Not Over-the-Rainbow Bagels!

When the judges assigned a wiggly, domed “jelly art design cake” as last week’s showstopper challenge, I started digesting how far off the rails “The Great British Baking Show” has gone. Even today’s “patisserie week” semi-final — back in a familiar corner with cornucopias and savarins — couldn’t save it.

“The Great British Baking Show” (called “The Great British Bake-Off” outside of North America), broadcast on Netflix and on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, is an escapist, feel-good baking competition judged by Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith.

But it’s hit a few rough spots. The show elicited ire for its Japanese week episode, released October 30 in the United States, because it featured so much racism and implied interchangeability of Asian cultures. In that episode, Host Matt Lucas misheard “katsu curry” and responded, “cat food curry?!” And neither judges nor hosts batted an eyelash when a participant planned to decorate a cake with a fondant geisha. “Japanese week” epitomized how the show is as careless with cultural traditions as it is with slippery cakes.

The Great British Baking Show is as careless with cultural traditions as it is with slippery cakes.

Meanwhile, the Uzbekistan Tourism Ambassador has been promoting a virtual, home-based spinoff called the “Great Central Asian Bake-Off,” and I’m considering jumping ship. Those savory samsa from the show’s pastry week are much more tempting than any fondant-covered — and, in some cases, wildly unidentifiable — bust sculptures of Charles Darwin, David Attenborough, Lupita Nyong’o and Marie Antoinette featured on “Baking Show.”

But for Jewish viewers, “The Great British Baking Show” first hit soggy-bottom this season during “bread week,” when instead of helping us pretend our biggest anxiety was upside-down cakes literally falling upside-down on the floor, the show delivered the Jewish people a 2020-worthy travesty: Rainbow bagels. It was the strawberry that broke the caramel’s back.

When the episode preview showed a bright rainbow bagel, I assumed it was the creation of an offending baker who was sent home to write “I will never insult a bagel again” 500 times or was thrown into a rainbow prism, with lox locked. But as the episode soon revealed, all the bakers had to make this striped mockery of my New York Jewish childhood comfort food.

Watching this scandal was a hole exercise in hue-miliation. An unbialyievable disaster, all-a-round. A bun worse than any pun.

I shouldn’t have been surprised. Jewish fans know, bread master and judge Paul has messed up Jewish breads before. As a writer at My Jewish Learning pointed out, not only did Paul describe braiding a loaf as a dying skill in a 2012 episode, but also his cookbook from the same year, “How to Bake,” insists challah (spelled “cholla loaf”) is “traditionally served at Passover.” Goy vey.

Even an occasional rainbow challah seems better than rainbow bagels — as long as it’s not as a test of a baker’s challah-making skills. Maybe in a six-stranded rainbow braid. Or as a celebration of LGBTQ+ cultures for Pride — but not for Pesach.

What’s next on brand, Paul? Candy-cane latkes? A glitter-bomb honey cake? Putting ham in hamantaschen? Maybe kale-chip sufganiyot. Sourdough pumpkin-spice matzah. Rugelach with ranch dressing. Blintzes filled with rage.

In watching that bagel episode, I flashed back to a weekend in college when I visited a friend in Columbus, Ohio. She brought out a bag of bright green bagels. “Why… are they green?” I managed to ask. She said the store makes these for Saint Patrick’s Day. My innocence was shattered.

Watching the “Baking Show” contestants’ vibrant rings bake, the bakers seemed dubious. “How do you know they’re really… [done]? Because normally, they’ll get brown, but these’ve got color!” one lamented. Another looked at his flat results and said, “That’s not a bagel.” I agreed — likely for different reasons.

The bagel’s striped design was twisted — in both senses. Without a golden-brown sheen speckled with seeds or onions, they didn’t look much different baked than raw. Judge Prue, known for bulky, colorful plastic jewelry, probably eyed them for bracelets.

Picking up a rainbow bagel, Paul gushed, “They’re quite light!”

I shouted, “They’re not supposed to be light!”

He praised another’s vibrant colors. I yelled obscenities at the screen.

It’s been a rough month.

What does one boil rainbow bagels in, anyway — malted unicorn tears? I found Paul’s recipe on the show’s website. Then I noticed the blurb:

“What could be more magical than making a rainbow?” (Answer: Not making one?) “We’ve chosen rainbow hues for this dough, but feel free to experiment with your own favourite colours to make the bagels your own.”

Make them your own? Sorry, but on behalf of my culture: if you’re going to make them so un-bagel-like, maybe call them something else — like baked–gall.

The following episode’s technical challenge was a babka. I wondered if this was t’shuvah — repentance for the sin committed against Jewish baking. At least this babka was full of chocolate rather than, I don’t know, Froot Loops? Paint? The bar is pretty low by now.

But judge Prue sneered after trying Paul’s sample babka, “It’s lovely; it’s much nicer than I thought it would be. I’ve had it in New York, and it’s not nearly as nice as this.”  Paul joked, “I had it in Birkenhead.” (Birkenhead, a small town across from Liverpool, near where Paul grew up, has so few Jews that its only synagogue closed in 2006. Also, Paul is now a celebrity and can travel places where there are, you know, actual Jews.)

I’d always wanted the show to include a Jewish technical challenge. Maybe New York versus Montreal bagels, or a hot onion bagel with a fragrant residue that sticks to your fingers as you pull it apart on a cold day. Only now, I’m imagining a harder challenge, like making matzah under strict rabbinic supervision.

The show featured bagels in the early years, in the same episode where Paul claimed braiding a loaf was a dying skill. But those bagels were what the show calls a “signature bake,” where the bakers could choose flavors and style: one savory and one — shudder — sweet. The fallout included chocolate-orange-mint, blueberry-white chocolate and fig-walnut-gruyere bagels. Implying these flavors are better than traditional was poppycock — a total spotted-dick move.

Bagels have been badly mistreated over the years, from the ubiquitous Lender’s of the 1980s and 1990s to McDonald’s breakfast “bagel” sandwiches that all contained pork. Bagel makers have worked hard to counter this and showcase what makes a bagel great.

The “Baking Show” bagel debacle is personal for other reasons. A dozen years ago, I learned I can’t eat gluten, and I’m wistful about bagels every day of my life. I can make gluten-free bagels that are delicious for what they are but will never be the same. So it’s a hard pill (or stale bagel) to swallow when people who can still eat bagels not only commit bagel sacrilege but also use a huge platform to mislead viewers about bagel perfection.

It’s also more sobering than a standard shake-your-head-at-the-goy Hebrouhaha. In 2003, Paul attended a costume party dressed as a Nazi character from the WWII-themed sitcom “‘Allo ‘Allo.” Learning this in 2020 — with actual Nazis running around — feels ominous. Paul has since apologized, but he could have taken this as a sign that he has much to learn about Jewish communities. Until he’s humble about this, maybe I’ll rage-bake pie, using (Paul’s-in) hot-water crust pastry.

At first, I hoped kvetching about rainbow bagels was itself an enjoyable distraction from real problems. But with subsequent episodes, the show no longer felt escapist or culturally relevant. Instead of feeling anxious about whose Eton mess will look messiest when eaten, I started wondering when the show would stroopwafel to a new level.

I’ve stopped caring. Find me in virtual Uzbekistan instead, munching a crispy samsa.

Deborah (Debs) Gardner is a public health professional, writer, and semi-snarky Jew living in Seattle, WA. She is a multi-time winner of Pundamonium Seattle, a local pun slam.