S13.E04: Mexican Week

[khyber]

On 10/7/2022 at 6:23 AM, Ms Lark said:

At least they tried to pronounce "tacos" properly instead of "take-os" or "tack-os."  Paul slipped a bit there a few times, though.

Conchas. I never met a concha that wasn't drier than the desert. Not a fan. Good idea to put fillings inside.

Our Scottish friend says "tack-os".

Re: Conchas, tried a few over the years and they were always on the tasteless side. You think they will be sweet, but no.

[cynicat]

1 hour ago, Adiba said:

Maybe Paul just wanted to show off his taco recipe and have something to eat for lunch.

I saw this while googling Diana Kennedy's cookbook:

Paul Eats Mexico!

[dgpolo]

9 minutes ago, cynicat said:

2 hours ago, Adiba said:

Maybe Paul just wanted to show off his taco recipe and have something to eat for lunch.

I saw this while googling Diana Kennedy's cookbook:

Paul Eats Mexico!

I guess we just have to figure out what his next book is and then we'll know what 'ethnic week' will be on next.

[J-Man]

I'm sure Janusz is hoping for Polish Week.

[MagicEyes]

On 10/7/2022 at 9:23 AM, Ms Lark said:

I figured he learned all about Mexican pastries/baking from Marcela. 😉 Although, he did say he just got back from Mexico...

I wonder if she’s really embarrassed by this whole thing. They must not have talked much about Mexican food.

This episode was as bad as I thought it was going to be. Someone who claims to know a lot about food (yes, you, Paul Hollywood!) should know a little bit more about Mexican food than this. My local coffee shop manages to come up with at least six different kinds of Mexican baked goods for their pastry case every day, so Paul has absolutely no excuse. Flan would have been an excellent challenge. It is similar to some challenges they’ve done in the past, but I think they were one-serving sizes, and they could do a full-size flan, which has different baking challenges. At least it does involve some baking. 

If anyone is interested in the recipe for corn tortillas, it’s on the website— https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/paul-hollywood-spicy-beef-tacos/

It looks weird to me, but I am not a tortilla expert. 

[dgpolo]

1 hour ago, J-Man said:

I'm sure Janusz is hoping for Polish Week.

German Week didn't help Jurgen.

[Aulty]

5 hours ago, Shorty186 said:

For some reason it really bothered me that neither Paul/Prue commented on everyone's refried beans being wrong. I would guess because they didn't realize it themselves. And yeah, why give them black beans? 

Do I remember correctly that the instructions only said 'make the refried beans', 'make the picco' etc. Do they expect the contestants to be familiar with every possible dish in international week?

As for the missing taco press, my first choice would have been a rolling pin. Or maybe that's a chance to finally put those odious trouser presses of yesteryear to good use 😅

[dleighg]

1 hour ago, MagicEyes said:

If anyone is interested in the recipe for corn tortillas, it’s on the website— https://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/recipes/all/paul-hollywood-spicy-beef-tacos/

clearly that's not the recipe they used with all the hours of soaking. i wonder what they were provided with? I didn't see anyone carefully getting the "skins" off the kernels.

And what exactly is "field corn"? Is that the dried stuff we feed to animals?

[JoyousSpring]

She's gone now,  but can someone please explain what's been done to Reb's eyebrows? Is that what microblading looks like or are they tattooed on? 

[dleighg]

22 minutes ago, JoyousSpring said:

She's gone now,  but can someone please explain what's been done to Reb's eyebrows? Is that what microblading looks like or are they tattooed on

oh thanks for mentioning that. I was constantly staring and thinking "wth did she do with her eyebrows????" Of course mine are au natural so what do I know. But plenty of women who have groomed eyebrows don't look .... weird. 

[loki310]

This was a great episode as it reminded me how instrumental Mexican cooking is to my identity as a native Los Angeleno. It seems as though a lot of Americans feel similarly outraged. Haha

I’m just happy that I was raised and live in a city that has benefited so much from such a rich and tasty culinary heritage. Mexican food feels more like home cooking to me than some American food. #tacotrucksoneverycorner ❤️

[caitmcg]

2 hours ago, dleighg said:

clearly that's not the recipe they used with all the hours of soaking. i wonder what they were provided with? I didn't see anyone carefully getting the "skins" off the kernels.

And what exactly is "field corn"? Is that the dried stuff we feed to animals?

Field corn as opposed to sweet corn (which in the US, we tend to just call corn, but in the UK is referred to as sweet corn, as Syabira and the judges did this episode). Dried corn is not just used to feed animals, it’s also used to make cornmeal, polenta, etc.

The process of soaking and cooking the dried corn  with calcium hydroxide (nixtamalization, which drives niacin into the grain),  then peeling, is how fresh masa is made. I imagine they were given the corn post-peeling and grinding it up is what they had the food processors for. It’s a bit odd to me that Paul adds some masa harina, since usually people use masa harina when they don’t have access to fresh, prepared masa or want to go through the labor-intensive process of making it from scratch.

[Pj3422]

58 minutes ago, loki310 said:

This was a great episode as it reminded me how instrumental Mexican cooking is to my identity as a native Los Angeleno. It seems as though a lot of Americans feel similarly outraged. Haha

I’m just happy that I was raised and live in a city that has benefited so much from such a rich and tasty culinary heritage. Mexican food feels more like home cooking to me than some American food. #tacotrucksoneverycorner ❤️

Yeah, I’m in San Antonio. As you can imagine, I’ve been in the fetal position, whimpering softly, for the last 24 hours. 

[Quilt Fairy]

4 hours ago, Aulty said:

Do I remember correctly that the instructions only said 'make the refried beans', 'make the picco' etc. Do they expect the contestants to be familiar with every possible dish in international week?

Exactly!  The Technical is supposed to test their knowledge of baking technique.

I thought most of the Showstoppers looked extremely sad, to the point where I was telling the TV that "this doesn't seem to be a very good batch of bakers."  Probably the most uninteresting episode of GBBO I've ever watched. 

[Constant Viewer]

On 10/7/2022 at 8:23 AM, Ms Lark said:

They could have made marranitos (ginger pigs)! Those are the best.

A thousand times this. They should have done sopapillas as well as another poster said.

[Ms.Lulu]

14 minutes ago, Constant Viewer said:

A thousand times this. They should have done sopapillas as well as another poster said.

I would have loved flans, or even churros with dipping sauces. Or bunuelos. They could have done so many things other than tacos. (And I could eat carnitas tacos every darn day.)

[Cetacean]

7 minutes ago, Ms.Lulu said:

churros with dipping sauces

As I recall they did this as a technical in the past.  But it wasn't a themed show.

But, again, I don't think of frying something in oil as baking. I guess my scope is limited!

[irisheyes]

1 hour ago, Cetacean said:

As I recall they did this as a technical in the past.  But it wasn't a themed show.

But, again, I don't think of frying something in oil as baking. I guess my scope is limited!

They did churros as a showstopper in the season Candice won. (My daughter and I are rewatching it on Roku.  Selasi is still adorable. 😀)

[kittykat]

1 hour ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Exactly!  The Technical is supposed to test their knowledge of baking technique.

I thought most of the Showstoppers looked extremely sad, to the point where I was telling the TV that "this doesn't seem to be a very good batch of bakers."  Probably the most uninteresting episode of GBBO I've ever watched. 

I keep comparing it to last season which was awesome.  As Paul said there's five good bakers with three who need to step it up (Carole, Abdul and Dawn presumably).  Even the top four of Janusz, Maxy, Syabira and Sandro aren't on the level of Jurgen, Crystelle, Giuseppe and Chigs in my opinion.  I haven't connected with anyone the way I did last season.  And this week's mess didn't help.

And yes they did churros in Batter week in season 7.

[MisterGlass]

I was absolutely certain when they announced Mexican week that the technical would be flan.  A different spin on the technical could have been to have them do a variety of corn dough products - tortillas, tortilla chips, gorditas, sopes, hard taco or tostada shells, or tamales.

Just going to leave a refried beans recipe here because that part threw me.

[Mediocre Gatsby]

11 hours ago, Adiba said:

Tres leches cakes should not be tiered— I think that’s why many of the bakers’ cakes were not soaked through so that they wouldn’t collapse.
 

But then there wouldn't be the "drama" of too-dry cakes or collapsing cakes. If the show was choosing something from another country, why not make it the way it was supposed to be made?

It's like when they made "American pies," but they couldn't have top crusts and then Paul said American pies are too sweet. He bugs the crap out of me. What I wouldn't give for the old days of Mary and Sue and Mel. 

[Ms Lark]

20 hours ago, cynicat said:

I saw this while googling Diana Kennedy's cookbook:

Paul Eats Mexico!

Chinga! <--v. bad word.

[iMonrey]

Quote

Do I remember correctly that the instructions only said 'make the refried beans', 'make the picco' etc. 

The refried beans requirement was especially egregious because there is zero expectation that a baker would have ever made those. But at least for the pico de gallo they were given what ingredients it was made of.

I thought the "recipe" was interesting, regardless. Steak, refried beans, guacamole and salsa. No cheese? Blasphemy!

[ozziemom]

The 7-11 store around the corner has more Mexican pastries and baked goods than the show, and I’m in SW Florida! 

[dleighg]

45 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

No cheese? Blasphemy!

there was a bit of cheese (cotija I think).

[Omeletsmom]

15 hours ago, irisheyes said:

They did churros as a showstopper in the season Candice won. (My daughter and I are rewatching it on Roku.  Selasi is still adorable. 😀)

And it drove me nuts because they kept using "churros" to refer to ONE CHURRO!

[WildPlum]

Last week on my news feeds I saw a couple refs to the jokes at the beginning of the "Mexican" episode. But, at the time,  I was in the middle of watching last season and the horrible jokes at the beginning of that season's "German" episode. I just roll my eyes and think "infantile Noel and Matt humor". I've gotten used to Noel, I suppose, but I can't stand Matt Lucas. I should just FF over the intro segments, just the way I do the overly dramatic "and the baker who is leaving us this week ....   is ..... (camera pan) ...... (camera pan) ......."

As far as "authenticity", there are plenty of people in the US who think that Taco Bell is authentic Mexican food, so I wouldn't be too quick to point fingers at the British.

Although since I stopped eating sugar and carbs because of adult onset diabetes, I'm not as fond of this show - but my daughter-in-law loves it, so we binged 3 seasons while on vacation.

[Rickster]

4 hours ago, ozziemom said:

The 7-11 store around the corner has more Mexican pastries and baked goods than the show, and I’m in SW Florida! 

I’d be willing to bet there are more Mexican bakeries in SW Florida than in the whole of the UK, which is the problem with weeks like this. The bakers have no frame of reference to work from. Just because there may be some tacos and fajitas in the UK does not mean there are a lot of Mexican baked goods.

Other than the technical, which was just ridiculous, I didn’t think the other rounds  were that terrible, compared to some other weeks.

[MerBearHou]

Just found time to watch this episode.  First, not sorry to see Rebs go and golly, she sure took it hard.  James must have been disappointed too, but wow, he is incredibly good-natured.  I really wanted  Carol to be the one to leave the tent — for someone baking / cooking, her hair is a real problem to me.  Loved Paul signaling with his smiley-eyes to Dawn that her Showstopper was THAT GOOD.  As a Texan, I cringed over the mispronunciations that are just second-nature to me, but I just kind of rolled my eyes.  What really did bug me is calling a Tres Leches cake “Tres Leche” without the S (looking at you, Noel).   That cake is my son and husband’s very favorite and I’ve never seen it as a layer cake.  

Edited October 10, 2022 by MerBearHou

[SuprSuprElevated]

On 10/8/2022 at 5:58 AM, Jane Tuesday said:

Rodeeeoh, not rodayoh, for example.

We get that right when it comes to high-end shopping venues though.  Give us some credit.

[SuprSuprElevated]

10 hours ago, ozziemom said:

The 7-11 store around the corner has more Mexican pastries and baked goods than the show, and I’m in SW Florida! 

Hope you weren't terribly harmed by Ian.

[sharifa70]

14 minutes ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

We get that right when it comes to high-end shopping venues though.  Give us some credit.

Not to mention we pronounce it “Rio Grand” but somehow manage to say “Grahnday” when it’s a Starbucks beverage or an Ariana.

[SuprSuprElevated]

1 minute ago, sharifa70 said:

Not to mention we pronounce it “Rio Grand” but somehow manage to say “Grahnday” when it’s a Starbucks beverage or an Ariana.

We are a funny lot aren't we?  lol  

[janie jones]

On 10/5/2022 at 11:10 AM, Lois Sandborne said:

I have had very tasty corn custard and sweet corn ice cream (I'm currently living in the Midwest), so I was on board with Syabira's corn cake. I'm not sure it was as bad as they said.

I thought it sounded good. I think she should have used creamed corn or pureed her corn, though. I'm not exactly sure how well the cinnamon would go with the corn, though.

On 10/7/2022 at 9:54 PM, SemiCharmedLife said:

I enjoyed this episode, though I would have rather seen only 1 baker leave the tent this week.  I wish James would have stayed to bake again. 

I thought the two who went deserved to go, and I expected two people to go in this episode, but it would have made things more interesting later, if they had saved the extra elimination for some other week when two people messed up badly.

On 10/8/2022 at 8:48 AM, Adiba said:

Was it the angle of the shot, or did Syabira’s tortillas look a little too burnt? I know tortillas have some color on them, and I don’t mind a few charred spots, but hers looked overdone to me.

Yeah, I think Paul said something about it.

On 10/8/2022 at 1:19 PM, Aulty said:

As for the missing taco press, my first choice would have been a rolling pin. Or maybe that's a chance to finally put those odious trouser presses of yesteryear to good use 😅

Before I watched this episode, I saw a video Pati Jinich posted showing how to make flour tortillas, and she used a rolling pin. I wondered why the bakers couldn't use one. Did they have to use the lids, I wonder? I remember once when I was a kid I was standing outside a Mexican restaurant (in Seattle) and I was mesmerized watching this old lady making tortillas. She grabbed a random hunk of dough and mushed them two or three times with the fingers of one hand against the palm of the other and they came out uniform. Not that I think the bakers would have been able to accomplish this, not having made thousands of tortillas in their lives, but I don't see why they couldn't have flattened them however they wanted.

On 10/8/2022 at 3:15 PM, JoyousSpring said:

She's gone now,  but can someone please explain what's been done to Reb's eyebrows? Is that what microblading looks like or are they tattooed on? 

I'm not a makeup expert, but I think it's two things. She's not allowing the color to fade a bit when she draws the inward ends (makeup experts I've seen tell you not to go with the full color all the way to the end, to mimic the way actual eyebrows usually thin toward the inner ends). And she's drawing them too close together. It looks like it's past where her actual eyebrows end, too, so it's not like she's following naturally close brows. I think that that also exaggerates how harsh the inner edges are. It ends up making them look unnatural. I was noticing in this episode that they look like doll eyebrows and I couldn't look away from them. They seem really precise, though, and I don't claim to be able to do any better!

9 hours ago, Omeletsmom said:

And it drove me nuts because they kept using "churros" to refer to ONE CHURRO!

I'll never forget that. I think of it sometimes when I eat churros.

I agree with others who said flan would have been a good technical. It's something most of them have likely never made, but they've all probably made custard, so at least they'd be able to draw on technical knowledge.

[caitmcg]

1 hour ago, janie jones said:

Before I watched this episode, I saw a video Pati Jinich posted showing how to make flour tortillas, and she used a rolling pin. I wondered why the bakers couldn't use one. 

Flour tortillas are made from an elastic dough that contains fat, as well as gluten from the wheat flour, so they can be easily rolled out. With just masa and water, no fat or gluten, corn tortilla dough doesn’t roll well, vs. the even pressure of pressing. Plus, in the context of the show, I think they’re limited in the technicals to whatever equipment is left at their stations.

Luckily, here in the real world, a cast-aluminum tortilla press is an inexpensive investment. 

Edited October 10, 2022 by caitmcg

[Ms Lark]

Due to my and others' postings about this episode, I realized that my avatar has been wearing a sombrero for many years. Even though I grew up on the SW border, I'm just as guilty as Noel and Matt of cultural appropriation and have changed my avatar to a more appropriate look. I apologize to all for my thoughtlessness. 😔

Edited October 10, 2022 by Ms Lark

[Rickster]

10 hours ago, MerBearHou said:

  What really did bug me is calling a Tres Leches cake “Tres Leche” without the S (looking at you, Noel).   That cake is my son and husband’s very favorite and I’ve never seen it as a layer cake.  

Where I live in the Northeast, near a large Hispanic but not Mexican community (mainly Central and South American), bakery Tres Leches cakes are always two layers, usually with a fruit filling between the layers. Which is why I didn't find the showstoppers that odd (although some of the flavors were).

Edited October 10, 2022 by Rickster

[jpgr]

13 hours ago, MerBearHou said:

First, not sorry to see Rebs go and golly, she sure took it hard. 

Oh my gosh, the drama! 

[Kiddvideo]

13 hours ago, Ms Lark said:

Due to my and others' postings about this episode, I realized that my avatar has been wearing a sombrero for many years. Even though I grew up on the SW border, I'm just as guilty as Noel and Matt of cultural appropriation and have changed my avatar to a more appropriate look. I apologize to all for my thoughtlessness. 😔

My 2¢: You can celebrate a culture without accusing yourself of appropriating it. Noel and Matt weren’t being respectful, but then how often are the openings?

[Mediocre Gatsby]

On 10/9/2022 at 1:53 PM, WildPlum said:

Although since I stopped eating sugar and carbs because of adult onset diabetes, I'm not as fond of this show - but my daughter-in-law loves it, so we binged 3 seasons while on vacation.

You're a good mother-in-law! 

[Ilovepie]

On 10/9/2022 at 9:41 AM, ozziemom said:

The 7-11 store around the corner has more Mexican pastries and baked goods than the show, and I’m in SW Florida! 

Same! I live in Central California - I can literally walk out my office and get taco trucks, mexican bakeries and a whole grocery store within a couple blocks. I was appalled by the mangling of the language and the cringey mocking of the culture. Enough. Not funny. AT ALL.

And what the actual fuck does tacos have to do with a baking show? There is literally ZERO baking involved there. Maybe the dumbest technical, and that is saying something. But hey - at least it gave us the absurdity of Carole saying GUACYMOLO. Holy hell.

[jabRI]

Agree about the technical, that's not baking.  Agree with earlier poster about empandas, they've had hand held meat pies in the competition before.   I love empanadas, but can't make them to save myself.  Can't get my dough right.

[ozziemom]

On 10/9/2022 at 10:46 PM, SuprSuprElevated said:

Hope you weren't terribly harmed by Ian.

We were actually in the UK when Ian struck so we missed the heavy rain and winds. Minimal damage to our house but a lot of trees came down all around us. It’s still a mess but we were lucky, just south of us people lost everything.

[HurricaneVal]

I have personally experienced the dearth of Mexican eateries in the UK.  A while back, my work had a long term project going on with a UK company, so we sent a relay of engineers out to Nottingham to work that project, with a day or two overlap between the outgoing and incoming engineer.  On my first night in town, the outgoing engineer took me on a walking tour around the hotel and pointed out all the pubs and restaurants I might enjoy, but then begged me for an indulgence and asked if we could eat at the TGIFridays around the corner because he had a craving for Mexican food and they had chimichangas on the menu.  I rolled my eyes and silently ridiculed him for his pedestrian tastes.  Chimichangas are not an authentic Mexican dish, but as Mexican adjacent, they fulfilled his craving, and he consumed them with great joy.

Fast forward two weeks, and I'm the outgoing engineer and.....you guessed it.....I begged the incoming engineer's indulgence and asked if we could eat at TGIFridays because after two weeks of no Mexican food at all, anywhere, my body was in withdrawal and those inauthentic chimichangas loomed large in my imagination. I will tell you that is probably the first and last time in my life a horrible chimichanga from TGIFridays tasted like ambrosia.

Here in the US PacNW, we have a lot of great and authentic Mexican food.  My rural town, because it is a ranching/dairy/agricultural area, has a lot of migrant workers to support that industry, and as a result we have some amazing Mexican food available to us.  I could not conceive of anyplace that does not have several taquerias and other Mexican restaurants until I went to the UK.  I returned to the UK several years later for a different project, but the lack of Mexican restaurants remained.  I think it is a bit of a blind spot for the UK food scene.  I could find traditional English food at pubs and other restaurants, American steakhouses, French, Italian, Greek, Ethiopian, Japanese, Chinese, and OMG the Indian ethnic restaurants, but no Mexican. 

I fear Mexican week was too far a reach for GBBO.  A rare swing and a miss!

[PrincessPurrsALot]

On 10/9/2022 at 9:32 AM, iMonrey said:

The refried beans requirement was especially egregious because there is zero expectation that a baker would have ever made those. But at least for the pico de gallo they were given what ingredients it was made of.

I thought the "recipe" was interesting, regardless. Steak, refried beans, guacamole and salsa. No cheese? Blasphemy!

In the refried beans recipe, one of the bakers stated that they were told to mash approximately half the beans and leave the other half whole.  They were provided a potato masher. They weren't really given enough time to cook them down to the consistency most of us would expect. Also, I would have expected pinto beans, not black beans.  The show used black beans before when they had the bakers make burger baps and veggie burgers.  I personally do not like beans, so everytime they showed them, I gagged. 

For the tortillas, they were told to use the pyrex lid to press the dough.  So the instructions were more than just "make the . . . " for those two items.  I think the steak and pico de gallo lacked further instructions. 

[Deskisamess]

On 10/8/2022 at 6:15 PM, JoyousSpring said:

She's gone now,  but can someone please explain what's been done to Reb's eyebrows? Is that what microblading looks like or are they tattooed on? 

I'm not positive, but they look like tattooed brows. A family member of mine has them, I'm not a fan. Reb's looked uneven, too close together, and not natural at all. My brows are thin, and shall remain so. I fill them in a bit when getting dressed up, but not enough to be glaringly obvious.

[Xantar]

We can all disagree on whether the jokes are offensive or whether it’s problematic for people to mispronounce words.

But the main problem here is that the contestants were all given Mexican things to make and then they were judged by people who know nothing about Mexican food. Where does Paul get off telling someone that their multi-tiered tres leches cake (which is never supposed to be tiered) has too much leakage? How does he know what pan dulce is supposed to taste like?

And while we can all disagree about how offensive mispronounced words are, can we at least agree that the actual judge — you know the person who is supposed to have expertise and knowledge such that he has a basis to decide who wins and loses — should understand that double L in Spanish is pronounced like Y. If Paul can’t be arsed to say pico de gallo, then the right thing to do is bring in a guest judge from Mexico. 

[janie jones]

Well, you know, he "just came back from Mexico."

[jabRI]

And since this was a showstopper and they could research/practice, why did they feel chili was a necessary ingredient? it's like saying all italian dishes need tomatoes, or all asian dishes need soy sauce.

[Adiba]

18 hours ago, Xantar said:

We can all disagree on whether the jokes are offensive or whether it’s problematic for people to mispronounce words.

But the main problem here is that the contestants were all given Mexican things to make and then they were judged by people who know nothing about Mexican food. Where does Paul get off telling someone that their multi-tiered tres leches cake (which is never supposed to be tiered) has too much leakage? How does he know what pan dulce is supposed to taste like?

And while we can all disagree about how offensive mispronounced words are, can we at least agree that the actual judge — you know the person who is supposed to have expertise and knowledge such that he has a basis to decide who wins and loses — should understand that double L in Spanish is pronounced like Y. If Paul can’t be arsed to say pico de gallo, then the right thing to do is bring in a guest judge from Mexico. 

I agree that it would be better to bring in a guest judge— every week, that is. Paul’s say has entirely too much weight now, imo. Mary Berry used to stand up to him more than Prue does, although she has gotten stronger in her opinions in recent seasons.