the cooking competitions run their course?
I have watched quite a few. Some I like and some are cringeworthy. I can see how writers can be running out of fresh ideas, and all we have left is the wilted lettuce of cooking competitions remaining.
I guess I need to be sent to a re-education camp post haste. I watched the episode and my only disparaging thought was "making tacos is not baking."
12 years in and I find the show utterly charming. The contestants, hosts, and judges all seem to care about each other. Elimination from the contest doesn't cause sneering hostility but graciousness and appreciation for the chance.
Top commenter needs to understand that the purpose of the New York times is not to educate and inform, but to publish stories that give Manhattanites their daily dose of outrage.
I haven't watched much of this show, but from a distance, I'm picturing them feeling that they represent an old-fashioned charm, where they can get away with things that you'd accept from a beloved grandmother. Very corny jokes and out-dated stereotyping. It's nostalgic and sweet... because they've earned your love.
Half the fun of the clips of that show is the British people doing their Castilian pronunciation of Spanish words that we in the US know from Mexicans and their pronunciation of those words.
Maybe they show's producers *wanted* the woke crowd to jump on them. They exposed their performers to an attack, and that lit a fire under those who love them. My grandma isn't a racist!
Most people are not on the Barack Obama level, where they will step up and have the courage to say that their grandma *is* a racist.
My very first Social Studies Dept Head once gave me this sage advice that I still find, lo these 45 years later, applicable on almost a daily basis. So much so that it became one of my life's mantras.
"Fuck em' if they can't take a joke."
It would be interesting to take the "British Baking Show" to a goat BBQ.
We were going down the road with the kids and a truck had a couple Hispanic men in the back holding the leash on a goat.
Kids: "Oh look they have a pet goat!"
Me: "Well, not for long."
My guess is the Brits are as far removed from live animal slaughtering and most Americans are.
Je suis un avocado.
There should be more vulgarity and offensiveness, not less.
Vulgar is just "of the people." The elite are offended, as if the vulgar would be impressed.
Ann Althouse said...
I haven't watched much of this show, but from a distance, I'm picturing them feeling that they represent an old-fashioned charm, where they can get away with things that you'd accept from a beloved grandmother. Very corny jokes and out-dated stereotyping. It's nostalgic and sweet... because they've earned your love.
The test is whether or not the people who made the show would be able to take some jokes at their expense.
What we have really lost is the ability to have fun across racial lines.
Which is really the goal of the progs. It is just one way they keep us divided.
I thought rock bottom was when the one contestant took the other's ice cream out of the freezer. That was many seasons ago. Not bothering to announce that someone had used the wrong freezer and needs to move their stuff and going on to just leave it out and ruin the other's project seems a lot worse to me than some bad jokes.
I went to London a few years ago and visited the London Zoo, where they have quite a nice cafe/restaurant setup. They were featuring a "burrito" and I just had to try it...let's just say their concept of what Mexican food is, is a bit off heh. It wasn't bad but it was odd. I think they sincerely try, but despite globalism they are still quite divorced from it, much as the Indian food was here in the US for much of the 90s it seemed.
Just because people are ignorant of a different culture when they set out to explore it, doesn't mean they're racist.
"The intent doesn't matter." - Some of the worst words ever spoken in a multiracial society.
Those reactions to the article by NYT subscribers were heartening.
Perhaps they should have called 'Mexican Week' Italian Week?
Not sure what else you're to call a week/episode devoted to Mexican cuisine/desserts.
For the record, I don't think of Mexican cuisine when I'm thinking 'baked goods'. So in that way, they've clearly run out of topics. But those who look for ways to be insulted will always be insulted. No matter what words you use.
Perhaps they should have called 'Mexican Week' Italian Week?
Not sure what else you're to call a week/episode devoted to Mexican cuisine/desserts.
For the record, I don't think of Mexican cuisine when I'm thinking 'baked goods'. So in that way, they've clearly run out of topics. But those who look for ways to be insulted will always be insulted. No matter what words you use.
Baked goods are just more fodder in the culture war.
"The 'Bake Off' clips were shared incredulously and angrily on Twitter"
By progs.
"The phrase 'Mexican Week' quickly became shorthand for profound culinary blunder"
Among progs.
"An image of a cursed avocado, lopped away with a knife, became the episode’s unofficial mascot"
For progs.
"the show’s long, inexorable journey from comfort to cringe is complete"
The likelihood of any pop culture item being defined over time as unwoke cringe approaches 1.
"I'm sorry, its not 'The Great British Baking Show' that has hit a nadir, but we here in America being so woke that even the slightest bit of bad humor is considered a monumental transgression...."
This. The national pastime seems to have become making up silly rules and monitoring each other.
"OMG who bakes with a fucking avocado? What brutes!"
Probably the same brutes who fuck with a baking avocado.
Know your avocados!
I love the show; can't wait for tonight's new episode drop. Last week, however, was definitely cringe. I'm surrounded by Mexican food and culture, so I chalked it up to the Brits being ignorant and unexposed. What's hilarious is that, no matter what you bake, you end up using a French word for your process anyway.
You want outrageous?
Try Pati's accent (of Pati's Mexican Table).
I recently learned that she actually lives here in the D.C. area.
https://youtu.be/bSSsP3cpQ2w
I'm shocked! Shocked! That the British might be as ignorant about Mexican food as
I am about British food.
"there’s no real reporting in here"
The NYT long ago abandoned 'reporting'. They are in the propaganda and agitation business. All that matters to them is how they 'shape opinion'. You will have to go somewhere else for 'reporting'.
95% of television is "cringe." Sounds like this bit of television was merely true to the medium.
Exposure to Mexican, or even Tex-Mex, cooking might help the Brits with this.
Were the contestants tasked with making unique breakfast tacos?
Me, watching "The Great British Baking Show":
"I can't believe they're making such bonehead rookie mistakes."
"Ah. My Pop-Tarts are ready."
I've watched every single season and every single episode.
They do have Italian week. They mix is up with all sorts of "this or that culture" week.
Why is "Mexican" offensive to White Leftists?
The leftist speech police are on the march. Doing all they can to ruin the fun.
Helpful hint: to be safe, just ignore brown skinned cultures generally. Don't talk about them, don't refer to them and never ever include discussions of them in humorous conversation. It is not worth it.
That said, nothing was more racist than Paul Hollywood's general disgust for American pies in
(Imagine if someone described "American food" as nothing but hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and a chocolate layer cake with an American flag design on top.)
It isn’t??? Oh, that’s right. The list is incomplete because it doesn’t include apple pie ala mode and KFC crispy chicken. Good catch.
I never found Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas to be funny in any of the obvious set-up bits. They have been cringey during various themed weeks - not just Mexican Week. I still miss "Mel and Sue" who seemed to be more comfortable with interacting with contestants.
I'm shocked! Shocked! That the British might be as ignorant about Mexican food as I am about British food.
@ s'opihjerdt, be grateful. Be very, very grateful. I was last in London almost fifty years ago, and, trust me, the only think they make besides desserts that’s edible is fish and chips — pieces of cod battered and fried, with something that resembles French fries, all wrapped in a greasy, filthy piece of newspaper. Absolutely stay away from bangers and mash!
Shows like these promote the Obesity epidemic are revolting. Pornography that promotes metabolic disorder. Of course everyone else in my family loves it.
Underrated comment:
"OMG who bakes with a fucking avocado? What brutes!"
Probably the same brutes who fuck with a baking avocado.
Know your avocados!
It seems in the 80s there was talk about being open to all cultures, and possibly studying all of them. Obviously it is too much work, at best, to study or immerse oneself in very many of them. So now it is individuals who happen to be diverse who are respected, and there is much more interest in inviting them to join the new uniculture than in actually going into details on truly different cultures. Let's face it, there is more Handmaid's Tale outside the West than inside, and this is one of the many things the woke don't want to face. So accusations of cultural appropriation mean: don't remind me of a few of the million things about which I know nothing, but about which I would have to know something in order to back up my pronouncements about how people should live.
I saw some Twitter hits before watching the episode and was ready for horrible missteps, but came away disappointed! Other than wearing panchos and sombreros in the beginning I didn't see anything that would upset even an unreasonable woke-ist. No siesta jokes, no Speedy Gonzales references, nothing!
Other than the quick shot of the hacked-up avocado the funniest part was listening to the variety of British accents try to work out "pico de gallo."
I saw some Twitter hits before watching the episode and was ready for horrible missteps, but came away disappointed! Other than wearing panchos and sombreros in the beginning I didn't see anything that would upset even an unreasonable woke-ist. No siesta jokes, no Speedy Gonzales references, nothing!
Other than the quick shot of the hacked-up avocado the funniest part was listening to the variety of British accents try to work out "pico de gallo."
But instead of celebrating people taking an interest in learning about another culture, we condemn them for not knowing it automatically.
I don’t think whoever wrote this comment gets it. The object of the condemnation is not for “The British Baking Show” not automatically knowing about Mexican cuisine. The condemnation is two-told. First, Brits doing Mexican cuisine is cultural expropriation. According the unwashed-but-Woke crowd, the Brit’s should stay in their lane, and stick to cooking greasy mutton, fried cod, and sausage made from sawdust (aka “bangers”).
Secondly, condemning “The British Baking Show” allows the highly credentialed but fundamentally uneducated people who write for the Times to virtue signal by speaking out on behalf of their “little brown brothers “ as one Woke Progressive called Hispanics within earshot of me.
That’s how you roll when you’re Woke.
Actually, it’s called “The Great British Bake-off « With reference to Ann’s first comment, it’s first star was Mary Berry, a spritely octogenarian loved by all the viewers. The contestants were a slice of Middle England, but in the last couple of seasons, television’s obsession with Diversity means it has become a freak show of a fractionalised society, with viewers rooting for « their » contestant. Sad.
Those complaining about the horrors of cultural appropriation and the mis-interpretation of ethnic cuisine have rarely plumbed the full depths of horror that are potentially available to the unwary.
I would like to submit as evidence the sheer gustatory nightmare that was every TexMex night at any of the various dining facilities in Iraq. Seems relatively harmless, no?
Yeah.
Not until you've eaten Mexican food as interpreted by Indian or Sri Lankan Third-Country Nationals employed by KBR can you even begin to understand just how "off" a spice package can veer from original intent. Cumin and chili pepper, proportioned to Indian or Sri Lankan sensibilities...? Not what your Mexican grandmother would recognize as even remotely Mexican. Mole? LOL... It is to laugh, and laugh HARD. Enchiladas?
It wasn't bad, per se. It was just... Weird. You'd take a bite, expecting a flavor profile from down south, and get... Something else, entirely. Same ingredients, just... Massively re-interpreted.
Don't even get me started on tortillas-as-chappattis or naan bread. Our Mexican-American cooks were in tears, because they were taking sh*t from all sides, over the food they were serving as "Mexican".
Let people eat for God's sake. Let people cook and eat. Get away from me you creeps.
I was just about to watch this episode when I decided to stop by Althouse for a moment. So well-timed! The show’s been “cringe” ever since Mel and Sue and Mary left, but even as cringe it’s better than any food show in the US not on PBS. I suppose in my old age I’ve come to like the placid, deliberate style and the slow revealing of the contestants and their quirks. Sure, it’s more diverse than Britain itself, but nobody on the show hates the country they live in.
In the 1960s, I had a poli-sci professor who was born and raised in the English speaking diplomatic community of the Dominican Republic. He pronounced 'tortilla' to rhyme with vanilla. That's how the BBC World Service short wave pronounced it, and that was correct as far as he was concerned. He also pronounced Ferdinand Marcos' last name 'Marcahz' for the same reason.
Paywall up, so I don't know if it was mentioned in the Times' article or comments, but for people not themselves Mexican, the classic and go-to cookbooks of Mexican food are -- have been for years -- by a British woman, Diana Kennedy. If anyone finds that "problematic," they can shove off.
Big Mike,
Take heart! In the ensuing decades, it's become possible to find lots of great food in London. It's just that none of it is, strictly speaking, British.
I should also say that the worst fish and chips I ever encountered were in Portsmouth of all places. Don't remember the name of the restaurant -- hopefully they have long since gone out of business, or else fired their cooks (with real fire!) and gotten competent ones.
I don't know how you can ruin fish and chips so thoroughly as to make them completely inedible... But they did!
Ah yes, the authentic Mexican defender Tejal Rao, who was born in England to elite (non-Hispanic) parents, dabbled the diplomat brat dance in foreign cities a bit until she plopped down in Cobb County, Georgia by the Big Chicken, and carefully edits her Times columns to avoid admitting any of this.
Her own NYT specialty, ironically, is slaughtering traditional Italian recipes into fusion vegan glop, though she did pause for a moment to accuse Diana Kennedy of being a colonialist who couldn't confront her whiteness and murdered Mexican food instead of promoting respect for it. After the elderly Ms. Kennedy was gracious enough to welcome the little tart into her home and jump-up her career.
When first I came to Texas in 1983, I experienced Tex-Mex cuisine. Delightful food.
Now I can still get Tex-Mex, or I can quicklyfind regional specialties from any number of cities and areas ranging from Patagonia to the border at El Paso.
Tell me I am being a colonialist cultural appropriator over this and I will laugh at you with my mouth full.
takirks describes above an interesting phenomenon: the return to home base, the norm, the mean, what the chef knows, from any far deviation into ethnic cookery.
Here in Austin, a neat restaurant chain opened a long while back serving "Mongolian BBQ" where guests heaped ingredients in a bowl, and a chef cooked it on a giant round griddle. Just like ancient Mongolians cooking their food on shields over camp fires, right? They also served a delicious chicken soup with subtle Asian spice flavors. And therein lies the tale.
Over time, as the original kitchen staff, trained by the franchise HQ, using HQ-approved spice ratios, making delicious Asian chicken soup, were replaced with undocumented labor chefs from South of the Border, that delightful Asian-spiced soup gained more and more cilantro flavor, and less and less Five Spice, until it was indistinguishable from Caldo de Pollo served anywhere else in town. Still a good soup, but tasting the change over a year or so was oddly disturbing, like ordering an ice cream cone and getting instead a cold lollipop.
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