#mexican week

[avocadosalad]

[andytheaspec]

Liveblogging gbb Mexican week

[to-the-fishies]

GBBO, in its wisdom, decided to have a Mexican-themed week.

None of these people (except Noel and Matt) can pronounce pico de gallo.   None of them know what refried beans look like, apparently. One of them peeled an avocado with a knife instead of just cutting it open.

Are they just trying to give Americans something to mock, or am I uncharitable?

[bobcatmoran]

Against my better judgement, I'm watching the GBBO Mexican Week since the following week's episode will be coming out here in the US tomorrow. Disclaimer that I have zero Mexican heritage. I just like me a pan dulce and am an award-winning baker for non-Mexican bakes.

We start off on a "high" note, with Noel and Matt in eye searingly bright ponchos and sombreros, saying, "I don't think we should make Mexican jokes, people will get upset."

"What, no Mexican jokes at all?"

"I don't think so."

"What, not even Juan?"

This seems to be setting the tone for the episode quite nicely.

Or something.

More beyond the cut for the sake of everyone's dashes who haven't turned on the annoying thing where it cuts off long posts. This is gonna be LONG. And very spoilery. Fair warning.

Signature: Pan Dulce

After 2 bakers being off for "illness" (covid?) last week, everyone's back in the tent.

The little clips from the bakers as they walk in do nothing to instill confidence that anyone is coming to this from a perspective where they actually know anything about Mexican baking or that they've done much in the way of research to prepare themselves.

"I don't really know much about Mexican cuisine, so this is an absolute adventure."

"When someone says Mexican food, my mind goes only to fajitas."

"Mexican food's fun, but Mexican baking? What do the Mexicans bake?"

Carole at least acknowledges that she did do research, because she wasn't familiar with Mexican sweet bakes. I salute her for choosing pan de anise, something other than the conchas most other poeple are doing, even though she can't pronounce it to save her life.

Abdul straight off the bat says he's never had any sort of pan dulce before, so he's not sure what they're supposed to be like. I can't entirely blame him because I don't think Panaderias are as common in the UK as they are here (even in suburban Minnesota I have at least two within a 5 mile radius). I do salute him for doing as much research as he could for his besos, though Paul is like, "No, your research is wrong, they're supposed to be a completely different texture, I have just been to Mexico."

Prue decides that it's a good idea to correct Janusz, who was born in Poland, that "cacti" is the correct plural of "cactus," not "cactuses." Because that's what's important.

I'm quietly dying inside at how the scriptwriters clearly decided that craquelin was the best term for the topping on conchas. (later addition: oh gods, the judges are calling it that, too)

Sandro, I love you, but that's PUSHING the definition of conchas, having a filling and a salted caramel base.

Break while the hosts decide that Mexico is definitely a real place. Like Oz.

I'll admit that I've never made conchas, but I've made the close Japanese cousin, melon pan (got a couple awards for them yay), and much sympathy for all the bakers going that route because getting the tops rolled out to the right thickness and scored nicely is sooooo fiddly. Not all of them manage it. Sandro, I love you again, but those "conchas" are. Tall. My dude, did you look at any photos of what those are supposed to look like? (later addition: given all of Paul's comments on shapes, apparently this is what Paul thinks they're supposed to look like? Taller than they are wide??)

Paul complains that Carole's pan de anise "aren't Chelsea bun shape."

Techinical: Tacos

Tacos, which as everyone knows, require baking.

Oh, wait. No they don't. What the heck, Paul Hollywood. Why did you set that as the technical.

Corn tortillas made from scratch, steak, "spicy refried beans," guacamole, and pico de gallo. So many baking skills involved in this. Wow.

Paul: It's Mexican Week, Prue. It has to be tacos.

He then goes on to mispronounce pico de gallo, which Matt somehow managed to get mostly right.

I am dying over how everyone, especially Paul, is pronouncing "taco."

Instructions are brutal, including steps that are "Make the Pico de Gallo." [capitalization as though it's a proper noun] "Make the refried beans." "Make the guacamole." It looks a bit more involved for the tortillas, so there's a bit of mercy there.

Oh gods, at least 3 of the bakers have never even heard of pico de gallo.

Oh noooooo, Janusz has the "cilantro tastes like soap" gene. Nonetheless, he goes ahead and adds it to his pico de gallo mixture since it was on the ingredients list for it. "Spicy, soapy, salty, and sour. Great," he says, tasting it.

Carole, bless her heart, is peeling the avocado for her guacamole like it's a potato. Her tortillas are. Uh. Well, she tried. In her defense, how could she know that Mexican Week would have a technical that involved ZERO baking.

Syabira, who seems to be the only one in the tent who's made Mexican food before, is unimpressed that they are not provided with a tortilla press and are instead asked to flatten the dough with a casserole lid.

Kevin says the most true thing ever, "Everyone's got an opinion on steak, and everyone thinks you've done it wrong."

As the judges approach, Matt mentions that the bakers have been asked to make a taco that include, among other things, "a tangy guacamole," which is not an adjective I'd have thought to apply to guacamole.

Paul complains that there's some color on some of the tortillas, and that's a garbage statement right there.

Prue states that one of the tacos has too much salt "in the taco." She clearly means "in the tortilla," but. Y'know.

Showstopper: Tres Leches Cake

Ok, first of all, the bakers are required to make a cake that has at least 4 layers, which is not something I've ever seen any one do with a tres leches cake. Its very form lends itself to a single layer cake, since it's so moist. I'm getting shades of Jürgen, Actual German from last season, who pointed out to the judges that they'd assigned a traditional German cake to be made in layers which is never ever made in more than a single layer.

At least this requires baking.

Dangit Sandro, you were my favorite coming in, and here you are, being like, "Oh, Mexican? Ok, I will put a GIANT MOUSTACHE on my cake." My dude, did you do your research for this week by watching Speedy Gonzales cartoons? Like, I know he has serious baking chops, knowing why certain things work the way they do. But. Yiiiikes.

Matt suggests to Abdul that since he's making a Dia de los Muertos themed cake that he'll get him some poison. Abdul points out that the holiday is about honoring the dead, not making more of them. Noel is excited for this theming.

Paul is BEWILDERED by the very concept of Syabira incorporating sweetcorn into her cake. Corn??? In a baked good?????? (my Midwestern soul wants to crawl into the TV and punch him)

Quietly dying at how everyone pronouncing "tres leches." Like it has a "z" at the end of the first word.

Kevin, quite sensibly, points out that tres leches sponge is not made for stacking. He is right. He loses points when he says he's making an Aztec temple for his cake, Paul asks him if it's Mayan or Aztec, and he then replies, "There's a bit of overlap, isn't there?" (no, no there is not. Not geographically, and not temporally).

I do wonder now, seeing which types of chili peppers the bakers are choosing (a lot of birds-eye chilis, which I personally associate more with Thai food than Mexican), what sort of availability you get in the UK. Like, they're all developing these recipes at home with the ingredients they can get. And I'm fully aware that Mexican ingredients are lot less available there than they are in the US.

Carole is using an angel food cake as her base to be soaked in the tres leches, and oh boy. She's another baker who, going in, I loved, but she's really struggling this week.

Further discussion amongst the hosts as to whether Mexico is a real place, and omg can we please stop doing this bit.

Janusz says what we're all thinking. "It's a four hour bake. You're not gonna make it perfect, will you?"

The judges are stunned and bewildered at how Syabira managed to have sweetcorn in her cake and make it taste like sweetcorn. Inner Midwesterner continues to scream. Especially after Paul says, "it's not for me."

Ready to shove both Prue and Paul off one of those Aztec pyramids where they used to do human sacrifices after all their complaints about uneven soaking for making a layer cake out of a cake that, by definition, includes a saturated crumb, which is not a thing that is structurally sturdy.

Paul continues his theme of being unable to stand anything much spicier than ketchup. For Mexican Week. Prue is in the same boat.

Two bakers eliminated this week to make up for last week, apparently. Ugh.

Anyway, even with German Week last year, they effed up some stuff, according to the Actual German in the tent. For the love of little green apples, they need to bring in someone who's actually from that country or at the very least someone who's deeply studied that country's baking tradition for these Ethnic Weeks. No, sending Paul Hollywood to the country for, like, a week does not count.

[sjbattleangel]

To my friends in Mexico. On behalf of all British people, I am truly sorry and ashamed.

“The Great British Bake Off” is property of Channel 4. Video clips courtesy of @andyheriaud(Twitter).   “T-A”: Resident Evil 2 Official Soundtrack. Property of of Capcom. “Promise(Reprise)”: Silent Hill 2 Official Soundtrack. Property of Konami. This is a fan-video. All content used belongs to their rightful owners.  

[eca19875]

Who the fuck told Paul Mexican week was a good idea?? Like learn how to pronounce the dishes you’re making them prepare first and then sit and think about tres leche cake. It’s cake soaked in milk! It’s like one, maybe two layers, it’s not meant to be stacked in tiers!

[darkwood-hollows]

watching that terrible mexican episode of the great british baking show and my mother in law legit shuffles to the kitchen to whip out her old af mexican cook book to prove there's plenty of legit baking recipes they could've done if they weren't such racist twats.

[memes-wearhouse]

Still thinking about Paul Hollywood pronouncing "pico de gallo" like "pico de gallow".

Pico de gallo: a salsa, featuring tomatoes, peppers, lime juice...

Pico de gallow: a structure used for public executions featuring tomatoes, peppers, lime juice...

[slumberingcorpse]

I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned this here but I’m a Mexican-American currently studying to be a pastry chef. Why do I suddenly bring this up? Because I just watched “Mexican Week” in the Great British Bake Off. Overall, I just feel greatly disappointed. This show was one of my inspirations to go into this career path. Sadly. I expected more. It takes one google search to find hundreds of amazing delicious rich baked goods that would’ve been great to highlight. Instead they didn’t do any of that. They made no effort in giving Mexican baking the respect or praise it deserves for it unique techniques, flavors, and qualities that is only seen in Mexico.

I know that some of you will argue that they just didn’t know and that they didn’t mean to offend people, but that’s no excuse. They just didn’t care. They make such a huge effort in highlighting the baking history and techniques for other cultures like French and Germany. Just because they aren’t familiar with it doesn’t mean that they can’t google it, hell, hire a Mexican pastry chef to  consult and provide advice to the production and crew. There is no excuse that in the year 2022 something like this should be acceptable.

However, from all of this, I have been inspired once again. I’m making a promise to myself to study and give Mexican baking the respect it deserves. I’ll make it my goal to prove to people that Mexican baking is worth the effort to learn and isn’t just a stupid gimmick. So maybe call that a win.

[kagekanecavi]

Why the fuck are you making them STACK tres leches????

[kougaonn]

HIS TIMING 😭 CHOCOLATE MAN NOO

[once-in-a-blue-moon-rising]

ok, so I know it's old news now, but I've had a GBBO take stewing in my brain for ages now, and every so often I'll see a post that reminds me of it, so I might as well set it free into the world.

First, I want to establish that I wholeheartedly agree with everyone who thought the Mexican Week episode was offensive/ignorant/misjudged etc. etc. Absolutely. 100%. And if there really was no one in the production office who flagged it up, then that's a big big red flag, and they need to diversify their workforce, like, yesterday.

BUT-

What I have an issue with is US Americans who are fully outraged at the contestants. The presenters, the researchers - they all should have done ten minutes of research and learned how to pronounce the, like, five Spanish words they needed to say. They should have done another ten minutes of research, and come up with some actual Mexican bakes. If you want to drag Paul Hollywood, sign me up. But - well, I think it's very US-centric to expect 13 random Brits to be intimately acquainted with Mexican cuisine. (And that's not starting on the fact that every contestant is not, in fact, British, and some of them come from countries even further away from Mexico than here.)

Because, seriously, there's a whole fucking ocean between the UK and Mexico. And although the figures are a bit shaky, it was estimated that there were only 250,000 Latin Americans in the UK in 2013. Which is not a lot (and Mexican folk are not the majority of that figure).

And I'm not saying a fairly small immigrant population means people should be ignorant, but I am saying that it's a hell of a lot easier to be knowledgeable about a country that literally borders you. And I do invite you to consider (if you've got this far but don't really see where I'm going with this) - would you be so outraged if, say, a contestant didn't know an Iranian dish? A Serbian one? Something from Nigeria? Do you expect contestants to have perfect knowledge of every single world cuisine just in case, or are you mad because they didn't know something that you think everyone should know because in your little corner of the world, they do?

tl;dr: presenters/producers are lazy and racist; ease up on the contestant-bashing unless you have an encyclopaedic knowledge of world cuisine

[scoolis]

yes mexican week on gbbo sucked

yes only one baker knew anything about the food

yes paul completely fucked up with the tres leches cake challenge

yes no one did any research of any kind

yes it was pretty racist

BUT

this lady was betrayed by a rock hard avocado, you couldn't do this with a ripe avocado

if i had no experience with avocados and someone handed me a completely unyielding mass i would probably not try to cut it in half

[sarcasticbabywhispererjess]

I finally started watching the newest season of GBBO and I just got to the Mexican episode. I had already heard was a shit show, but yikes.

Not a single person can correctly pronounce any word with a double L… except the bald, unfunny host Matt. I know they have American tv shows and movies, not a single one of them has heard someone say “tortilla”? Americans might be shit at a lot of things, but with a large Hispanic population, I think most of us know how to correctly pronounce tortilla.

The thing I had the biggest beef with is during the second “mystery” challenge is that they kept using ‘taco’ and ‘tortilla’ interchangeably. You use a tortilla to make tacos. Tortillas are those thin unleavened breads. Tacos are the actual dish… the tortilla with all the fillings.

Additionally no one made the refried beans correctly and it was never mentioned.

Also, I think in the example tacos just had chopped up avocado, not guacamole. Which isn’t wrong. Love a taco with just sliced or chopped plain avocado. But that’s not what was asked for in the recipe provided to the contestants. They specifically had to make guacamole.

I don’t think Carole has ever encountered a whole avocado. The way she peeled the skin off with a knife like it was a potato or something. 🤦‍♀️

[slimate]

I fucking hate these people

[breatheslife]

brits i was rooting for you to overthrow your

monarchy but in light of this monstrosity i wish

you all a very follow lizzie to hell