The Great British Bake Off Is Supposed to Be an Escape. One Nagging Complaint Is Ruining It This Year.

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It’s been a tough time to be a woman lately. Consequently, I, a noted woman, have chosen to seek refuge elsewhere—namely, The Great British Bake Off, a beautiful escape where nothing and no one can hurt you.

A Bake Off (known as The Great British Baking Show in the U.S., where it streams on Netflix) is always a reliably pleasant watch. In fact, you can usually anticipate exactly how it’s going to play out each year: A prodigious student baker wows the tent with talent beyond her years, an affable gay twentysomething dutifully plays along with hosts Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond’s innuendo, and there’s one contestant who is not good but manages to squeak through week after week anyway. As judge Paul Hollywood would agree, consistency is key, and even though this season saw a shake-up in the form of new judge Nigella Lawson, to her credit, it feels as if she’s been there for much longer than just a few weeks.

So imagine my dismay when what should have been a promising distraction from the horrors of life instead felt like a bizarre perpetuation of them. Early reactions to Lawson’s debut focused on one thing: how much she ate. Social media posts and headlines zeroed in on the generous bites she took when tasting each dessert; “Woman Shovels Garbage Slop Into Hog Mouth,” those posts may as well have read. Her mouthfuls were too big, apparently, her enthusiasm for chocolate cake simply too strong, such that it warranted numerous videos imitating and montaging her eating style.

Lawson is one of the most accomplished cookbook authors and food writers in the U.K. She has published bestselling books, hosted numerous TV programs, and was even supposed to be awarded an Order of the British Empire for her contributions to journalism and cookery. (She apparently turned it down, our humble queen.) There are a dozen other things you could first talk about when it comes to Lawson and food, but instead, all we got was mockery and policing of how a woman eats on camera.

One reason for this might be thanks to her Bake Off predecessor, Prue Leith. While the owner of countless admittedly delightful necklaces, the former judge’s attitude toward food could sometimes feel out of step with a show about sweet treats. “Worth the calories” or “not worth the calories” were questionable phrases she often employed when judging bakes, which is something that Lawson almost immediately nipped in the bud when her turn came.

“A cookie should be quite indulgent and naughty,” Hollywood said in the second episode of the new season, channeling some of Leith’s projections of illicitness surrounding desserts.

“I don’t approve of talking about food as naughty,” Lawson cut in. “We need to take our pleasures where we can in life.”

It’s this mindset—which, yes, includes the way she eats without restrictions—and willingness to push back that makes Lawson great for the show, and helps keep the long-running series fresh. Instead of yet another season devoted to Paul Hollywood the God with his signature handshakes, we’re getting a rapport more like divorced co-parents trying to have one good night with their kids. Lawson’s not afraid to disagree with Hollywood, which means the judging itself is much more dynamic. I’m hearing feedback I’ve never heard before—what does it mean to be “too heavy on the bicarb”? And am I doing it, too?

As for Lawson’s response to the discourse, it’s quite simple: “I like to be able to taste things properly,” she told Woman’s Weekly. “I’m an eater.” Which, as a person whose job is to judge the quality of food, makes sense.

Lawson’s unabashed love of food has always felt radical, in a world that often tries to shrink appetites, especially when it comes to women. “No one should feel guilty about what they eat, or the pleasure they get from eating,” she wrote in her 2020 cookbook Cook, Eat, Repeat. “The only thing to feel guilty about (and even then I don’t recommend it) is the failure to be grateful for that pleasure.” Although the response to this attitude has ranged from cruel to perversely sexual, Lawson has shown no signs of backing off of it, and for that I thank her.

In fact, in order for Bake Off to continue to be my form of comfort and escapism, I’m going to need Lawson to turn up the very thing she’s being criticized for. Start treating the bakers’ submissions like smash cakes. Lick the batter out of their bowls once they’ve put their bake in the oven. And the next time Paul Hollywood advises her to take smaller bites—a real thing that happened, according to her interview with Woman’s Weekly—turn around and eat him whole, too.