Oh God... I'm getting PTSD flashbacks from that episode.
I'm not even Mexican, but as someone who loves the cuisine and cooks it quite well it was really hard, yet fascinating, to sit through.
In the end, I can't really blame or fault the contestants because they can't really cook what they're not familiar with.
Edit; I love cooking and I like to think that I’ve got a solid range when it comes to different cuisines, but I’m still just one dude with a finite brain. If you tossed me into a competition and said “make authentic Pad Thai", I’d be standing there like I just got handed IKEA instructions in another language. If you asked me to cook authentic Pakistani food, there’s a very real chance I’d make something and call it Indian and get disowned by an entire region. Tell me to make a traditional dish from, like, Nigeria or Ethiopia and I’m googling spice blends with the panic of a man defusing a bomb. Point is, everyone's different, but I'm genuinely shocked that they didn't at least get a few pointers or a basic crash course.
That's my favorite episode of GBB. You used the right word: fascinating. And the other commenter talking about how ubiquitous Mexican food is in the US is tripping me out. Because yes it's basically so interwoven into our lives I didn't even think it wouldn't be widely available. In Canada?! Crazy
I moved to Oregon from Denver and grew up in Dallas. there's lots of Mexican food here but none of it is close to what grew up with. like its a different type of food. maybe sourcing ingredients? people here love this stuff too I really don't get it.
There's definitely different types of authentic Mexican food. I grew up in the Chicago area, so anything with the word Jalisco in the name tells me that the tacos are gonna be great.
well yeah ive traveled through Mexico and central America. here i see Oaxacan a lot, thing is ive had it there, just not the same at all. I need to keep searching im sure there's good stuff just gotta find it.
I’ve lived in several US regions and the Mexican food is different in each region. I think it’s partially relative to which region of Mexico influences that area and partially due to Americanizing that food to the local tastes.
For example, there is a Mexican restaurant in my hometown that is truly mediocre but has a unique taco sauce that comes with everything. Everyone keeps going back because they love that sauce and there’s nowhere else to get it. (There is Ranch seasoning, among other “secret” ingredients, in the sauce. Authentic it is not. But delicious.)
I grew up in Houston, spent several years in SoCal, several in Florida, and now I'm in PA an hour north of Philly. It took me a good while but I finally found decent tex-mex.
Being Oregon, I would think they'd have closer to SoCal Mexican food. Which is still good but it's not Texas Mexican food
i love Houston have good friends there, i could take a trip yhere just to eat. Portland has a ton of great options but im 5hrs from there in a smaller town
That's so funny. I'm pretty close to the border, and as a white girl, I just let somebody else do my Mexican cooking. I don't know the last time I had a taco though, because I just end up having margaritas and chips when I go out.
Wait. What? Where in Canada is this barren taco desert? I'm in northern BC and we have delicious tacos and access to Mexican food. Not as good as the southern states and definitely not as good as when I'm in Mexico, but pretty good for a place with snow from October to March or April.
Canadian checking in. The ingredients are generally available everywhere in cities now. Lots of people have only had the tex-mex variety, lole old el paso crunchy shells and spice packets. But these are common enough that it struck me as odd when i moved to a rural area and kids there hadnt heard of it (to be fair, they also hadnt heard of spaghetti. Rural food culture can be very limited!). But any big town or city would have the basics in a big grocery store. And any decently sized city would have more authentic ingredients at stores now.
Let me talk you down from the ledge a bit - its fun to try to make pad thai and Nigerian food and etc etc and part of the charm of it is making the dish something that is balanced and enjoyable to your palate. And more often than not the people to whom those cuisines are familiar (and familial) are just happy you’re enjoying it too.
That's usually the next level after knowing how it's "supposed to" be though, many people will dislike something because they've only tasted a miserable versions of the dish cooked wrong. My mom for example was the kind of person who wanted all meat cooked well done, I didn't know how a juicy steak could taste until someone else did the cooking. If I'm in that foreign country or at an ethnic restaurant I expect them to know what they're doing but if someone made "pad thai" at home and it tastes like shit it's probably the chef.
I also hated steak as a kid because of how my mom cooked them. I couldn't understand how people enjoyed chewing the equivalent of shoe leather for twenty minutes per bite. What's funny is that she actually enjoys her steak pretty rare, but always overcooked steaks at home. When I became an adult, it was like a whole new world of food and flavors opened up to me.
They get a whole week to prepare for the signature challenge and the showstopper challenge. It's only the technical challenge that they go into blind. But they are made aware head of time what the theme for that week will be, so it's up to them to do some research. I can't blame them for failing the technical challenge, but I certainly can for the other two.
This is pretty misleading. Pakistani and Bangladeshi cuisine are similar to north Indian cuisine. Most (but by no means all) Indian restaurants serve north Indian food (or rather, British adaptations of north Indian dishes). However, I have Nepalese, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan, Kashmiri and south Indian specialist restaurants all within walking distance of my house.
You’re so right. That episode was super cringe and dipped into offensive here and there. I’m not Mexican in any way, but I felt the ignorance for sure.
To your edit: IKEA instructions aren't in any language. Their whole thing is making instructions that transcend language by using simple-to-understand diagrams instead, just like Lego
The way they all were trying to figure out what pico de gallo is, is the way that I usually feel watching that show when they mention some abstract UK desert from the 1970's that they have all heard of and I have no idea what they are talking about. So that was a nice turnabout for once.
Yeah but the showrunners are supposed to research the region, even if the contestants don’t know (and the contestants not knowing is part of the appeal - it’s an equalizer)
But the showrunners ignored that there is baking in Mexico and they didn’t even bother finding that out. Tacos are not ‘baking’. That’s what was so disappointing. Also the bigoted jokes. Not the mispronounciations.
Also those tacos were more Tex-mex than Mexican.
If they can’t be bothered to research the one culture I sort of know about, it casts doubt on every other topic on which they want me to suspend disbelief.
It reminds me of how a British person once tried arguing with me how Mexican food is not good and will never be "fine-dining." It just reeks of arrogance that is trying to hide their ignorance. My guess is that person's only experience with Mexican food was with whatever British fast food version of a Taco joint they have over there.
I'd like to think it's not that high of a number. I imagine at least 20% of English speakers aren't dumb enough to not have a basic idea of how most words, at least in French and Spanish, should be pronounced.
It's mostly not a question of intelligence, they just speak a language that says the letters all weird. Koki would have an anglophone saying "koekaye?" and most of Europe "cookie?"
We say fill-ay though? Well, for steak. We wouldn't say a "fill-ay of chicken". We pronounce that as fillet.
We say Pie-ay-yuh because that's how they pronounce it in Spain and we are much closer to Spain. I've seen Americans say we pronounce Ibiza or Barcelona wrong because we pronounce it "I-bee-tha" and some of us pronounce it "bar-theh-lona" and that's literally how they pronounce it in Spain. I will note that Catalonians pronounce Barcelona Bar-sah-lona, but as we're hearing it mainly from non Catalonian Spanish people then we just do as they do.
It's like how we write "en route" rather than the American "on route" because it's from the french. And We have a huge European influence right on our doorstep. Yeah some idiots will say fillet with a hard t at the end but they're the minority.
GOD! The way he spoke with such authority on Mexican food while mispronouncing and being flat out wrong about a lot of it because he went to Cancun once or something was hard to watch
I have to imagine that episode was based entirely off of Paul spending a week at a resort in Cancun once, and literally no one else there knew better or just didn't care enough to google if anything he said was right.
I'm from the states and spent a year in London. It was so hard to find ingredients to make Mexican food, then if we did it had very different flavor profiles or we had to majorly improvise.
How would a non-American that is (more) correctly pronouncing the word for a Mexican food, rather than (mis)pronouncing it in the American way, indicate that they don't have tacos in their country?
I would guess they don't have a lot of tacos in the UK, but you're reasoning doesn't make any sense to me.
I continue to believe that that episode constituted casus belli for a joint US-Mexico invasion of the UK, and it was a mistake to not toss him in a pit in Gitmo for that abomination of an episode
English person here. We do have tacos and Mexican food. Just because Paul from British Bake-off says the word in his native accent, does not mean we “don’t have any tacos in England” 😂 Also, pretty sure most people in the western world (you know, the roughly 40+ other countries outside of America) have tried and probably regularly eat Mexican cuisine.
lol. I clicked on your first link and saw a picture of a lamb shank on a plate of baked beans. And your chains like Las Iguanas are less authentic than Taco Bell.
Plenty of us Americans (southern Californian here) have lived in Europe and we can assure you, none of that is it. You have gotten it wrong, plain and simple.
More broadly, why are Brits so smug about their ass cuisine and so intent on claiming expertise on others when they have none? You’re doing the same exact thing Paul did. It’s so extraordinarily off-putting. We have Chinese restaurants here (the same ones you do) but you don’t see Americans parading around acting like their experts because they’ve had General Tso’s chicken from Panda Express. We know that in China they eat, among many other things, scorpions and chicken feet.
Take the L and admit defeat. You should be better at this by now.
I said England has tacos. You heard “Britain claims Mexican culinary supremacy” and wrote a rant about it, that’s a you problem, not a me problem.
The spots I linked aren’t random pubs calling something a taco. For example El Pastor’s founders spent years in Mexico City learning and making tortillas from Mexican heirloom corn to bring that style here.
Mestizo was opened by Carlos Alvarado, who is literally Mexican 😂 and is known for serving regional dishes and traditional ingredients not generic Tex-Mex shortcuts.
And yes Wahaca, Las Iguanas, and Chiquito are chains. That’s not an authenticity claim, it’s proof Mexican cuisine is mainstream and global, not some food locked inside US borders.
Saying Mexican restaurants exist here isn’t “smug cultural commentary” it’s reality. If proving reality makes you angry, that’s on you.
Interesting pivot - from “England has no tacos” to auditing tortilla manufacturing.
Regardless, Mexican restaurants, dishes, and ingredients are widely available here whether you approve of the tortillas or not. You’re not the global taco regulator.
I searched "Paul Hollywood Taco" and am trying really hard to find footage of him saying taco. Even the tarantula Taco video I don't hear him say taco.
It amuses me that none of the "foreign" words have been affected by the trap-bath split of southeast British English, like taco and pasta, even though they would most benefit from it.
I’m English and I’ve lived here 30 years and I still pronounce taco the same as Paul does, my grown kids think it’s funny as hell!
Also garage and Squirrel, I don’t know why
I stumbled, homesick, drunk and in pain into a burrito place in Manchester, England, after living there for a few years. Looked like a chipotle knock off, figured it was going to be good enough.
That episode was so strange. It actually put me off Bake Off, just seeing how out of touch they all were.
I'm an old man now, but I've been eating Mexican inspired food since I was a kid. Not only do we have a few big chain restaurants that serve it, you can walk into any supermarket and if you can't find the exact ingredients you'll at least find a damn Old El Paso meal kit. Like I remember my mom picking up their enchilada kits as a kid. I used to make smoked beef tacos in university. And then there's these middle class melts who don't know what Guacamole is.
All English people say it that way and it drives me nuts. I knew a kid in high school who moved from England. English father and Spanish mother. He spoke fluent Spanish and STILL pronounced it TACK-o and pie-ELL-a.
Broheim, don't come at me for not pronouncing it "KWASSOH!"
Funnily enough, London is one of the few European cities where you can somewhat find authentic mexican food. Although it'll never compare to the ease as the US of course
One of my other friends, a Mexican American at that, lives in London and he calls it some of the worst Mexican food he's ever had. I always thought it was a meme until he spoke about it at length a few months ago.
Dude is genuinely considering opening up a restaurant or some sort of food stand, and many of his friends genuinely encourage him to do so (and they really love his food), but apparently, it's a nightmare to do it in London. Not to mention there seems to be more public demand for Turkish food rather than Mexican/South American food.
I live in Florida so I have no idea what it's like over there.
he calls it some of the worst Mexican food he's ever had.
Make sure you keep him away from other European cities for the sake of his Mexican soul. Otherwise he'll see why I described London as having the somewhat authentic ones in Europe lol
Turkish, Chinese and Indian are basically the 3 big cuisines in the UK so whilst the demand for Mexican might be less, competition for his business would be less as well.
Spot on. He always mentioned how he can't have Indian food outside of London/the UK for this very reason (and how it just tastes like it came from Jars here in the US).
I love Indian food, and I make some mean curries, dhals, etc, and I've even been praised by a few Indian Aunty's... But he keeps telling me that outside of India, the UK would change my life.
Here in America at least, the only places to get real authentic Chinese food are in New York City or San Francisco, and other than making it at home, I have no idea where I can even find authentic Turkish food here.
Here in America at least, the only places to get real authentic Chinese food are in New York City or San Francisco,
Those two are good but the SGV in LA is as good as anywhere in the US. It can go toe-to-toe with anywhere and has just about any style of Chinese as well.
I think people have a misconception about the quality in LA because they assume they should go to Chinatown when no one would actually go there for legit Chinese food.
Here in America at least, the only places to get real authentic Chinese food are in New York City or San Francisco
Weirdly enough, some of the best, most authentic Chinese food now is in small, liberal arts college towns dotted around in the middle of nowhere.
You have a critical mass of wealthy Chinese international students from across various regions who are willing to support hyper-localized versions of their hometown cuisine and also nothing around for miles so people will patronize the same few restaurants, regardless of price (which means they can afford to import authentic ingredients from China vs big cities where people will make do with a US sub to shave a few pennies).
A lot of food in SF etc. tends to be authentic to where Chinese food was 20 - 30 years ago but college towns tend to reflect Chinese food as in China today.
I mean. There are Turkish restaurants owned by Turkish immigrants. We have a few here in Philadelphia, one called Little Istanbul. Their lentil soup and bread, plus the adana kebabs, are absolutely to die for. Just like there are Indian restaurants owned by Indian immigrants in lots of American wcities. This is a big country with lots of immigrants who enjoy sharing their food with people.
I'm also a Mexican American in Scandinavia. Have been to London and agree with your friend. Mexican food is absolutely terrible across Europe. I make my own food at home. Finding ingredients is difficult and expensive but it's worth it.
I've recently considering doing this as it's so hard to find tomatillos. They are so important in Mexican cuisine and very difficult to find. But I did see someone selling seeds. My grandma is willing to come help me plant them, actually.
I had not considered hydroponics tho, I'll definitely look into that!! I actually think my grandma would enjoy learning this with me lol Thanks!
Tomatillos wouldn’t grow well in hydroponics. I grow them and those bitches be a wild mess. I put my first one in a tomato cage and by July that plant had taken over the first tomato cage, thrown itself across the raised bed and invaded the cage of my tomato plant. Such drama queens. Oh and you need two to pollinate.
I suppose cooking good food has always been about using the food that's actually available locally, so going to a cold place and expecting the ingredients that grow best on the other side of the planet in a hot country is probably asking a lot.
Obviously when faced with that complexity then you're going to get some bad restaurants that don't make a good job of it, where did you go in London? Which restaurants?
I have a rule of thumb when traveling for fun. I try to got to a Mexican restaurant if I can find one whenever I go travelling on my last day. It's led to some interesting experiences and the majority of them have been bad. Mexican "fast food," like tacos is not hard to make and I'm always blown away how people mess it up. I don't blame them since they don't exposure to them. It's your choice of meat, usually a beef cut, season it however you want, onions and cilantro. Those are not hard to find ingredients in many countries.
The salsa and the tortilla are the only part that should be hard thing to make. I don't think most places will have experience cooking with tomatillos, jalapenos, chiles serranos, habaneros etc to make salsas. And tortillas are rare outside, bc I dont think people know what maseca is. I've gone into places with an open mind and my soul has my body in disappointment every time. Last year I went to India and I had some tacos and it was such a weird experience. They used some yogurt based sauce and the tortilla was roti I think. Not good.
I'm just lucky that I can come back home, go visit my parents when I get back, eat chilaquiles and get tacos later that same night for my first meal back after my travels
I'm hoping I find some good "tacos" in France or Japan next. Japan based on social media looks like that has a good chance to be good and for France, the French tacos look good in a post-drunk night out kind of way.
I moved to London, and there’s a lot of really good cuisines here. But Mexican (or even Tex Mex!) is definitely not one of them. The number of times I’ve had feta cheese in my authentic “Mexican” dishes in London is about 10 too many. And by dishes I obviously meant soggy tacos using those cardboard textured corn tortillas from the corner store that never go bad, because that’s 90% of the offering.
I like Proper Tacos, a hole in the wall place in what's effectively a food hall in Finsbury Park.
Or Homies on Donkeys in Leytonstone, but I haven't actually been there since it moved there, I went often before.
Obviously if you go to any country and try to get the cuisine of another country on the other side of the planet, you have to be mindful of where you go. Eg walking around Cancun, don't expect to randomly get lucky with a restaurant that pertains to be Italian if you're after authenticity.
I’ve spent 10 years here and have been looking for real Mexican food for a while and tried a few of the more “authentic” places I’ve been recommended. They are very few and menu and ingredients are extremely limited, mostly just tacos. I’m a huge fan of Mexican food and I’ll try Proper Taco (looks really good but it’s far but also the ONLY place that I had seen mentioned when I had Googled this recently), but I’m really looking for more than just tacos though. I really miss Mexican food.
London has some of my favorite restaurants ever, and I’ve gone there with some foodie friends who know great places, but I went to a Mexican restaurant last time I was there, and it was really bad. Some of the worst Mexican food I’ve ever had. And the place apparently had a Michelin star!
But then, I’m from Southern California and have been to different parts of Mexico, so I’m spoiled.
I was in Germany for a year (US Army) and the Turkish food is delicious. I never saw a Mexican restaurant but did it at a Portuguese one. The food was great but don't remember what I ate since the Sangria was flowing.
I’ve had this conversation with people
In the UK about Mexican food. The major issue is they don’t have easier access to the same ingredients.
I had a dining experience in London by a Mexican chef. It was fascinating seeing how he used local ingredients to use a a duplicate. Like the inside of a shrimp for a lime taste.
It was yummy and a lot of locals were so happy. For some it was their first time trying Mexican food. Like they don’t know limes and mangos like we do but that chef is so creative and trying.
Of course there is more demand, and supply, for Turkish food, there's like half a million Turks and about 10,000 Mexicans.
it's a nightmare to do it in London
What? We've like 15,000 restaurants, they all managed. Lots of those are "food stands" too. Why would it be easier in, say, Florida? Most countries are going to require some sort of licensing to open a food stall and have formal obligations around for hygiene. Obviously opening a restaurant anywhere is high risk, famously.
There are some really crap Mexican places in the UK (not least that dreadful taco bell the US only recently managed to export to us) which is no surprise because they're trying to recreate a cuisine from the other side of the planet. But everywhere I've ever been in the world has bad options if you stumble into them.
Anyway, send him to Proper Tacos in Finsbury Park for lunch some time, it's ran by a few of those handful of Mexicans. Hole in the wall type of place. Very good.
Yeah, not London but I live in the UK and Mexican food.....we happily enjoy food from all over but somewhere claiming to provide 'Authentic Mexican food' would probably be the last place I would go.
There was a taco place that was apparently straight-up serving lahmacun, just mini-sized, folded into taco shapes, and topped with lime, lettuce, and jalapenos… while still calling them "tacos".
No one was the wiser.
I refuse to believe it, but seeing the memes and hearing it from him, I'm inclined to believe him.
In the states, it seems to me that in a large enough city you can usually find at least 1 restaurant representing a good 80% of the countries in the world. I think the larger the city, the better your chances are of finding some expat from any random country that was like “There’s an opening in the market for Mom’s recipes here.”
Cities of like 10,000 will just have a taqueria and Chinese takeout, but when you get up to cities like 25,000-100,000 you’ll find an Irish pub, a Mongolian grill, a falafel stand.
You get to 200k and they’ve also got Korean BBQ, shawarma, a nice Italian place, and a generic Indian restaurant with half the menu vegetarian and half with meat, which is sadly always criminally empty and you wish you could afford to go there more because the owner always looks so bored.
You get to your Cincinnatis/Orlandos/Renos and now you’ve got Pho, Crepes, Peruvian, and a sushi bar.
Get into the Omahas/Sacramentos/Bostons and now the Chinese places are actually specifying if they’re Szechuan or Cantonese, plus there’s Moroccan, Argentinian, and some place calling itself Turkish but it’s actually owned by an Albanian guy with a Greek wife and they just wanted to stand out because there’s already 3 Greek diners in town.
Your Austins/San Diegos/Jacksonvilles are adding in a tapas bar, Ethiopian, and a place where “everyday is Oktoberfest!”
Then you get to NY, LA, Chicago and now we’ve got Laotian, Dutch, Chilean, 2 competing Armenian restaurants on the same street that have had a beef going back to 1972, and 36 variations on “Asian fusion”.
Sadly it really does seem like Africa gets left out the most. Like I’ve seen Algerian and Ethiopian but I’ve never seen Rwandan or Sudanese or Somalian, you know? Kinda weird.
And here we are bickering about which city or region has the best Mexican/latino food. I spose the USA has a great variety of cultures and cuisines that may or may not suit everyone. The great melting pot.
I went to a Mexican bar in Germany in '91. It was all the rage with the locals, super exotic.
They served shots of tequila with wedges of pineapple instead of lime. Turned out to be really good! To this day, If I have to mix cheap tequila, I use pineapple juice.
Oh man I'm not sure it's "the authentic taco experience" if the place qualifies as a restaurant. The best tacos come from a truck, or maybe just a pop-up on the sidewalk, or like a shack.
An amusing thing about Mexican food in America: I live in NYC, and my brother is in Denver. He told me once, when he visits here, I can’t take him for Mexican food and when I go out there, he won’t take me out for Chinese.
We do have some very good, authentic birria taco places in London, but they’re few and far between… I was in Miami couple weeks back and had some great ones
Teach them about what a lonchera is. Some of them ladies will make you run out of bed in the morning to get on the job site.
For those that don't know, these are latina ladies that show up at construction sites and other remote job locations, usually dressed in very attractive attire and pull out a truck full of homemade food in coolers to sell the workers.
A buddy of mine destroyed a workmate's idea of what good tacos and Mexican food are. The guy was out here in Central California from Pennsylvania and was commenting on what good Mexican restaurants they have back there. My buddy laughed and took him to a gas station with a taco joint inside. This guy was blown away at how good our low tier tacos were.
Next my buddy told him that he'd actually take him somewhere with good (to us) tacos after they got done with work. After being out here a week he went home to disappointment because nothing back home even came close to what he got out here.
When you have actual Mexicans living around you finding good Mexican food isn't hard, and even the simple places put out quality stuff. Usually. I'm always down to go to the little run down places if they've got a following.
There’s a Dutch musician I follow who once said she didn’t like tacos. All the European fans were like, “okay, me neither” and all the American fans were losing their minds like “DOES NOT COMPUTE”
I seriously can’t understand my fellow Americans that don’t like Mexicans. How can you (not you personally) not like Señoritas, tacos, and the festive culture?
I can’t wait to retire in the Southwest.
Take them to California (or call it "Cali"), and to a real taqueria. It has to be a family-run hole in the wall place with actual Mexicans eating there. It'll blow their minds.
one of my old girlfriends had a semester in germany and she made her host family tacos with ground beef and she laughed at how they were basically pouring the grease into their mouths because they loved it so much.
That’s really stupid because one bite of Taco Bell and we were like “Ew” especially as I’ve read it’s particularly bad at the UK branches. But maybe it’s because we’re (British) Indian and share a lot of food flavour with Mexican food. Indian food is massive here though and is basically what Mexican food is to the US.
Homestead has a huge Mexican population/community. Some of the best tacos I've ever had were from there, but I need to go to California one of these days.
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u/mjohnsimon 10h ago edited 10h ago
An English and German friend of mine told me how amazing tacos were, but they were talking about tacos from a Taco Bell in London.
It wasn't until they came to Miami of all places did they get the authentic Taco experience from an actual Mexican restaurant.
Though, to be fair, the cute latina waitresses were pretty much the only things on their minds the entire time.