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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   2070 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 15, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I wrapped up the latest season of the Great British Baking Show (/GBBO) this week and had some thoughts. In aggregate, the show isn’t remarkably different this season than others. The same tropes apply – the cohort all likes each other and thinks of themselves as a “family”, there’s an outro detailing post-show hangouts, etc.

After watching all the seasons on Netflix, I’ve become adept at picking up a couple of archetypes that appear each time. A combination of gender, age, and general appearance can get you far in guessing how far someone will make it throughout the show (though adding data from the first episode vastly increases accuracy). There are older folks who are just too tired, too shaky in the hands, too stuck in their ways to compete. The younger bakers that get too emotional or aggressive (in terms of ambition) fall by the wayside.

There was light CW fodder. The new host was a black woman, and a deaf participant required the use of a sign language interpreter during their tenure. We’ve discussed GBBO and the CW before – I have to say that I’m still satisfied that it hasn’t succumbed to the obvious cruft that you can see all the time in most shows. I quite enjoyed the new host, and the disabled competitor was, in fact, competitive.

My preferred method of watching these shows is light binging. I build up a queue before hopping on the train, timing my watching volume and cadence to where I watch ~4 shows per week and get to have the benefits of continuity without monotony. While I’m sure it’s been present in previous seasons, the tonal shift across episodes was obvious and welcome. Light, airy music to introduce the cast. A little bit of drama in the middle episodes. And by the last 3, darker and tenser background audio, the volume lowered to hear the bakers detailing exactly what they’re doing and why. More close-up shots of the delicate piping and frosting for each piece.

Interestingly, the finalists: were all white men who play sports. Their grimaces and focus during the last rounds of the competition were a contrast to what I'd seen before. I assume it's not what the show wanted to happen, but that's how the cookie crumbled. The winner ended up bucking my own bias and assumptions. Matty fits perfectly into the mold of "cheery young guy who doesn't take this seriously enough to deliver". But he did!

I was left with frustration that I haven't developed this skill. I consider myself an above-average cook, but still haven't been able to master the basics of consistency with waffles and biscuits. Learning baking is hard for many reasons, one of which is that what you're producing is so calorie dense and crammed with sugar you can't truly test your work or exercise it multiple times per week.

Anyone here successfully become a great baker? What did it take?

So, my insane baking hot take that drives people nuts, is that the phrase cooking is an art, baking is a science, is dead wrong. I can tell you exactly what a adding or removing a little of any ingredient will do to a given cookie dough by eye alone. It's just practice, reading up on the chemistry of food, and experimentation. Really getting skilled at cooking and baking takes 10-20 years. You can't really grind it unless you're running your own restaraunt or something and can feed your food to people, you just have to slowly learn over time. But if you keep at it, apply a critical eye to your own work, consume good food related content that expands your understanding of things like the maillard effect and how gluten effects dough, you will eventually get good at baking.

It's just practice, reading up on the chemistry of food, and experimentation.

This does more to justify it being considered a science than the vast majority of social science.

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