Questions for British Foodies
Recently, I’ve been binge-watching the Great British Bake Off, and it’s left me with a few questions. Whenever a show crosses cultural boundaries, some things are lost in translation–it took me a while to figure out that “chuffed” is a good thing–but these are the things that, try as I may, I couldn’t work out from context clues.
1. Why is everyone afraid of Mary Berry?
To the American viewer who is used to cooking shows in which its just as likely that the contest winds up roasted on the spit in place of the pig, this show is rather… British. Everyone is polite and congratulates each other, the soundtrack appears to be a specially recorded suite for strings, and every challenge is interspersed with vague references to imperial grandeur. However, even from a completely neutral point of view, why are there so many jokes about Ms. Berry being terrifyingly harsh? If anything, she’s the nicer of the two judges and she practically sings lullabies to nervous contestants. Are these jokes sarcastic or ironic? Am I just being an idiot American who doesn’t understand humor?
2. So, pudding is just… everything?
Going in to this show, I knew that what Americans call pudding is very different from what Brits call pudding, but even so, I’m still a bit confused. I had thought that British pudding was a sort of boiled cake, (a la spotted dick), but in the pudding episode, pudding was everything from crumble to soufflé to custard to what I would call cake. Is pudding a specific dish or what Americans call dessert or somewhere in between? Is pudding even real?
Besides fries vs chips, cookies vs biscuits is one of the most widely cited differences between American and British English. However, I’m beginning to think that the issue isn’t so much linguistic, but rather gastronomical. I’m not entirely sure that a cookie truly is a biscuit or vice versa. Perhaps the issue is just that we have two completely different foods that serve very different functions but appear to be superficially similar. I think we’re looking at apples and oranges and attempting to equate them. Biscuits, from what I understand, are generally crunchy, thin, shortbread-y treats which are served with a beverage and judged on their dunk-ability. While Americans certainly have treats like this that we might call cookies, it’s not the first thing that would come to mind for most of us. A cookie is generally a lumpy, soft, chewy treat served warm and perhaps with a glass of milk, but a beverage is not a prerequisite. Just like you wouldn’t use a hammer on a screw or a screwdriver on a nail, I wouldn’t dunk a chocolate chip cookie in a cup of tea or eat a digestive as a stand-alone snack. So, let’s recognize that, while they are similar and may overlap some, cookies are not biscuits and biscuits are not cookies. (Unless they are. Is this another pudding issue?)
4. Do you guys know that American food exists?
Some of the funniest moments in this show have been completely accidental, and have arisen because of what appears to be a complete lack of knowledge of American cuisine. For instance, one contestant was applauded for her originality in making oatmeal raisin cookies. I’m not sure how much the British public really knows about American cuisine, if it’s anything similar to how much Americans know about British cuisine, then it’s not much, so I’ll err on the side of caution and attempt to explain why this is so funny. Imagine you’re watching an American television show about a very competitive cooking challenge and one contestant shows up and for their signature dish, they plug in a toaster and just make toast. You’re sitting there thinking “She is going to be eaten alive by the judges!” But instead, they come over and congratulate her on her bravery at making such an exotic dish. That’s a bit like how I felt watching someone make oatmeal raisin cookies. They’re not only ubiquitous in America, they’re also most people’s third favourite cookie. Basically, if the bakery doesn’t have anything really good left over, you’ll buy an oatmeal raisin cookie, but only because you feel bad that they have so many left. The same contestant, later in the season, made something she claimed was an American dessert that hadn’t been popular for a while. She called it “boy bait,” which, I’ll grant her, is probably a name not many Americans have used for a long time, but the dish itself was peach cobbler. Peach cobbler, depending on where you are in the country, is perhaps even more readily available than apple pie. It could be the case that these dishes are also just as popular in the U.K. as they are in the U.S., but then I’m still confused by the judges’ reactions to two very boring baked goods. Either way, it’s honestly lots of fun to be thought of as some sort of quaint, bizarre land that no one really understands.
kianamaiart
stormborns
titsay
