On last week’s episode of The Great British Bake Off, judge Prue Leith made what she thought was a flattering comment about Syabira Yusoff, one of the bakers: “She gave us lots of fun flavors and they were lovely.”
Yusoff then won over Leith and fellow judge Paul Hollywood with his signature Patisserie Week challenge with peanut butter, strawberries and blackberries. Praising Yusoff, Leith called his flavor combination “unusual.”
In an interview after that round, Yusoff, who often incorporates the flavors of her Malaysian heritage into her cooking, said what many of us viewers were thinking. “They said it’s a little ‘unusual’ but it goes well together,” she said. “What does ‘unusual’ mean?”
Racism codified by Leith (who, it should be noted, is an elderly white lady who grew up in apartheid South Africa and said voted for Brexit) is part of the course of the show. It’s hard to imagine Leith saying the same thing if Yusoff were white. Both judges have periodically expressed skepticism about ingredients like matcha and yuzu and various flavors from predominantly non-white cultures.
It is one of the many long-running problems with the long-running show, from pointless comedy bits to gimmicks and stunt overload, not to mention themed weeks that came across as embarrassing or downright racist. These issues have come to a head this season, the show’s 13th, and undermine the aspect of the show that has always made it watchable: the bakers themselves.
On Friday, viewers in the US (where the series airs on Netflix as “The Great British Baking Show”) will find out which of the finalists – Yusoff, Sandro Farmhouse or Abdul Rehman Sharif – will be crowned this year’s champion. They, like all the bakers this year, were as lovely and trained as ever, an integral part of the good spirit and charm of the show. With its light-filled tent and pastel-hued workstations, “Bake Off” has long stood out as a warmer alternative to typical reality shows, which take an often but not exclusively American approach, where, for example, competitors are not here. Make friends.
Instead, the contestants from each season of “Bake Off” are here to make friends. Often self-deprecating and self-deprecating, they encourage each other and help each other in times of crisis. It’s hard not to get a little misty-eyed when, at the end of each episode, the baker who “sadly has to leave us this week” (as the hosts usually say) tearfully describes how grateful he is to have made a group of new friends. As the show grew in popularity, it was born a whole genre of similar reality-food television on both sides of the Atlantic. There’s HBO Max’s “The Great Pottery Throw Down” (like “Bake Off,” but with pottery) and NBC’s “Making It” (like “Bake Off,” but with creativity), all of which provide vibes welcoming to provide respite from our inferno. world.
But more and more, the bakers are pretty much the only thing keeping “Bake Off” from being completely lost, like a cake flying off its stand in the final seconds of one of the show’s challenges. Week after week, the bakers are more and more the only reason to keep tuning in, while almost everything around them is a mess, sometimes even destroying them.
For years, “Bake Off” fans have pointed out the show’s over-reliance on tricks and stunts, such as challenges that don’t necessarily test cooking skills. The show kept some of these (such as Hollywood’s overuse Hollywood handshake), while others got worse. For example, hosts Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding often take the spotlight from bakers. They’re comedians, yes, but do they have to turn everything into a bit? And if they do, they need to find their exclusive side where they distract from the weird it is not appropriate?
Most infamously, it was the themed weeks, which marked the real low points for the show. In 2020, the horrible Japan Week drew criticism combining various Asian cuisines and ingredients (like putting Indian flavors in a steamed Chinese bun during what was, again, Japanese week). She has also impressively positioned Hollywood as an expert in simply because he had recently visited Japan for a travel show he was hosting.
From this season The fiasco of the Mexican week proved that the producers of the show knew nothing about Japan Week. The hosts and judges mocked the richness of Mexican cuisine, relying on stereotypes and lazy caricatures and demonstrating a lack of knowledge and diligence. If you’re going to talk to the camera about guacamole and pico de gallo, at least learn how to pronounce them. And no one wants to see two white Brits wearing serapes and sombreros, waving maracas and grinning about how they shouldn’t make Mexican jokes, “not even Juan.”
A few episodes later, the Pastry Week Technical Challenge involved making spring rolls. Leith (whose background, as noted above, does not make her an authority on Asian cuisines) gave an example of “spring rolls” that were more like cannoli.
When judging the bakers’ completed spring rolls, she and Hollywood also seemed confused by the judging criteria set by Leith herself, inconsistent as to whether or not the bakers’ spring rolls should have bubbles on the outside. (It should not be.)
In weeks of culturally specific challenges, it seems obvious that the show should at least bring guest judges who really know what they are talking about instead of butchering entire cultures and culinary traditions. But perhaps the problems run deeper than that; maybe it’s time for a complete overhaul. For starters, it’s baffling that “Bake Off” has always had a whitelist of hosts and judges. (Producers wouldn’t have to look far to find a show that can do this better: On “Junior Bake Off,” the kids’ version also available on Netflix, both judges are black: Ravneet Gill and former contestant on “Bake Off” Liam Charles.)
The monochromatic array of judges and presenters is especially spectacular compared to the diverse line-up of bakers. Competitors often use their baked goods to tell a story about themselves or pay tribute to their families and communities. Being on the show often helps others feel seen. When Nadia Hussain won the ‘Bake Off’ in 2015, it was hailed as a hugely significant moment for Muslim representation. As a journalist Remona Aly he wrote in The Guardian: “That a veiled Asian Muslim woman can win a British competition proves that ‘Britain’ is a wider and more open concept than some would have us believe.” Last year, baker Lizzie Acker, who suffers from ADHD and dyslexia, made a cake to celebrate neurodiversity and reminded viewers that in the UK, around 1 in 7 people identify as neurodivergent.
The disconnect between the diversity of the bakers and the lack of diversity among the guests and judges, as well as the show’s carelessness in addressing culturally specific cuisines, have long been hallmarks of the show. They’re also a testament to what “Bake Off” is becoming more and more: out of step with what originally made it great. For a show designed to make us feel good, a lot of it now leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And it makes me feel bad for the wonderful bakers who deserve better.
Bakers are the main ingredients of the show, the reason to keep watching. It made time for the rest of the show to reflect them and work through them better.
