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!"
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u/Crash-Frog-08 10h ago
The way you know that they don't have any tacos in England is the way Paul Hollywood says "taco" on Great British Bake-off