# The Big Family Cooking Showdown\*

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-family-cooking-showdown/803262>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [December 1, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-family-cooking-showdown/803262 "2017-12-01T17:23:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-family-cooking-showdown/803262/1 "2017-12-01T17:23:16Z")

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BBC’s replacement for _The Great British Bake Off_\*, hosted by Zoe Ball and Nadiya Hussain (winner of the _Bake Off_ in 2015), and judged by Giorgio Locatelli (Italian Michelin-starred chef) and Rosemary Shrager (I don’t know who she is; I assume she is known in Britain).

Anyone watching? Thoughts?

- It may have a slightly different name, depending on which side of the pond you’re on.

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**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-family-cooking-showdown/803262/2 "2017-12-01T17:36:59Z")

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My own thoughts, admittedly just 3 episodes in:

It just okay. Not nearly as compelling as _The Great British Bake Off_.

I find the judging to be the weakest part, because it tends to seem very awkward. It feels like the judges are holding back their harshest criticisms. On a show like Gordon Ramsey’s _Hell’s Kitchen_, it’s his show, it’s his set, and the contestants have to cook what he tells them, how he tells them. He can be as big a dick as he wants. This show OTOH, the judges are coming to the contestants’ own homes (for the middle segment at least), and they are cooking their own food. While of course there are universal things like seasoning and meat doneness, personally I would have a real problem with strangers coming into my home and telling me I’m cooking my own food wrong.

There are also odd inconsistencies like them criticizing an Indian family for cooking Indian food as “playing it safe,” while their white opponents received no such criticism for cooking [del]pizza[/del] flatbread and fish and chips. 😕

Also, it seems to me, so far, that if you want to move on, you should NOT cook British or Italian food. The judges mostly seem to have high praise for any other cuisines, particularly ones they are not experts in, and are especially hyper-critical of more traditional British or Italian dishes.

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**Author:** ![amaguri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/49beb7/32.png) [@amaguri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amaguri)\
**Post date:** [December 1, 2017, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-big-family-cooking-showdown/803262/3 "2017-12-01T19:06:44Z")

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I actually enjoy this show, but I watch it before bed and it puts me to sleep within 10 minutes EVERY NIGHT. I’ve been on episode 5 for over a week now 🙂

Nadiya makes for a pretty decent co-host