The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
4 — Wednesday, October 13, 2021
I’ll state my case plainly: Paul Hollywood is
a sex symbol. The British celebrity baker and
host of the “Great British Bake Off” may be a bit
of an asshole, sure, but so were James Dean and
President Kennedy.
A quick visit to Twitter reveals a clearly
polarized public opinion. While one twitter
user tweeted “If Paul Hollywood wants a thick
bottom he knows where to find me,” another
said: “Thinking about saying to paul Hollywood
‘sorry daddy I’ve been a bad bad baker.’” However,
the best comment was that “Paul Hollywood is
known as a silver fox because he eats voles and
urinates in bins.”
Hollywood’s sex appeal is a running joke on the
show as well. In one episode, host Noel Fielding
likened Paul’s rear end to “two beige moons,
dancing in the sky,” which contestant Maggie
remarked was a “rather nice” thought. Stickers
of Hollywood with chiseled abs can be found on
Etsy (and made a cameo in episode one of the
latest season).
Former stars have criticized Hollywood’s
harshness, and fans love to hate him when he
makes contestants cry, but deep down, I think
many can agree that “Paul Hollywood is such a
dilf bro, omg,” a statement which was (naturally)
followed by two agonized emojis.
But what makes Hollywood so sexy? It
certainly isn’t the way he berates old ladies.
There’s nothing sexy about that. But it’s so easy
to forget his brutishness when you see him
extend his right hand for the elusive Hollywood
Handshake. Reserved only for what he deems
the most impressive bakes, the handshake is
arguably more coveted than the weekly “Star
Baker” crown. That meaty paw, connected to a
forearm — thickened by years of kneading dough
— that emerges from a sleazily cuffed and coolly
untucked shirt, is enough to send shivers down
spines.
The effect of the shake remains the same from
season to season: A strong hand extended in silent
praise from an otherwise frigid critic is hot, if
you’re the kind of person who thrives on positive
reinforcement. I’ll pass that off to the fact that I’m
a Leo, but feel free to read into it further.
If there’s something else to the Hollywood
Handshake, it’s the oceanic eyes. With a piercing
blue stare, Hollywood must have X-ray vision
and can probably read minds. Nestled beneath a
furrowed brow, Hollywood’s “fuck me” eyes could
melt butter, which he’d then work into the perfectly
un-soggy bottom of a cheesecake or something.
The final piece to this puzzle, and the one
that has nothing to do with Paul’s lumberjack
limbs or Ice King eyes, is baking itself. In a very
cottagecore (i.e., antithetical to the traditionally
masculine Paul) way, there’s nothing sexier
than a loaf of bread, baked just for you. The gift
of comforting carbohydrates, the luscious and
erotic aroma of yeasted dough, the time spent by
a loved one so that you may slather a chunk of hot
sourdough with butter — bread and baking are a
love language.
Especially for the post-lockdown baking crowd,
the comfort and love found at the bottom of a cake
pan is certainly part of the hobby’s appeal. It isn’t a
great leap to suggest that baking is intimate, sexual,
erotic. There are 200k posts tagged #crumbshot
on Instagram. Beyond the blooming aromas and
communal joy of a batch of cookies, the art of
baking is arousing even when no one is there to
share. The way a roll gently rises and falls of its own
accord in the distorted heat of an oven, the dregs
of batter licked flagrantly from a spatula, the soft
sizzle of a cooling loaf in a quiet room.
The eroticism of baking is a big part of
Hollywood’s charm. As a prominent face of
21st-century baking, he stands for it all. Anyone
who can make such delightful things, and
especially one who can show you how it’s done, is
worthy of a desiring, perhaps lustful eye.
Hollywood is no “nice guy,” and he certainly
doesn’t finish last (a real James Bond, he races
Aston Martins in his free time). He has his issues
too, cheating on his now ex-wife with a co-host
on another baking competition in 2013. This he
called “the biggest mistake of my life” in a BBC
interview at the time, but what else do you say
about this sort of thing? Another big mistake in
his life was in 2003, when Hollywood dressed
up as a Nazi for a New Years’ Eve, to which he
responded, 14 years hence, “
I am absolutely
devastated if this caused offence to anyone.” The
classic non-apology, shifting blame to those who
were offended and then proceeding to use his
WWII-veteran grandfather as proof that he does
not like Nazis.
This is to say that Hollywood is not a perfect
man. He makes old ladies cry and does his hair
like a repressed Guy Fieri. These problematic
aspects of Hollywood’s history might make him
less attractive, but they don’t kill his “Bake Off” sex
appeal. His flaws notwithstanding, he remains a
sex symbol for lovers of baked goods everywhere.
The celebrity chef community could do with
a page from Hollywood’s book. The signature
flames that Fieri wears on his clothing are frozen
solid in Paul’s eyes. The suave dad style of Bobby
Flay is given a burly, British twist. Even Giada De
Laurentiis’s smile is mercifully softened into a sly,
all-knowing grin. In fairness, I’ll concede that,
style-wise, Hollywood is lacking. But his hands
are his hands, no matter the sleeve from which
they emerge.
Like art, food has the ability to bring us
back to our fondest memories of people,
places and moments. Food can comfort us
and help us feel connected to others, but it
can also force us to confront our deepest
insecurities. We make countless movies,
television shows, cookbooks, songs and
TikToks honoring food. And I, for one, will
never stop getting sucked into the trap of
watching videos of a stranger cook and
consume their own delicious creation in the
wee hours of the nighttime.
In our second B-Side of the 2021-22 school
year, Daily Arts investigates our deep-rooted
relationship with food and how it influences
our self-expression in all forms of art —
literature, film, social media and much more.
This is the Food B-Side.
— Sophia Yoon, Senior Arts Editor
I spent almost the entirety of my
pandemic year in my apartment in
Ann Arbor, which is to say that I spent
it on my couch in front of my TV. The
early days of quarantine have mostly
turned to mush in my memory, but
one thing I can remember distinctly
is watching Claire Saffitz make
gourmet Girl Scout Cookies.
From March 2020 through May
2020, content from the Bon Appétit
YouTube channel was more or less
the only thing I cared to put on TV.
I was a fan before the pandemic, but
something in my anxiety-addled
brain latched onto Bon Appetit in a
new way during that time. Maybe
it was that the Test Kitchen chefs
were easy to develop parasocial
relationships with (I still think that
Gaby Melian and I would really get
along in real life), or that the process
of cooking, especially in the hands of
these experts, was just soothing to
watch. Maybe there was a little bit
of schadenfreude (an uber-German
concept describing the sort of
perverse pleasure you can get from
other people’s misfortune) involved
as well. Part of the fun of watching
“Gourmet Makes” was wondering
if, after days of intense frustration,
Saffitz would ever crack the recipe
for gourmet Starburst.
I don’t tend to think of food as an
escape, but Bon Appétit made it feel
like one. There was something warm
and welcoming about watching
these smiling, personable chefs
make beautiful dishes in a bright
kitchen. They talked to the camera
as if everyone on the other side was
a friend. Especially when I was
sad, ordering in on most nights and
isolated from most of my real-life
friends, each video was like a shot of
serotonin to my brain.
However,
everything
came
crashing down in early June. A
picture of Bon Appétit’s then-
Editor-in-Chief
Adam
Rapoport
in brownface surfaced on Twitter,
which opened an enormous can of
worms not only about his conduct
at Bon Appétit but about the way
people of color were being treated
on the channel. Sohla El-Waylly was
the first of the Test Kitchen chefs to
reveal an incredible pay disparity
between
white
employees
and
employees of color. Although she was
quickly becoming one of the most
popular chefs on the channel, she
had not been compensated for any
of her video appearances and was
making significantly less than white
contributors.
Things
spiraled
from
there.
Rapoport resigned, most white
Test Kitchen chefs publicly vowed
not to appear in Bon Appétit videos
until chefs of color were fairly
compensated and some, including
El-Waylly, left the company outright.
Others still were called out for their
own problematic behavior, and
previous
contributors
disclosed
their own experiences with racial
discrimination at Bon Appétit.
I love to read about food, especially
when I’m down. Apart from being
necessary for survival, great food
is a compositional masterpiece, a
labor of love and a sensory puzzle.
Reading about food satisfies an
elementary sense of curiosity while
offering delectable imagery and a
healthy dose of escapism. More than
anything, it is comfort. Here are the
books I turn to:
Food for thought: “Sourdough”
by Robin Sloan
“Sourdough”
is
warm
and
fluffy, with the funkiness of a good
starter. The story follows Lois, a
software engineer who moves to
San Francisco, where she starts
to bake sourdough bread with a
mysteriously animate starter culture.
One would expect a book about
bread to be apolitical; however, as
you keep flipping through the pages,
it’s easier to see undercurrents of
Sloan’s commentary on technology
and how it changes culture (as in a
“fungal party hellscape,” but also the
characteristic features of everyday
life). Sloan asserts that “food is history
of the deepest kind,” and follows Lois
as she overworks herself at her day
job while uncovering the source of
her fungal party hellscape.
Lois continually questions her
work. Her programming job needs
her to solve an endless scope of new
problems: “Baking, by contrast, was
solving the same problem over and
over again, because every time, the
solution was consumed. I mean,
really: chewed and digested. Thus,
the problem was ongoing. Thus, the
problem was perhaps the point.”
“Sourdough” wraps you in a soft,
disarming hug — its taste is strongly
thought-provoking yet wholesome.
When reading it for the first time, I
remember finishing a chapter, sighing
contentedly and falling asleep. It’s not
a book you want to down; instead,
you want to savor it. Solving the
same problem over and over again
isn’t such a bad thing; Lois loves the
meditative process of baking bread,
and I love the equally generative
process of reading “Sourdough.”
Bread
and
circuses:
“The
Hunger
Games”
by
Suzanne
Collins
This one isn’t technically comfort
food, but it’s a comfort read, and
ultimately, a story about food. Set
in a world of food insecurity where
foraging is necessary, “The Hunger
Games” is a dystopia where children
are forced to fight to the death in
order to feed their communities.
There are too many examples to
name: Characters are named after
edible plants, like Katniss and Prim.
There are symbols of hope, like
dandelions, which characters forage
after starving for weeks. And who
could forget the boy with the bread?
As Katniss moves through different
worlds, she makes a point to notice
the food around her. The game she
hunts in District 12 is sparse but fresh;
berries are plucked directly from
bushes. As Katniss is first introduced
to the rich, overly luxurious foods
of the Capitol, she fights “to keep it
down,” overwhelmed: “What must
it be like, I wonder, to live in a world
where food appears at the press of a
button?”
The more I think about it, it’s
messed up to say that “The Hunger
Games” is a comfort read — after
re-reading the young adult series so
many times in middle school with
friends, I’ve fallen into the same
trap as the Capitol’s audience. The
world is ridiculously captivating:
the political intrigue, the delectable
luxuries of the Capitol and of course,
the star-crossed lovers from District
12. Suzanne Collins used the trilogy
to comment on how, as long as we
receive our panem et circenses, we
can neglect humanity. To love “The
Hunger Games” is, quite literally,
to enjoy our bread and circuses. But
damn, if it isn’t a juicy read.
Food is a powerful thing. It has
brought people together for centuries,
between
families,
communities
and cultures. From birthdays to
neighborhood potlucks to holiday
feasts, the nature of sharing food
with others is a tradition carved into
our very existence. We’ve found
bread with score marks in the ashes
of Vesuvius, indicating its intention to
be divided and shared, and a OnePoll
study found that 84% of Americans
say food has the power to connect
people of different cultures and
backgrounds. Indeed, the sharing
of food and recipes is nothing new,
but recently there’s been a shift in
how we share recipes, as well as who
shares them.
The digital age has brought on the
popularity of cooking videos. TikTok
in particular, with its unparalleled
ability to create widespread virality, is
a giant in the age of the viral food trend.
You might remember Gigi Hadid’s
famous pasta alla vodka recipe,
simply consisting of fried onions and
garlic, heavy whipping cream, tomato
sauce, vodka and the pasta of your
choice, or the feta pasta trend that
was so popular it caused feta cheese
shortages. Hadid was obviously not
the originator of pasta alla vodka and
feta cheese is no new ingredient, but
with this new era, watching cooking
videos is far from an isolated moment
an individual experiences before
dinnertime. Rather, it is a concept
commonly shared and discussed
throughout popular culture.
This isn’t to say food trends are
a new concept — I mean who could
forget the Jello trends of the 1950s,
which
included
adding
gelatin
to practically everything, from a
vegetable and sugar mix called
“Perfection Salad,” to submerging
lamb chops in the mix. Even in more
recent times, there has been the
avocado trend of the 2010s, which
caused the relentless slander of
millennials and their spending habits.
Yet the recent rise of food trends
originating from TikTok is different
from the trends of the past: The
food is usually cooked rather than
bought and can be made by anyone,
often including younger generations.
The most viral food trends usually
use simple, accessible ingredients
and don’t require much skill to
master. Part of the allure is that even
someone with very limited cooking
experience can watch a minute-long
video and think, “I can do that!” (And
of course, the foods must also look
enticing enough to warrant the desire
to make them.)
Why is this change so significant?
We have lived in a popular culture
that has frowned upon eating or has
provided narrow definitions for what
we’re allowed to talk about. We can
be quirky with phrases like “I love
pizza!” and “Don’t talk to me before
I’ve had my coffee!” but there are
unspoken limits. Dialogue usually
doesn’t center around nourishing,
balanced meals, and rarely centers
around the process of cooking. Yet
the emergence of viral cooking
videos on TikTok, a platform where
62% of users are between the ages of
10 and 29, has changed this, and more
people who have never cooked before
are now encountering fun cooking
content that they can replicate
themselves.
There are benefits to conversations
about food that aren’t centered
around caloric intake or body image.
Normalizing society’s relationship
with food, particularly within the
digital world that so often fills our
feeds with unattainable ideals, is a
healthy thing. While 69% of girls
ages 10 to 18 state that photographs
of models and celebrities in the media
motivated their “ideal” body shape,
it can be helpful to build a neutral
relationship with food — one that isn’t
motivated by any endgame outside of
creating something tasty for the fun
of it.
The inherent eroticism of the Paul Hollywood
The Food
B-Side
The downfall of ‘Bon
Appetit,’ one year later
Comfort food you can read
How TikTok has transformed our love affair with food
Design by
Kristina Miesel
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Design by Jessica Chiu
ROSS LONDON
Daily Arts Writer
KATRINA STEBBINS
Daily Arts Writer
MEERA KUMAR
Daily Arts Writer
SARAH RAHMAN
Daily Arts Writer
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