For most of us, watching The Great British Baking Show is a form of therapy, but sometimes therapy requires us to face our demons. Thus it was during last night’s broadcast of The Great British Bake Off (as it’s titled overseas) on the UK’s Channel 4 that viewers had to watch co-host Paul Hollywood do the unthinkable: He ate a burger with a fork. More precisely, he daintily picked at the side of the burger with a fork.
Some background: It was Bread Week (already a source of psychic pain), and for the technical challenge, the bakers were required to make “floury baps & veggie burgers,” a recipe devised by Hollywood himself. In tasting said “floury baps,” Hollywood dug into the burger with a fork.
Twitter, of course, went nuts.
Now it is true that GBBO hosts and judges have discussed their issues with weight (which is to be expected when you have to taste carbs constantly). And eating gracefully on camera is a challenge, especially if you’re eating something like a burger, which requires you to open wide and chomp down. But GBBO is in its tenth season! Paul should know how to do this by now! Also, the point of a burger is that all the components should come together in one perfect combination of bread, lettuce, tomato, and patty. How can you taste that if you’re just picking at it piece by piece? It’s not just a weird move, it’s not a great way to assess a burger’s success.
Americans will be able to view this travesty on Friday. Allison Robicelli will have the recap as soon as humanly possible after that.