Tudor week is retro food with a point
The millennial vogue for vintage had its Woodstock this week, as contestants were forced to recreate deeply unlovely historical dishes no one had ever heard of. Hard marzipan, biscuits with caraway, 500-year-old pies with bits of pigeon in. Foods from a time before refrigerators and forks, when the water was undrinkable, spices unaffordable and vegetables often unavailable. Why? What lessons could possibly be salvaged from such a depressing, unequal society in which masses subsisted on pottage while the privileged few ate meat with their bare hands? Oh I see. Well played, Comrade Bake Off.
Andrew wants to be Selasi
One-way glances between Selasi and Andrew this week, aka the Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney of GBBO. It makes sense that the blushing, obsessive engineer is fascinated by the chuckling zen banker who rides a motorbike. “I’m gonna take the Selasi approach,” the wan one decided, revealing far more than the best way to use a mortar. Like all first crushes, it’s futile. For the marzipan challenge, he bought a toy horse, casting a mould from it for extra detail. Selasi never even attempted to make marzipan before doing it on TV. Sorry Andrew, but anyone who cooks with a geometry kit is definitely set square.
Paul Hollywood is technically challenging the form itself
Like a sadistic and whimsical king, Paul Hollywood’s technical challenges continue their slide into the esoteric; they are now nothing more than the mystifying filling in a WTF sandwich. After the Google Translate provocations of marjolaine and dampfnudeln, this week’s task was the jumble – an intricate caraway biscuit from 1490. Contestants were stumped on how to knot their dough, as well as what colour, texture or flavour to aim for. What was achieved, apart from a random sample of pure guesswork? He may as well have asked them to sketch a platypus’ dreams. Next week: a graven image of the Lord in soufflé.
Marzipan is anything but sweet
Marzipan is a kitsch phenomenon, usually shaped into pointlessly small pretend apples and oranges. Yet the sugar-coated confection was the perfect medium to expose the competitive lust under the matey smiles and thumbs ups of these quarter finalists. Candice created a peacock – possibly called Jane, we can’t say – with a heart that bled blueberries when you cut it. Selasi recreated the battle of Bosworth Field where Richard III was killed. Meanwhile Andrew, in the spirit of “go hard or go home” made a tableau of caramel knights jousting with their cocks. How d’ya like those apples? (“A bit clumsy” – Mary Berry.)
Guys, take a look in the mirror
Gotta love Selasi, right? He’s Joker, Loki, Buddha and Homer Simpson rolled into one. His appeal was apparent the moment he declared that his marchpane crown-within-a-crown was going to be “so bling” seconds before it wilted in bits off his spatula. The eviction of Benjamina, overall the better baker, was cruel and revealing: the initial relief brought home how much the nation was prepared to sacrifice for its fix. David Attenborough or Beyoncé might stand a chance – anyone else, straight under the bus. On TV, the cult of personality trumps all. Which is bad news for a certain US election.
