tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/great-british-bake-off-21351/articlesGreat British Bake Off – The Conversation2022-01-05T16:02:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1725962022-01-05T16:02:17Z2022-01-05T16:02:17ZA competitive cooking show puts a humble fermented rice dish on the global stage<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/436732/original/file-20211209-25-116pmlz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3997&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A growing interest in fermented foods may direct people to a Bengali fermented rice dish.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/a-competitive-cooking-show-puts-a-humble-fermented-rice-dish-on-the-global-stage" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>It was Kishwar Chowdhury, a competitor and second runner-up on the 13th season of <em>MasterChef Australia</em>, <a href="https://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/originals/meet-kishwar-chowdhury-who-is-making-aloo-bhorta-panta-bhat-popular-in-masterchef-australia-544845.html">who made a dish called panta bhat internationally famous</a>. A rather humble dish from eastern India (Assam, Odisha and West Bengal) and Bangladesh, one could never have imagined it achieving such a level of critical acclaim.</p>
<p>Panta bhat is cooked parboiled rice that is soaked in cold water and left to ferment. Very often it’s left overnight, although some may even ferment it longer. The rice is then eaten with accompaniments that can vary depending on the economic condition of the family or the individual — ranging from basics like mustard oil, raw onion and green chillies to more elaborate sides like fried fish, batter-fried veggies and potatoes. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">How to make panta bhat.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Fermenting in pond water</h2>
<p>Ten years ago, panta bhat was <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/764530">associated with several cases of cholera</a>. The dish is a rural staple and popular breakfast in eastern India and Bangladesh, but the use of contaminated water in the preparation of the rice created the perfect conditions for the development of disease. </p>
<p>Using pond water in making panta bhat <a href="https://doi.org/10.3329/jhpn.v29i5.8895">had been a major cause of the disease</a>. There were several public health campaigns that were specifically designed to prevent the villagers from using pond water, but they were often ineffective. </p>
<p>Despite its role in causing cholera, the popularity of the dish never declined. It’s a cheap meal that needs no refrigeration. Further, one can cook the rice in a pot and soak the leftovers in the same pot. Finally, it is not only cheap and convenient, but also needs very little time to make.</p>
<p>The role of panta bhat is so central to Bengal that there is a popular folkloric figure called Panta Buri — “old woman who eats panta” — who has many adventures after a thief steals her panta bhat. In order to seek justice for the theft, she goes on a long journey to meet the king. On her way, she meets many eclectic characters like a talking knife, a catfish, a bael (a native fruit species) and an alligator. While the characters change in different versions, <a href="https://golpojuri.blogspot.com/2019/12/panta-buri-bangla-golpo.html">the context of her journey remains the same</a>. </p>
<p>Panta bhat is a dish that reflects the soul of rural Bengal. Yet the dish has now made it to a very popular television show, and feeds into the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizzysaxe/2019/02/06/fermented-foods-are-up-149-percent-as-long-as-theyre-unfamiliar/">growing interest in fermented foods</a>. </p>
<p>Panta bhat is an acquired taste — a penchant for fermented rice is certainly not as widespread as, say, fried potatoes. Immigrant chefs are now pushing us towards bolder taste, a taste that is defiant, and not overshadowed by past colonial ambivalence. </p>
<h2>Acceptance through food</h2>
<p>Increasingly, immigrants have become unapologetic about their culinary roots. For example, British-Ghanaian chef Zoe Adjonyoh actively discusses issues like colonialism and racism that <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/chefs/chef-zoe-adjonyoh-is-not-here-to-summarize-african-food-for-you">influence how traditional cuisines are perceived and accepted</a>. Nadiya Hussein became popular after winning the 2015 season of <em>The Great British Bake Off</em>, and helped <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/apr/18/nadiya-hussain-i-never-even-dreamed-of-being-a-part-of-all-this">popularize unique fusion foods through her writing and a series of television cooking shows</a>.</p>
<p>This interest in ethnic cuisines can also be seen in the growing number of food shows and documentaries like <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/david-chang-ugly-delicious-asian-american-culture_n_5a85c109e4b0774f31d33120"><em>Ugly Delicious</em></a>, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-20/this-netflix-series-gets-to-the-heart-of-black-american-food-culture"><em>High on the Hog</em></a>, <a href="https://time.com/5896336/china-us-food-flavorful-origins-netflix/"><em>Flavorful Origins</em></a> and many others that show a growing interest in the subject and a curiosity about authentic culinary storytelling. </p>
<p>We have a very long way to go when it comes to embracing versatile tastes from non-western cultures. In 2019, American national security affairs professor Tom Nichols felt the need to openly disparage Indian food on Twitter.</p>
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<p>While it sparked a major controversy, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-50550735">Nichols’ tweet exposed the fault lines of racism that so frequently get expressed in belittling immigrant tastes</a>.</p>
<p>But there is hope, and a lot of curiosity. Instead of trying to alter and adjust their cuisine to existing western standards, young immigrant chefs are learning about their culinary past, and slowly trying to integrate their unique flavours into the growing world of global cuisine in very honest, authentic ways.</p>
<p>Let’s face it, fermented rice with strong mustard oil and spicy green chillies is like a bold, raw taste of defiance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aditi Sen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A rice dish’s debut on a cooking competition show reflects the growing acceptance of ethnic foods.Aditi Sen, Assistant Professor, History, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1527962021-01-13T13:05:31Z2021-01-13T13:05:31ZThis is why you can’t stop watching ‘bad’ TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378564/original/file-20210113-17-wgrmad.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>TV viewing has become more important during the pandemic, but a sense of shame still lingers around it. Even TV scholars still use the term “guilty pleasures” to describe their enjoyment of reality TV or series which attract some of the biggest viewing audiences, such as I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, The Voice or Dancing With the Stars. </p>
<p>Some even call comforting, escapist dramas like Death in Paradise or Bridgerton their “guilty pleasures”. Such television still attracts the same negative labels (“unchallenging”, “low brow”) that were given to its antecedents in the 1950s. </p>
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<img alt="Ballroom contestants pose on Strictly Come Dancing dancefloor" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378301/original/file-20210112-23-60z535.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Strictly, I’m A Celebrity and Bake Off drew in their best audiences in years towards the end of 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC Pictures</span></span>
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<p>I remember the pleasure my father took in 1950s gameshows like <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2015.1062647">Double Your Money</a> which featured ordinary people like him taking on minor tasks in a good natured way. His life was not an easy one, marked by a childhood spent mostly in an isolation hospital for tuberculosis patients which left him with a permanent disability. So as I child I understood the consolation and inclusion that such programmes brought him. They were a source of comfort precisely because they were “unchallenging” for someone whose everyday life brought plenty enough challenges.</p>
<h2>The allure of purposelessness</h2>
<p>“Consolatory entertainment” is a better term for such programming. There is consolation in the simple pleasures of ordinary conversation, shared enjoyment and of laughing together that underpins the success of panel games, quiz shows and even celebrity chat shows.</p>
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<img alt="Hand in focus holding remote with a blurred TV in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/378300/original/file-20210112-17-c5iebe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The importance of this form of television lies in its very purposelessness, which marks it out from entertainment that seeks to challenge.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hand-holding-tv-remote-while-watching-1368793937">Said Marroun/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>This is what the theorist <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/016344389011002002">Paddy Scannell identified</a> as being purposeless entertainment which is “relaxed and sociable, shareable and accessible, non-exclusive, equally talkable about in principle and practice by everyone”.</p>
<p>The importance of consolatory entertainment lies in its very purposelessness, which marks it out from the entertainment that seeks to challenge. It exists to confirm our common humanity, our ability to share a joke, to chat about trivia, to get on with each other. In the isolating times of the pandemic, it is scarcely surprising that shows like Strictly Come Dancing, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and The Great British Bake Off drew in their <a href="https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/ratings/feelgood-favourites-on-a-high/5155802.article">“best audiences in years”</a> in the UK. Consolatory entertainment confirms the commonalities that hold us together in opposition to the often raucous and divisive forums of social media.</p>
<p>It is time to shed the sense of guilt around such programming and begin to understand it for what it is, and how it works. </p>
<h2>The reality TV recipe</h2>
<p>Beyond the panel games and chat shows, consolatory entertainment formats often feature people facing challenges which enable them to discover everyday talents they didn’t know they had, for dancing or baking, or trading in antiques. Often framed as competitions, who wins is less important than the togetherness and mutual support shown through the process, and the unlikely friendships that result.</p>
<p>There is a strong ritualistic aspect to consolatory entertainment programmes. The format is nearly the same every week, with the same narrative inevitability (a contestant will be eliminated, for example) and the same flourishes (repeated music stings and catchphrases). There is a thriving international market for such formats, which are remade according to the same basic pattern but featuring citizens of each country. The sense of connection and locality provide an intimate connection between viewers and the people on the screen.</p>
<p>Each format is a theme and each episode is a variation on that theme. In classical music, theme and variation is an important feature, but for consolatory TV, repetitive forms are precisely what lead to its low estimation. </p>
<p>Perhaps it is the amount of time that is required to “get into” the format and appreciate each variation. This does not appeal to those with busy target-driven lives, but for many others it is the means by which sharing and discussion can take place. Programmes like these are not unlike football in this respect: the form is the same, but what matters are the details – the things that, to the uninitiated, seem like minutiae. Football’s rituals and repetitions are more acceptable in our culture than those of consolatory TV. Football serves the same purpose of asserting sociality whilst avoiding conflict, providing excitement and a largely good natured tribalism around an essentially purposeless activity. Yet unlike football, a taste (let alone a need) for consolatory TV has not yet shaken off its moral opprobrium.</p>
<p>This may be because not all consolatory TV is cosy and reassuring. The equivalent of football hooligans exists in consolatory TV too. Some reality TV borders on the broadcast version of morally dubious freak shows. Some people find consolation in the misfortunes of others. There may be a legitimate consolation in the hubris of the over-confident, but some reality shows go far beyond that. The public shaming associated with shows like Jerry Springer or Jeremy Kyle or the humiliations that can be meted out to contestants on Love Island, provide the simple spectacle of the suffering of others. There are those who, especially at times of stress, find consolation in the shaming and suffering of others. </p>
<p>But overall, the importance of consolatory TV lies in its affirmation of social connection and togetherness and its reassertion of the familiar and everyday. During the pandemic, this has become an even more important resource for many people. The reaffirmation of social connection is the true purpose behind this genre of TV’s seeming purposelessness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152796/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:john.ellis@rhul.ac.uk">john.ellis@rhul.ac.uk</a> received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and European Research Council (ERC)</span></em></p>Instead of feeling ashamed about our guilty pleasures, it is time to understand how they really workJohn Ellis, Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway University of London, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/840842017-10-17T10:33:03Z2017-10-17T10:33:03ZHow to write an essay Bake Off style<p>More and more students are turning to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/oct/09/universities-urged-to-block-essay-mill-sites-in-plagiarism-crackdown">essay mills</a> – often paying hundreds of pounds for written-to-order papers. This has led to the university standards watchdog issuing new government backed guidance to help address “contract cheating”.</p>
<p>Given the extent of the problem, it is clear essay writing is an area of university life that students struggle with. But maybe this isn’t totally surprising, because it requires a unique skill set and is unlike any other type of writing students may encounter. </p>
<p>New students in particular can show the same stresses and strains of the amateur bakers on The Great British Bake Off when faced with the dreaded technical challenge. The good news though, is that the ingredients needed to write a good essay are fairly simple – it’s just about cutting things down into easily digestible chunks. </p>
<p>So here are <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Essays-Pictures-Alke-Gr%C3%B6ppel-Wegener/dp/0957665229">some top tips</a> for writing at university, Bake Off style.</p>
<h2>1. Don’t just focus on the icing</h2>
<p>Whether signature bake or showstopper challenge, some of the creations on the Bake Off look simply flawless. And while the decorative elements are carefully planned and certainly look impressive on television, when it comes to judging they never count as much as getting the flavour right or having your creation baked properly. </p>
<p>With your written pieces, the exact same is true – it is far more important to get the ingredients right and to mix them properly than to be perfect with all the formalities and the “academic” language, but have no proper content. </p>
<p>Make sure when you start out, that you dedicate a large chunk of your time to the research and don’t worry about the formalities until later. The most important thing is to make sure that your research is solid. The formalities are simply the icing on the cake. So while they might turn your essay from good to excellent, without the research and critical thinking to back it up, your essay won’t even pass. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189740/original/file-20171011-16644-1u8cm99.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Looks nice, but how does it taste?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel4 Images</span></span>
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<h2>2. Don’t worry too much about the shape</h2>
<p>As any good baker knows, you first combine the ingredients and then worry about the shape and look. And the same goes for writing – sometimes it’s okay to just write, and not pay too much attention to the format, or the language, or the conventions. </p>
<p>Once you have it all down on paper (or on the screen) comes the time to attack it with the proverbial red pen. Now you can be ruthless – start by cutting the passages you don’t really need. Only now should you start paying attention to how it actually reads. Figure out if your words make sense, and highlight the bits you want to add to or change. The key here is just whacking everything down and then sprucing it up later on. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189743/original/file-20171011-16657-43dm9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Just get it all in there.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<h2>3. Think of quotes like the cream and jam</h2>
<p>Quotations – and other ways of showing off evidence, like tables or images – are important because they add different voices to your essay. But you need to make sure you are not overusing them. </p>
<p>They are like the cream and jam in your Victoria Sandwich. The cake is the important thing, not the cream. So it is important to only include the part of a quotation that is crucial to what you want to say.</p>
<p>Your quotes should be sandwiched between an introduction and an explanation. Before the quotation tell your reader where it comes from, possibly explaining why they should pay attention to that source. After the quotation explain what it means in your context. </p>
<p>This is really important because very few quotations are actually self-evident, and if they are, you probably don’t need them. You should use quotes to emphasise your argument – but not overshadow it. Remember, the focus should be on the cake, not the cream.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189744/original/file-20171011-16678-1tvuwm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Essay writing: a piece of cake?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>4. Give your creation time to rise</h2>
<p>Whatever you are baking, be it cakes or bread, there comes a time when you will need to leave your masterpiece alone for a while and let it do it’s thing. And this is similar to the process of writing. </p>
<p>You need to give yourself time to come back to your work with fresh eyes. This will allow you to get a new perspective on your writing, as it is easy to become attached to your existing content. </p>
<p>Often a little break from your essay can be all the more fruitful. And just like bread needs time to rise, and pastry dough needs time to chill, so too does your essay need time to mature before it can reach its full potential.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189746/original/file-20171011-16642-qxurv0.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Give your essay the time it needs to develop.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel 4 Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>5. Practice makes perfect</h2>
<p>Successful bakers in the Bake Off don’t just think through their bakes in advance, they also practice them. This is a great tip for budding writers, because it means you can ultimately make your initial draft better and better – until it becomes a showstopper. </p>
<p>And who knows, once you get the hang of it, writing an academic essay might even become a piece of cake.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alke Gröppel-Wegener does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Students, don’t turn to essay mills, just learn to write a better paper.Alke Gröppel-Wegener, Associate Professor of Creative Academic Practice, Staffordshire UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/702952016-12-15T11:31:04Z2016-12-15T11:31:04ZWhy Ed Balls deserved the Strictly glitterball<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149913/original/image-20161213-1625-1wsp3n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Kieron McCarron</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year has been a shocker. The memory of 2016 will be, after all, skewered in perpetuity by the image of Nigel Farage and Donald Trump, standing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/13/donald-trump-nigel-farage-picture-trump-tower#img-1">grinning in a golden lift</a>. Above all, it is a year in which all the wrong people kept winning for all the wrong reasons. From an internecine power struggle among the Tory party leading to an exit from Europe, the consequences of which no one has the faintest idea, to a brash, belligerent reality TV star being elected US president, I wake up every morning to the horrible realisation that it really wasn’t all a dream.</p>
<p>In a world where everything seems to be falling butter side down, the cosy escapism offered by the BBC in its two ratings juggernauts <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-great-british-bake-off-12314">The Great British Bake Off</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006m8dq">Strictly Come Dancing</a> is at its most welcome. One could argue that their respective focus on home baking and ballroom dancing offers more than a subliminal nod to the longing for a return to a fantasy Britain of jam, Jerusalem and military two-steps that drove the vote of many a Brexiter itching to take back control. But both shows also offer a view into another, more hopeful world – one in which winning isn’t actually everything, one where people can make fun of themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149917/original/image-20161213-1615-d7n1ld.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Finest glitter distraction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Jay Brooks</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sure, this year’s Strictly has delivered a climax that no one could argue with. The final will see the very cream of this year’s contestants compete for the Strictly trophy. Nineties pop starlet <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkiaNCTCKfs">Louise Redknapp</a> will dance it out with Hollyoaks’ heartthrob <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CABJfSW6MXE">Danny Mac</a> and TV sports presenter <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSq3Hr62-Ig">Ore Oduba</a>. All are brilliant dancers who have delivered some spectacular routines with their partners over the past 12 weeks.</p>
<p>Yet, honestly, shamefully, I’m bored with them all. I’m bored of their predictable, identikit excellence and almost professional levels of ability, and I don’t care who wins Strictly’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/strictlycomedancing/entries/7b3927d5-1a2e-4144-8428-6425c9255748">Grand Final</a>. Strictly in 2016 has for me – and going by social media, <a href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/strictly/565482/Strictly-Ed-Balls-gives-Zoolander-Blue-Steel-for-tango">many, many others</a> – been all about the wrong man. This year’s oldest, squarest male contestant, someone who traditionally would have had to have packed up his dancing shoes and got his coat by around week two, is in fact 2016’s breakout star.</p>
<p>Scourge of the judges and provider of some of the most memorably joyous performances, former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Ed Balls has owned 2016. While by the end of the series, Danny Mac and Louise Redknapp will have racked up any number of nines and tens with their sizzling sambas and elegant quicksteps, it is Ed and his partner Katya Jones’s recreation of the K Pop smash hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=9bZkp7q19f0">Gangnam Style</a> which will sit forever in the Strictly hall of fame. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Czqtjk_iGFU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Despite the judging panel’s constant refrain that Strictly is a dancing competition, Balls personifies what it is that makes the series such an engaging and absorbing experience. While the likely winners of this year were already evident from week one, who could have predicted the nimble footwork, pitch perfect comic timing and cheeky, laddish bravado that Balls would bring to his wittily ingenious routines? Before his performances, there was always a genuine buzz of anticipation. No one knew what he was about to do next. While he did not technically win the competition, leaving in week ten, Strictly 2016 was Ed Balls’s show.</p>
<p>In the light entertainment, shiny-floor show world of Strictly, sometimes we don’t always want the best man (or woman) to win. Strictly after all has always thrived on results that go against the predicted grain. In 2005 and 2006, for example, there were two thrillingly unlikely winners in the shape of cricketers <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/1sjjGdqygCZfdkfg7WWC3hZ/darren-gough">Darren Gough</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/26ggnvYXTfcVn27SL8mycFX/mark-ramprakash">Mark Ramprakash</a>. </p>
<p>First, bluff, matter-of-fact Gough transformed into an elegant, assured ballroom dancer, and then shy, self-effacing Ramprakash revealed an undiscovered talent for sultry, sexy Latin routines. While neither man was necessarily the best or most natural dancer of their respective series, the draw for the audience was the unexpected pleasure of what they achieved in a few months, set against the experienced, stage school-trained contestant who of course hits the ground running on week one.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KXb7X-4-NCA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Ed Balls’s hand-knitted, homespun amateur charms also had other rather more significant implications in a 2016 when not an only exit from Europe but also questions of British identity itself have been continually under the spotlight. Set against the angry troubled images of conflicted nationhood that the year has confronted us with, Balls, with his endearingly imperfect dancing, serves as a reminder of some of the positive qualities which have long been associated with Britishness. His popularity drew fundamentally upon his ability to laugh at himself and to take a weekly slating from the judges in good heart. </p>
<p>At the same time, in the best tradition of the gentleman amateur, he genuinely gave it his very best shot every week. And who could miss the spirited twinkle in his eye that showed he was enjoying the pop-culture joke along with everyone else? For a few minutes on Saturday nights, Balls banished 2016’s Brexit Britain gloom with a long forgotten sprinkle of 1990s Cool Britannia insouciance. What a pity that the year that took a TV star to the top of the political tree couldn’t also send a politician the other way. </p>
<p>Oh well, that was 2016 it seems.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70295/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Irwin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Strictly Come Dancing final looks to be somewhat dull – all glitter, no Balls.Mary Irwin, Senior Lecturer in Media, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/677982016-10-27T14:22:21Z2016-10-27T14:22:21ZHow to make Victoria Sponge the way Queen Victoria would have eaten it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143451/original/image-20161027-11265-nrv73r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Highly technical: the Victoria Sponge.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Love Productions/Tom Graham</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mrs Beeton would have been a disaster on Great British Bake Off. In her first published recipe – “A Good Sponge Cake” – the famed Victorian domestic goddess <a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mrs-beeton-and-the-art-of-household-management">forgot to explain how much flour was required</a>. Hardly a trifling oversight – but nothing that would have troubled Bake Off finalists, Jane, Andrew and the winner Candice, who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37786108">sailed triumphantly</a> through the final episode’s technical challenge of baking a perfect Victoria sponge without a recipe.</p>
<p>All three contestants produced tempting, golden confections filled with silky butter cream, alongside the requisite jam. The remaining challenges continued the Victorian theme – the bakers recreated Victoria’s coronation crown in meringue and filled a hamper with regal picnic treats. </p>
<h2>We have a sweet tooth</h2>
<p>The food historian <a href="https://www.headline.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781472226839">Alysa Levene</a> reports that Queen Victoria truly did enjoy a Victoria sponge, decorated with a single layer of jam, alongside other cakes and edible treats, at tea parties on the Isle of Wight. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143448/original/image-20161027-11247-1w72qdi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1182&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Household bible: Mrs Beeton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wellcome Images</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to a tell-all <a href="https://archive.org/stream/cu31924028229627#page/n329/mode/2up/search/kitchen">biography</a> of Victoria composed by “a member of the Royal household”, she was particularly fond of “chocolate sponges, plain sponges, wafers of two or three different shapes, langues de chat, biscuits and drop cakes of all kinds, tablets, petit fours, princess and rice cakes, pralines, almond sweets, and a large variety of mixed sweets”. This perhaps explains her <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/2285942/Queen-Victorias-bloomers-had-a-50-inch-waist.html">50-inch waist</a>.</p>
<p>Battenberg cake, on the other hand, which featured in the second series of Bake Off, is said to have originated as an homage to the marriage of Prince Louis of Battenburg to Queen Victoria’s granddaughter. </p>
<p>In fact, as the culinary historian <a href="http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Battenberg%20Cake">Ivan Day</a> has demonstrated, the earliest versions of that cake bore no resemblance to the checker-board design familiar to today’s Battenburg lovers. The first recipe for a “Battenburg cake” that he has discovered is a sort of fruit-cake. The first Battenburg to feature the cheerful windowpanes of different coloured batters called for nine cubes, rather than four; confusingly, a four-pane version also existed, but this was called a <a href="http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/battenburg-cake-revisited.html">Neapolitan Roll</a>. </p>
<p>Other versions were known, not surprisingly, as “<a href="http://foodhistorjottings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/battenburg-cake-history-again.html">Domino Cakes</a>” – so the connection between Queen Victoria and Battenburg cake is tenuous, it must be said.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=231&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=231&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=231&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143455/original/image-20161027-11252-fta375.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Victoria had plenty of mouths to feed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">English Heritage</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, Victoria herself is unlikely ever to have turned her hand at baking. According to the aforementioned biography, such matters were left to the team of confectioners and pastry chefs who kept her supplied with “the cakes and biscuits which, four or five times a week, follow Her Majesty to Balmoral, Osborne, or wherever else she may be staying”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/143467/original/image-20161027-11260-1io5k9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=741&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Queen Victoria’s wedding cake cost £100 in 1840.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Queen-Empress laid down something of a standard for the royal tea table at her wedding to Albert in 1840. The <a href="http://www.queenvictoria.victoriana.com/RoyalWeddings/Royal_Wedding_Cake.html">royal wedding cake</a> weighed nearly 300 pounds, had a circumference of 36 inches and was about 14 inches in depth or thickness. Ornately decorated with foot-high scale models of the happy couple and myriad dogs, doves and cherubim, the cake is reported to have cost £100 (more than £7,000 in today’s money). But clearly time and royal history has given this particular confection added value: a slice of the cake <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-37373425">sold in September 2016 for £15,000</a> at auction along with a presentation box and the Queen’s signature. For comparision the two cakes served at Kate and Will’s wedding reportedly <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-royal-wedding-what-will-it-cost/">cost the taxpayer a reported $65,000</a>. A slice of their elaborate eight-layer gateau recently <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2864698/Slice-history-Piece-William-Kate-s-royal-wedding-cake-exceeds-expectations-sells-7-500-auction.html">sold for US$7,500 (£6,000)</a> at an auction in Beverly Hills.</p>
<h2>Victoria sponge</h2>
<p>An <a href="http://www.mrsbeeton.com/29-chapter29.html">early recipe for Victoria sponge</a> appears in Mrs Beeton’s 1861 Book of Household Management, which achieved sensational and enduring success, despite Isabella Beeton’s rocky start with sponge cakes. The instructions note specifically that the resultant cakes should feed five or six people – presumably, fewer if Queen Victoria herself was among the party.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Ingredients: Four eggs; their weight in pounded sugar, butter, and flour, a quarter of a saltspoonful of salt, a layer of any kind of jam or marmalade.</p>
<p>Method: Beat the butter to a cream; dredge in the flour and pounded sugar; stir these ingredients well together and add the eggs, which should be previously thoroughly whisked. When the mixture has been well beaten for about ten minutes, butter a Yorkshire-pudding tin, pour in the batter and make it in a moderate oven for 20 minutes. Let it cool, spread one half of the cake with a layer of nice preserve, place over it the other half of the cake, press the pieces slightly together and then cut it into long finger-pieces; pile them in crossbars on a glass dish and serve.</p>
<p>Time: 20mins. Average cost: 1s, 3d. Sufficient for five or six persons. Seasonable at any time.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Proof of the pudding</h2>
<p>I tried my hand at royal bakery, using Mrs Beeton’s directions. Unlike <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/marys_victoria_sandwich_58140">modern sponge cakes</a>, her recipe employs no baking powder or other leavening agent aside from the eggs. <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RL6LAwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Baking powder</a>, invented in 1843, did not become common in cakes until some decades later. </p>
<p>I was curious as to how well Mrs Beeton’s version would rise. The batter puffed up enthusiastically, but unevenly, and an extra five minutes in the oven was not enough to prevent the cake from being what my Austrian grandmother would have called “<em>mürbig</em>”, or underbaked. No plaudits from the Bake Off judges are likely to come my way should they materialise in my Midlands kitchen. In future, I shall stick to Mary Berry.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67798/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Earle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Queen-Empress had a notoriously sweet tooth.Rebecca Earle, Professor of HIstory, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/662392016-10-04T16:11:36Z2016-10-04T16:11:36ZThe BBC helped Great British Bake Off to rise – but it doesn’t own the recipe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140188/original/image-20161003-20223-112h5m1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Great British sign off.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Years ago, a small television production company canvassed various British broadcasters with an idea for a programme called The Million Pound Bake Off. The proposal involved filming a group of amateur bakers going through elimination rounds inside a marquee.</p>
<p>For five long years, the owners of Love Productions, Anna Beattie and Richard McKerrow, found no takers. Eventually, the project was commissioned by the BBC’s documentary department, and in 2010, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/aug/18/lucy-mangan-tv-review">to mixed reviews</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013pqnm">The Great British Bake Off</a> was born. </p>
<p>Six years later and it is a national institution, <a href="http://www.digitalspy.com/tv/great-british-bake-off/news/a602261/great-british-bake-off-final-is-most-watched-non-sporting-tv-event-of-year/">has broken ratings records</a> and won a <a href="http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2013-05-13/bafta-television-awards-2013-full-list-of-winners-and-nominees">raft of awards</a>. Most recently, and most controversially, it also <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/12/bbc-loses-great-british-bake-off/">changed channels</a> – in a rumoured £75m deal. </p>
<p>A clearly disappointed BBC is entitled to claim to have played an important role in the show’s undisputed success. It took the risk of commissioning a format nobody else showed interest in, and then nurtured the idea as if it was its own intellectual property. </p>
<p>But the BBC has now lost one of its biggest shows to Channel 4. We may never know precisely what happened during protracted negotiations behind closed doors. However it seems likely the producers felt that their relationship with the public broadcaster had broken beyond repair to such an extent they felt forced to take it elsewhere.</p>
<p>Formats, as the BBC’s former head of entertainment <a href="http://www.thetvfestival.com/speaker/david-liddiment/">David Liddiment</a> <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509502585">once put it to me</a>, are “about creating moments with absolute certainty that something interesting will happen – and having the camera in the right place to capture it”. </p>
<p>In a hit-driven industry, creating formats is a priceless skill, and it is inevitable that the most successful among them will change hands for hefty sums of money. </p>
<p>But the Love Productions move is still unusual. The claim that it demonstrates the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/epic/bsy/10981740/Sky-swallows-Great-British-Bake-Off-producer.html">new power of producers is far fetched</a>. The purchasing power of broadcasters with huge commissioning budgets – and there are few of them in the UK – put them firmly in the driving seat. </p>
<p>Indeed, the BBC has been broadcasting other third party reality competitions without any problem for years, including Endemol Shine’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t1k5">Masterchef</a> and Mark Burnett Productions’ <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0071b63">The Apprentice</a> (co-produced by Talkback Thames in the UK). These large production companies know better than poking the bear, even with a long stick. Why risk damaging a long-term relationship with an important commissioner by haggling over the value of their fee? And having a format on a BBC channel is a great calling card to have at the market fairs, including the forthcoming <a href="http://www.mipcom.com/">Mipcom</a>.</p>
<p>One cannot help but feel sorry for the BBC in this saga but it knows perfectly well
that a format can be a valuable piece of intellectual property. The <a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9781509502585">corporation signed the world’s first TV format</a> contract back in 1951 for a panel game show called What’s My Line? and owns Strictly Come Dancing, one of the world’s most desirable talent competitions. </p>
<p>However, it will provide its management with a reminder about a fundamental principle of the business. The best intellectual property is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-great-british-bake-off-sell-off-is-a-sign-of-the-tv-times-65346">one you own and control</a>. The public broadcaster must now hope that its new division, BBC Studios, will deliver it. Meanwhile, BBC executives who may have called Love Productions’ bluff, now appear to have (lightly beaten) egg on their faces.</p>
<h2>The proof of the pudding</h2>
<p>As for Love Productions, the financial rewards are great but so are the risks. Will the format find its mojo on Channel 4 – especially now that Bake Off has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37355065">lost its two presenters</a> and Mary Berry, while only Paul Hollywood has opted to move channel? This raises the question of what made it so successful in the first place. Of course on-screen talent matters. Judges and presenters are the face of the format and viewers get attached to them. Mary Berry has become an icon. </p>
<p>The chemistry between the judges enhanced the appeal of the show by adding a touch of intimacy. But GBBO’s recipe is not just about baking cakes, and the ingredients to its popularity are mostly hidden behind the screen. It is the programme’s engine (or set of rules) that creates the entwining stories and the gripping narrative arc. It is its structure (most notably the weekly elimination process) that creates the drama, the twists and the compelling contrast between the star baker and those whose dreams are shattered. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/140268/original/image-20161004-20239-oue8j1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1093&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Good quality ingredients.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is also worth remembering that the best production companies are good at adapting their programme to the channel that commissioned it. A show that looks like a quintessentially BBC2 programme may equally be made to look like a quintessentially Channel 4 programme.</p>
<p>As for Channel 4, this move is a sure sign it no longer fears a privatisation,
because this acquisition doesn’t really square off with its <a href="http://www.channel4.com/media/documents/press/news/C4_Risk_Report_Singlepages_FOR_NINA.pdf">remit for innovation and risk-taking</a>. </p>
<p>Bake Off may well fit quite snugly into a Channel 4 schedule which also features Come Dine with Me and various Jamie Oliver vehicles. The channel and Love Productions will also have more freedom to exploit the show’s commercial potential.</p>
<p>But the move has already jarred with viewers, and Paul Hollywood, the one personality who has agreed to go to Channel 4, may be well advised to ask the contestants to add a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. </p>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66239/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jean Chalaby does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The programme’s move to a different channel has cooked up a storm. But that’s the reality of reality television.Jean Chalaby, Professor of Sociology, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/653462016-09-13T15:12:39Z2016-09-13T15:12:39ZThe Great British Bake Off sell off is a sign of the TV times<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137603/original/image-20160913-4983-1bwo6xr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Love Productions/Mark Bourdillon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is entirely predictable that the major British media controversy of the year so far – at least measured by the number of front page stories it has generated – is not about the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/12/bbc-charter-renewal-government-to-lay-out-major-overhaul-in-whit/">government’s squeeze on the BBC</a> or its attempt to <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/whitehall-in-combat-over-channel-4-sell-off-10338287">privatise Channel 4</a>. Nor is it about the press’ rampant <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/07/boris-johnson-peddled-absurd-eu-myths-and-our-disgraceful-press-followed-his">xenophobia</a> or the BBC’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jun/29/tvs-failure-to-properly-scrutinise-boris-johnsons-eu-claims-a-criminal-act">constipated</a>” coverage of the EU referendum. </p>
<p>No, the big media story is that Auntie has lost the rights to a show about baking, albeit one that happens to be the most popular programme on television, “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/oct/06/genius-of-great-british-bake-off">a fully fledged cultural phenomenon</a>” and a significant marker of contemporary British national identity.</p>
<p>But given that <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-great-british-bake-off-12314">The Great British Bake Off</a> is not actually disappearing off our screens but simply moving to Channel 4, an obituary is not necessary. Instead, we need an analysis of how it came to be that the BBC couldn’t afford to keep hold of its number one show. What does this tell us about the wider world of television?</p>
<h2>Being ‘distinctive’</h2>
<p>The first point to make is that the loss of Bake Off is a consequence of the government’s ongoing strategy to diminish the BBC in relation to its commercial rivals. </p>
<p>This takes both ideological and financial forms. The government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-bbc-for-the-future-a-broadcaster-of-distinction">white paper</a> earlier this year warned that the BBC’s scale was potentially undermining other players in the market. Due to this, it insisted that the BBC should not rely on populist formats, of which Strictly Come Dancing and Bake Off are the most obvious examples. Instead, it advised that the BBC ought to be more “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-demand-that-the-bbc-remain-distinctive-may-be-its-death-knell-59198">distinctive</a>” – a clear warning that it ought to focus more on programmes that commercial providers choose not to make. </p>
<p>The government also saddled the BBC with the cost of paying for free licences for the over-75s, a policy that is set to cost the corporation <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/06/bbc-pay-cost-free-tv-licences-over-75s-fee-deal">hundreds of millions of pounds every year</a>. Indeed, the last funding settlement agreed in 2015 will mean <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/08/bbc-increases-saving-target-to-800m-a-year-to-pay-for-drama-and-sport">savings</a> that amount to 23% of annual licence fee revenue. This will massively restrict the BBC’s ability to compete in the television marketplace.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137641/original/image-20160913-4955-9bafvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What will become of Mel and Sue?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Love Productions/Mark Bourdillon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The BBC reacted to this much more challenging environment by threatening redundancies in its news division, shifting BBC3 online and cutting back on some of its digital services, including <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/17/online-recipes-off-the-menu-of-slimmed-down-bbc">recipes</a> that might be of particular interest to Bake Off viewers. Given this, should it have swallowed hard and agreed to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/sep/12/bbc-loses-great-british-bake-off?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Media+briefing+2016&utm_term=190064&subid=368004&CMP=ema_546">four-fold increase</a> that Love Productions, who produce Bake Off, were demanding simply in order to keep hold of its premier show? </p>
<p>On the one hand, Bake Off is a classic example of public service broadcasting – it aims to unite the nation around a common pastime and highlights the multicultural face of Britain – and deserves its place in peak-time schedules. On the other hand, the BBC also needs to take risks and should be constantly renewing its offer and developing new ideas. In this context, throwing £25m a year at a single brand is not necessarily an imaginative use of public money.</p>
<h2>Still public?</h2>
<p>It’s certainly good news for Bake Off fans that it’s not moving behind a paywall. But given that Love Productions are 70% owned by BSkyB, this is presumably less of an ideological commitment to public service broadcasting than a commercial decision. After all, it will be more able fully to exploit its income-generating possibilities by remaining with a free-to-air broadcaster. Think of the various spin-offs that could be developed in a conjunction with a broadcaster that doesn’t face the financial inhibitions and regulatory demands placed on the BBC.</p>
<p>But wait: Bake Off has simply moved from one public service broadcaster <a href="http://www.channel4.com/info/corporate/about">to another</a>, albeit the channel that is most dependent on and comfortable with the output of indie outfits like Love Productions. Channel 4’s willingness to invest heavily in the programme reveals quite a lot about the way in which it now interprets <a href="http://annualreport.channel4.com/downloads/The-remit-and-model.pdf">its remit</a> to provide “high quality and diverse” programming and to foster innovation and creativity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/137642/original/image-20160913-4983-v7x18d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The BBC’s last group of Bake Off hopefuls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Love Productions/Mark Bourdillon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bake Off fits the bill in its celebration of multiculturalism but it’s hardly a shining example of risk taking or experimentation. So Channel 4’s move is much more of a statement about the show’s compatability with lucrative formats. It really does make <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3646052/">The Bandung File</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118273/">Brass Eye</a>, both genuinely innovative Channel 4 programmes, seem like a very long time ago. It’s also far from certain that, following its well documented over-reliance on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/jun/10/broadcasting.channel4">Big Brother</a> some ten years ago, such a heavy investment in a single title is necessarily the right way to go for Channel 4.</p>
<p>What’s happened to Bake Off epitomises the state of British television. For all the moments of inspiration and energy, our TV landscape remains obsessed with formulae and beholden to ratings. It is awash with subscription cash (from BSkyB and new entrants like Netflix and Amazon) even if public service broadcasters remain by far the biggest investors in original programming. It has a dynamic independent sector that is fantastic at developing formats with huge export potential even if that sector is increasingly dominated by US corporations who gobble up the profits. </p>
<p>Television is a cultural form that remains highly influential and popular despite the attraction of other digital platforms. But it’s also one that is overwhelmingly cautious and all too reluctant to relate to the polarised nature of UK society. Once you’ve accepted this, you’ll hardly bat an eyelid to note that Bake Off, like so many other popular British institutions, has just been sold off to a higher bidder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Des Freedman is project lead for the Inquiry into the Future of Public Service Television, chaired by Lord Puttnam, and a former chair of the Media Reform Coalition.</span></em></p>What’s happened to Bake Off epitomises the state of British television – it remains obsessed with formulae and beholden to ratings.Des Freedman, Professor of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/643282016-08-24T08:22:45Z2016-08-24T08:22:45ZThe Great British Bake Off vs the Presidential Cookie Poll: who comes up trumps?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135186/original/image-20160823-30257-11kivov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 12 contestants about to duel by sourdoughs and shortbreads in series seven of The Great British Bake Off have now been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37083631">unveiled by the BBC</a>. Given the show’s phenomenal success – some <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/08/the-great-british-bake-off-final-nadiya-jamir-hussain-gbbo">13m viewers</a> tuned in to the season finale in 2015, making it the most-watched show of the year – levels of cake-related excitement in the UK are running high. </p>
<p>But in the preamble to the new season of Bake Off, starting on August 24, you might have missed another notable piece of baking news, this time from the other side of the Atlantic. Observing an American electoral ritual inaugurated in 1992, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-2016-first-lady-cookie-contest-is-just-as-weird-as-the-rest-of-the-election/2016/08/17/2c0fb4fa-63c9-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html">voting has opened</a> in the Presidential Cookie Poll, pitting Melania Trump’s star cookies against Hillary and Bill Clinton’s chocolate chip offerings.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"766475010286489600"}"></div></p>
<p>The temptation, perhaps, is to dismiss these two competitions as mere soufflés, affording the cultural analyst no nutrition. But this would be a mistake. Just as “the purchase of a sponge cake” was a matter of profound interest <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/recipes/jane-austens-food-inspiration/">to Jane Austen</a>, so the contemporary making of baguettes, biscuits and brioches is ripe with intellectual possibilities. Nestling beneath the glaze of a pie is not only an enticing filling for immediate consumption but an array of social meanings to ponder.</p>
<p>National identities, not just competitors’ scores, are up for grabs in baking contests such as the Presidential Cookie Poll and The Great British Bake Off. One way of grasping the issues at stake is to review the troubled history of attempts to clone Bake Off for the American market.</p>
<h2>Incompatible ingredients</h2>
<p>In 2013, under the title of <a href="http://www.cbs.com/shows/american-baking-competition/">The American Baking Competition</a>, CBS attempted to re-purpose Bake Off for the US. Multiple elements of the British original were transposed, including the three-challenge format. Paul Hollywood, one of the two judges of the UK series, was also imported. But the show refused to rise. Having begun with the <a href="http://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/the-american-baking-competition-season-one-ratings-28628/">worst-rated Wednesday evening premiere in CBS’s history</a>, the series struggled for an audience, making its recommissioning inconceivable.</p>
<p>Various explanations have been offered for the show’s failure. One centres upon the naked ambition exhibited by the contestants. In the UK, an engraved cake stand is awarded to the victor of Bake Off; the winner of The American Baking Competition, meanwhile, received $250,000, plus a book contract. Unsurprisingly, then, the US competition was barbed.</p>
<p>Yet we should be cautious about distinguishing hobbyist British baking from a thoroughly capitalistic American counterpart, since to remove Bake Off itself from the realm of economics would be naïve. Not only has the show proved highly exportable to overseas markets, boosting the BBC’s entrepreneurial credentials, it also offers significant commercial opportunities to winners and runners-up. <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-great-british-bake-off-became-the-great-british-identity-battle-48851">Nadiya Hussain</a>, last year’s winner, exemplifies this most spectacularly, having earned numerous TV, magazine and newspaper deals since her victory in 2015. </p>
<p>The failure of The American Baking Competition is more attributable to queasily incompatible ingredients. Gentility was combined with abrasion, kindness with cutthroat competition. The effect was one of situating Downton Abbey in an American cityscape.</p>
<p>Comparable mistakes were made in 2015 when ABC tried to replicate Bake Off. This time Mary Berry was involved, paired with a US chef to judge <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCCsXeKkUjs">The Great Holiday Baking Show</a>. Copying of the original was even more slavish, extending to use of the same English setting. Again, however, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/30/great-holiday-baking-show-british-bake-off-abc-copy-fails?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other">viewing figures were poor</a>. The deficiency, once more, was incomplete anglicisation. The Great Holiday Baking Show also suffered from the fact that, from 2014, PBS had begun to screen Bake Off itself to American audiences, making any ersatz substitutes superfluous.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/135183/original/image-20160823-30238-1jsblay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Back in Britain …</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Baking the nation</h2>
<p>The terms in which Bake Off itself has been received in the US imply a sense of Britain as unchanging, picturesque, pleasingly quaint. Writing in The Atlantic on the Great Holiday Baking Show, Sophie Gilbert <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/the-great-holiday-baking-show/418506/">argued</a>: “baking is nostalgia, baking is home, baking is a warm, cinnamon-scented sense of security”. But while true, this is only a partial insight. Bake Off reveals that baking is many other things as well, including money.</p>
<p>Conversely, the series actually contests a nostalgic Britishness. Geographers David Bell and Gill Valentine have <a href="http://www.academia.edu/718528/World_on_a_Platter_Consuming_Geographies_and_the_Place_of_Food_in_Society">argued</a> that “the food which we think of as characterising a particular place always tells stories of movement and mixing”. These “stories” are brought to the fore in Bake Off by contestants’ recipes from multiple cuisines: Ugne’s Lithuanian honeycake in 2015, for example, or Alvin’s Filipino-inspired jelly bar. With the new series set to feature culinary influences <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37083631">from Cyprus to Ghana</a>, it can confidently be expected not to amount to The Great Brexit Bake Off.</p>
<p>But such open embrace of multiculturalism in baking is not apparent in current choices for the Presidential Cookie Poll. The Clintons adopt a conservative, even nativist stance by choosing America’s favourite cookie. And while Melania Trump’s use of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-2016-first-lady-cookie-contest-is-just-as-weird-as-the-rest-of-the-election/2016/08/17/2c0fb4fa-63c9-11e6-8b27-bb8ba39497a2_story.html">sour cream</a> hints at her Slovenian origins, she remains careful not to overstate non-US influences. </p>
<p>So the America conjured up by the cookie contest is, in fact, more traditional than the Britain of Bake Off. If the poll’s regressive gender politics have eased slightly from its initial iteration as the First Lady Cookie Bake-Off, the sense of nostalgia lingers. The Cookie Poll – along with the prevailing American response to Bake Off itself – fantasises about an older, artisanal world, failing to acknowledge that baking can also teach us about modernity and change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64328/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Baking offers some interesting insights into the state of the modern world.Andrew Dix, Lecturer in American Studies, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/503522015-12-09T14:22:54Z2015-12-09T14:22:54ZBake, sew, throw: why crafts make compelling television<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104479/original/image-20151204-29711-d059s9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sandra in The Great Pottery Throw Down.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It looks safe to say that the biggest British TV moment of 2015 will have been the final episode of The Great British Bake Off. More than <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/08/the-great-british-bake-off-final-nadiya-jamir-hussain-gbbo">13 million</a> tuned in to watch <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-great-british-bake-off-became-the-great-british-identity-battle-48851">Nadiya Hussain</a>’s tear-jerking victory speech – and she made headlines all over the world. </p>
<p>Twee and kitsch Bake Off may be, filmed as it is from a marquee in the grounds of a posh country house with bunting fluttering around the contestants, but there’s no doubt that its appeal transcends age and gender.</p>
<p>Another such show climaxed at the start of December on BBC Two, with a tad fewer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/dec/07/great-pottery-throw-down-fuels-new-interest-as-stores-report-increase-in-sales">viewers</a>. Four amateurs vied to be crowned Top Potter in The Great Pottery Throw Down, or at least make judge Keith Brymer Jones cry with joy (as he has managed at least once per episode, to the bewilderment of all). </p>
<p>Eminently watchable, the challenges in this production have included blindfolded potting, crafting spectacular porcelain chandeliers, and the hilariously innuendo-fuelled pulling of cup handles. Matthew Wilcock, a young art teacher from North Yorkshire, walked away the ultimate winner.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105067/original/image-20151209-15580-1gbgfwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matthew, crowned potter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Love Productions/Mark Bourdillon</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Spin-offs continue to multiply with abandon. We’ve already had six series of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-great-british-bake-off-became-the-great-british-identity-battle-48851">Bake Off</a>, three of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03myqj2">The Great British Sewing Bee</a>, and two of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wlw4w">The Big Allotment Challenge</a>. And next year the format turns professional, with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/dec/02/bbc-bake-off-creme-de-la-creme-pastry-chefs-tom-kerridge">Bake Off: Crème de la Crème</a> seeing teams of professional pastry chefs compete for glory. Go back to previous decades and the annual battle for the most viewers on TV was often between Coronation Street, Eastenders and Only Fools and Horses, not puff pastry and macarons. </p>
<p>We seem to be utterly compelled by shows about extremely mundane, even retro exercises such as baking, sewing and throwing pottery. And as an increasingly dematerialised, even <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7646087/The-Case-for-Working-with-Your-Hands-by-Matthew-Crawford-review.html">deskilled society</a>, this interest hints at a contradictory relationship to skilled practice and the crafts.</p>
<h2>Risking all</h2>
<p>David Pye, a skilled bowl turner and designer of industrial furniture, made a telling distinction <a href="http://labs.blogs.com/its_alive_in_the_lab/2013/01/book-review-the-nature-and-art-of-workmanship-by-david-pye.html">in 1968</a> between the “workmanship of certainty”, and the “workmanship of risk”. </p>
<p>He held the former to be increasingly prevalent in industrial society, characterised by mass production processes which leave little room for in the moment creativity and don’t demand close attention to material idiosyncracies. One iPad, after all, resembles exactly any other iPad. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Pye held the workmanship of risk – craft – to be prominent in the material production of every human society until remarkably recently. Craft involves a perenially precarious balance of judgement, skill, and technique. As Pye put it: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>An operative, applying the workmanship of certainty, cannot spoil the job. A workman using the workmanship of risk assisted by no matter what machine-tools and jigs, can do so at almost any minute. That is the essential difference. The risk is real.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast to those iPads, two hand-thrown cups, or two hand-stitched garments will never be exactly the same. And, as The Great British … series have shown us, they often fail in heart-breaking, mystifying, and gut-wrenching ways.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IdW1Y86TLog?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Given this, it’s not particularly hard to see why a series such as the Allotment Challenge has struggled for viewers. Critics claimed it was too slow-moving or, as one put it, “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11394862/Whats-wrong-with-the-Big-Allotment-Challenge.html">as exciting as watching tomatoes dry</a>”. </p>
<p>The title screen of The Great Pottery Throw Down shows the dramatic disintegration of a beautiful clay pot. Where is the scope for such drama and nail-biting tension in the realm of allotment gardening? Gardening is inherently a slower process: much is left to the vagaries of the elements, and months pass between the sowing of seeds, harvesting, and preservation. </p>
<h2>Rotten tomatoes</h2>
<p>On the other hand, anyone who has watched the Throw Down over the last six weeks will be aware just how drastically risky pottery, like baking, can be. When the pots are taken out of the oven, this cruel viewer, at least, is secretly hoping for at least one dramatic breakage. </p>
<p>Make your clay too dry and it’ll leave enormous cracks, too wet and it will collapse. Judge the speed of the potter’s wheel wrong and your clay will cave and crumple. Fail to remove air from the clay, or have too much variation in the thickness of vessel walls, and it will explode or crack when baked in 1200°C heat. Apply the wrong alchemy of powdered minerals for decoration and, after firing, you’ll be left with a dull, colourless dud. </p>
<p>A rotten tomato on the other hand is, well, a rotten tomato.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/105068/original/image-20151209-15558-xdxk6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Get ready for The Great British Bake Off Christmas Masterclass.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BBC/Love Productions/Andy Devonshire</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So what does our compulsion to watch the “workmanship of risk” in our millions tell us about crafts in contemporary society? One conclusion could be that in the hurried world of modern capitalism, microwaveable <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21443166">ready meals</a>, next-day (or soon <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2015/nov/30/jeremy-clarkson-drone-amazon-ad-top-gear">drone</a>) delivery, IKEA-equipped houses and sweatshop-produced <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22476774">high-street clothing</a>, there is still a deep-grained compulsion to appreciate timeless, artful skills. </p>
<p>But this appreciation is not wrapped up in an easily-derided romanticism, but rather speaks to the immediacy that such crafts demand – the highs, the lows, the uncertainty. If Bake Off had been filmed in the so-called “bakery” of a major supermarket chain, then there would be absolutely nothing compelling left to watch. Strive as we may for lives of convenience, at each step we are met with the irrepressible surfacing of an appreciation for the unique, the skilful, and the exquisite.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tom Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Why so many are utterly compelled by shows about extremely mundane, even retro exercises such as baking, sewing and throwing pottery.Tom Smith, PhD Candidate in Geography and Sustainable Development, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/488512015-10-08T16:38:24Z2015-10-08T16:38:24ZHow the Great British Bake Off became the great British identity battle<p>Of course Nadiya Hussain won the Great British Bake Off because she is a Muslim. For those unfamiliar with Islam, Victorian baking skills are a key element to this faith. Naturally she had an advantage.</p>
<p>Yes, bizarre as it may appear for those who have been following the show and marvelling at the precise judgement of Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry, accusations are being thrown at the programme for choosing its winner on the basis of political correctness rather than merit.</p>
<p>None of us knows if Nadiya was the best baker. After all, only a few lucky people of the BBC crew have actually tasted the bakes. She may have fashioned a peacock entirely from chocolate and produced a perfect trio of wedding cakes while her opponent forgot to actually add sugar to his final bake, but some have nevertheless suggested that the BBC wanted a Muslim to win; that the broadcaster has a hidden politically correct agenda. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/6680519/Nadiya-Hussain-could-make-1m-after-winning-Bake-Off.html">column in The Sun</a>, Ally Ross dubbed the show “full-scale ideological warfare”. He wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Turn up without a box tick to your name, some viewers reckon, and you can bake an exact replica of the Taj Mahal using shortbread fingers and meringue nests and it still won’t be enough to win this most PC of BBC shows.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Others have, on the contrary, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/08/nadiya-hussain-has-won-so-much-more-than-the-great-british-bake-off">celebrated the variety of contestants</a> battling it out over cakes and breads the past few months. The multicultural blend of bakers has been seen as the epitome of Britishness.</p>
<p>There are two competing understandings of Britishness at stake in this debate. One views the British identity as having been hijacked by a politically correct elite, which has forced multiculturalism upon an eroding Christian or secular British culture. Another sees British identity as a celebration of a kind of difference that finds no difficulty in uniting around shared values, such as the virtue of a delightfully crisp pastry. </p>
<p>In its encapsulation of so-called <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/banal-nationalism/book205032">banal nationalism</a> – the everyday things that go to make up national identity – the Great British Bake Off has become the battlefield of national identity.</p>
<p>This battle includes a regrettable fixation with identity that characterises much of British politics more generally. Who you are is more important than than what you do. Your class background matters if you are on the left; your gender matters for your views on feminism and your religious background matters for your views on terrorism. Have the wrong background combined with the wrong opinions and you will be betraying the working-class, abandoning women or simply be incomprehensible. We attach so much content to a specific identity that when someone deviates we cannot understand them. </p>
<p>The fact that we are having this debate at all is evidence of just how much is attached to a specific identity. Nadiya is also a mother of three and a student. Why are those identities not as important as her Muslim identity? Both on the left and the right, cultural and religious identity in particular has been elevated to a level at which it promises to explain everything about someone. </p>
<p>The battle of national identity is defined by the sentiment that a new kind of Britishness is being imposed from above by a corrupt elite. The BBC, as part of “the establishment”, is duping the population into accepting a multicultural Britishness that no one has chosen.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"651848782150303745"}"></div></p>
<p>Yet national identity is constantly evolving. Those longing for a time of “undiluted” Britishness are longing for an illusion. It is not uncommon for older generations to resent the culture of the new one, but culture is always changing. Immigration is one contributing factor to this change, but it is hardly the only one. Just think of the impact that smartphones have had on the way of life in modern Britain.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"652026844389212160"}"></div></p>
<p>Discussions of who we are, on Britishness, are inevitable. The Great British Bake Off has a seemingly enormous unifying effect, precisely because of its expression of an inclusive Britishness. So identity is not redundant and it may even be necessary. </p>
<p>Yet the fixation of particular kinds of identities is debilitating for Britain as a society. Focus on identity and you may miss a good argument from someone. Focus on someone being a Muslim and you may miss a pretty tasty looking chocolate peacock.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48851/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clara Sandelind is affiliated with the Swedish think tank, Migro.</span></em></p>While viewers rejoice at Nadiya Hussain’s victory, The Sun attacks the BBC for its politically correct agenda.Clara Sandelind, Lecturer, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/315372014-09-16T19:51:46Z2014-09-16T19:51:46ZHow our baking obsession began with the green movement<p>The Great British Bake Off has been attracting its <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/great-british-bake-draws-highest-4170904">highest-ever ratings</a> after a return to our screens. While many different explanations have been offered for the show’s success, the current popularity of baking – along with other domestic crafts such as growing vegetables, sewing, knitting and mending – seems to be one important factor. </p>
<p>It is often said that viewers of Bake Off are simply content to watch cake being baked, rather than doing it themselves, but the show’s reported impact on the sale of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11036508/The-Great-British-Bake-Off-boosts-Waitrose-sales.html">baking equipment and ingredients</a> tells another story.</p>
<p>The context for this revival of interest in baking and sewing is, of course, austerity. In the wake of the financial crisis, we have tightened our belts, donned our aprons, and taken on board the historical lessons of “austerity Britain” – that period during and after World War II when rationing was imposed and British citizens learned how to “dig for victory”, “make do and mend” and “win the war on the kitchen front”.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/59164/original/kyz3t38b-1410868263.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Help_Win_the_War_on_the_Kitchen_Front_Art.IWMPST20697.jpg">Imperial War Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More than five years after prime minister David Cameron warned that a Conservative government would bring about a new “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/apr/26/david-cameron-conservative-economic-policy1">age of austerity</a>”, popular media culture continues to be saturated with reference to this period. We can’t get enough of the stories of thriftiness, resourcefulness, and resilience.</p>
<p>Many commentators have been highly disparaging of this backward-looking popular austerity culture, arguing that it provides ideological backup for the coalition government’s austerity measures. Some have argued that “<a href="http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/commentary/lash-out-and-cover-up">austerity nostalgia</a>” is nothing but an opportunity to moralise about the virtues of “making do” – a morality that reinforces class distinction and difference, because of its particular appeal to the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/28/austerity-cooking-jack-monroe-hijacked-moralisers">middle classes</a>. </p>
<p>These critics make an important point. Viewed in the context of the revival of austerity Britain, the popularity of shows like Bake Off do seem to provide evidence of a general acquiescence to the strictures of economic austerity, and of our consent to a <a href="http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/class-and-contemporary-british-culture-anita-biressi/?K=9780230240568">scaling-back of our expectations and prospects</a>. </p>
<p>In romanticising wartime resilience in the face of crisis, austerity culture is arguably guilty of exploiting the “<a href="http://sociologicalimagination.org/archives/14013/">very real hardships</a>” currently experienced by many in the UK.</p>
<h2>Green austerity</h2>
<p>Yet this analysis of Bake Off and austerity nostalgia obscures an alternative and highly significant interpretation. Long before the financial crisis, environmental campaigners put a great deal of work into reinventing the concepts of “austerity” and “thrift” for green purposes. And the historical period of austerity Britain became an absolutely critical resource for this campaigning activity. </p>
<p>As far back as 2001, the writer Andrew Simms – then policy director at the think-tank the New Economics Foundation – was arguing that <a href="http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/an-environmental-war-economy">Britain’s experience in wartime</a> is highly relevant to the challenge of climate change. This intervention inspired many others, from the Green Party’s <a href="http://www.newhomefront.org/">New Home Front</a> project to the turn to “dig for victory” in the <a href="http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2014/02/19/dig-victory-micro-allotments-grow-vegetables-hoxton/">allotment movement</a>.</p>
<p>Gardening, sewing, knitting and mending are central to this <a href="http://culturalvaluesofdigging.wordpress.com/tag/eco-austerity/">eco-austerity</a> movement because they are seen as part of the “<a href="http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article3509-the-great-reskilling.html">great re-skilling</a>” necessary for transition to a post-growth economy. The revival of popular slogans from that era has given new meaning and value to these activities. You aren’t just baking a cake or knitting a jumper; you’re doing your bit.</p>
<p>The resurgence of interest in these practices – evidenced by the widely-reported phenomenon of <a href="http://www.transitiontownwestkirby.org.uk/files/ttwk_nsalg_survey_2013.pdf">waiting lists for allotments</a> – is part of a growing attentiveness to material scarcity and environmental responsibility. On Simms’s account, shows such as Bake Off, The Great British Sewing Bee, and The Big Allotment Challenge are indicative of Britain’s appetite for re-learning these skills and for a vision of a more sustainable future.</p>
<h2>Greenwashing austerity?</h2>
<p>But hang on: how does cake-baking sit within environmental politics? Given that the show appears to boost sales of non-essential commodities such as piping bags and mixing bowls, what kind of green credentials can be claimed for Bake Off and its audience? </p>
<p>Here, critics who argue that austerity culture is no longer about any environmentalism seem to gain ground. Indeed, some have claimed that the nebulous eco-austerity credentials of domestic crafts have actually served to reinforce the morality of “<a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/5790#.VBF-12SzBD4">war-style cuts in people’s choices and living standards</a>” and to <a href="http://www.socresonline.org.uk/18/4/7.html">shame</a> those who aren’t seen to be living adequately “austere” lives.</p>
<p>I don’t think we have to choose one or other interpretation of Bake Off and austerity culture. Because so many different actors have made use of the iconography of austerity Britain, it’s very hard to discern the political implications of a particular show. </p>
<p>Bake Off offers both an exemplary lesson in ideological compliance and an endorsement of “re-skilling” for a transition towards a sustainable economy. It’s an extremely contradictory vision of the future. On the one hand, austerity for transition envisions a de-growth or post-growth economy, while on the other, austerity as implemented by the government is notionally aimed at <a href="http://www.aei.org/events/2014/04/11/the-british-recovery-remarks-by-george-osborne-chancellor-of-the-exchequer/">cutting the deficit and boosting growth</a>.</p>
<p>And even as the UK does <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/apr/29/uk-economic-growth-gdp">return to economic growth</a>, the echo of eco-austerity should still remind us that the challenges of global warming and climate change have not gone away. Austerity culture may yet provide us with important critical resources to imagine and to develop just and sustainable economic and environmental futures.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31537/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Bramall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Great British Bake Off has been attracting its highest-ever ratings after a return to our screens. While many different explanations have been offered for the show’s success, the current popularity…Rebecca Bramall, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/267882014-05-19T14:51:35Z2014-05-19T14:51:35ZBritish TV excels, but it hasn’t changed since the 60s<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/48892/original/28qnfkxf-1400503690.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The IT Crowd, the latest example of the British interest in failure and embarrassment.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel 4</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although awards shows are all about the excitement of the moment – that’s why they’re live – this year’s Bafta television crop is more about continuity than revolution. There was mild controversy because ITV outperformed BBC, winning three awards for the drama serial <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/may/18/broadchurch-bafta-television-awards">Broadchurch</a>. Like Channel 4’s <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/southcliffe">Southcliff</a>, Broadchurch used a conventional murder investigation form to delve deeply into character and the making and breaking of a small-town community.</p>
<p>But it wasn’t especially radical. Looking at the awards more generally, the nominees all perpetuate a specifically British heritage. There are the short-form or one-off television dramas, the writer-led comedies that rework the traditional sitcom, and entertainment that showcases our national expertise in devising factual formats. While excellent imports like Nordic noir may rise and fall, British TV continues to excel in these categories.</p>
<p>Britain leads the world in devising hybrids of documentary, competition and light entertainment. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302163/">Pop Idol</a> followed aspirant amateur singers, cooks compete in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006t1k5">MasterChef</a>, and celebrities learn a new discipline in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006m8dq">Strictly Come Dancing</a>. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013pqnm">The Great British Bake-off</a> was nominated in both the Features category and the Radio Times Audience Award. It has been running since 2010 and won a Bafta last year. It was beaten this time by <a href="https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/long-lost-family">Long Lost Family</a>, but for me Bake-off is the best recent docu-gameshow-entertainment hybrid.</p>
<p>Each episode follows the minor challenges posed by making pre-rehearsed dishes, without hysteria. What matters is “an even bake” rather than a prize. Shot in the kind of marquee used for village fetes, and set in the grounds of a historic house, the Bake-off is nostalgic in that it wants us to admire craft and skill, rather than cunning. </p>
<p>To be sure, it is middle-class and middle-brow, but as <a href="http://cstonline.tv/great-british-bake-off">Sarah Cardwell</a> has shown, its brilliance is in its tone. Knowing self-deprecation embodied by presenters Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins combines with pride in expertise and draws on a heritage of cooking shows personified by resident expert <a href="http://www.maryberry.co.uk/about-mary-berry">Mary Berry</a>. </p>
<p>Berry was cookery editor for Housewife magazine in the 1960s and her career as a TV cook started on ITV’s Afternoon Plus a few years later. The Bake-off’s ingredients produce a glow of satisfaction that is made for sharing. It reminds us that television, unlike browsing YouTube on your laptop, works best as a collective pleasure.</p>
<p>We can say something similar about an ostensibly very different show: the sitcom <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-it-crowd">The IT Crowd</a>, which took home two prizes, leading after Broadchurch. Its writer Graham Linehan refused to follow the trend in the last decade for “opened out” location-shot comedy. Instead, he set the show almost wholly in the basement office of its three main characters. </p>
<p>This method of “theatrical” shooting in a three-walled set, open on one side to a live studio audience, is also used in the hit sitcom <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00w7dv9">Miranda</a> and harks back to the “golden age” of 1960s British sitcom. Narratives are driven by dialogue and not physical action, characters are spatially constrained and emotionally trapped. Viewers are invited to join in with the studio audience laughing on the as-live soundtrack. The nerdy protagonists Moss (Richard Ayoade) and Roy (Chris O'Dowd), with their useless boss the “Relationship Manager” Jen (Katherine Parkinson) might be recognisable as stereotyped Microserfs from almost anywhere. But making comedy out of the bleak nihilism and dogged persistence they display is very specific to British sitcom’s heritage of interest in failure and embarrassment. </p>
<p>Samuel Beckett’s 1958 novel The Unnameable ends: “You must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.” It is this sentiment which is peculiarly British. <a href="http://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/tv/dads_army/">Dad’s Army</a>’s protagonists, and Harold in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/steptoeandson/">Steptoe and Son</a> used this in front of their live audiences 45 years ago. Both <a href="http://www.quotenmeter.de/n/24747/schluss-mit-lustig-sat-1-wirft-das-iteam-raus">German</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/07/05/american-it-crowd-pilot-leaked-online-video_n_1651731.html">US</a> adaptations of The IT Crowd have failed, but this year Ayoade and Parkinson won the Baftas for Male Performance and Female Performance in a Comedy respectively. </p>
<p>But the biggest strength of British television is probably in drama. We more or less invented television drama, initially restaging theatre for the cameras and then developing new, original forms like the social-realist <a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/438481/">Cathy Come Home</a> in 1966 and the experimental Modernism of <a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/480113/">Pennies from Heaven</a> in 1978. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/454592/">Doctor Who</a> was a triumph of that Golden Age. Its beginnings in 1963 were dramatised last year in <a href="https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/An_Adventure_in_Space_and_Time_(TV_story)">An Adventure in Space and Time</a>, a nominee for the Radio Times Audience Award. The award in the end went to the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01l1z04">The Day of the Doctor</a>, whose storyline careered back and forth across the Doctor’s centuries-long existence. This was not only a showcase of Doctor Who, but also of the BBC’s international brand. The Day of the Doctor was the <a href="http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2013/11/doctor-who-day-of-the-doctor-sets-world-record-for-biggest-tv-drama-simulcast-53133/">world’s largest ever simulcast</a> of a TV drama: it was screened at the same time on TV or in cinemas in 94 countries.</p>
<p>These strengths are all summed up by the Bafta Special Award, which went to <a href="http://www.bafta.org/television/awards/cilla-black-bafta-special-award-in-2014,4219,BA.html">Cilla Black</a>, who first appeared on TV in 1968 in her own star vehicle, Cilla. Here we have a reminder that the 60s were not just a time when Britain had the best pop music, best fashion and (briefly) the best football team in the world, but also the best television. And the 2014 Baftas remind us that the legacy of that period still drives and shapes the creative values and shared pleasures of today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26788/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Bignell receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council to lead a research project titled 'Spaces of Television: Production, Site and Style', studying the relationships between the production technologies and the aesthetics of British TV drama from the 1950s to the 1990s.</span></em></p>Although awards shows are all about the excitement of the moment – that’s why they’re live – this year’s Bafta television crop is more about continuity than revolution. There was mild controversy because…Jonathan Bignell, Professor of Television and Film, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.