Mary Berry’s War Of Attrition: British And American Cultures Collide In ‘The Great Holiday Baking Show’

The English may not be known for their food, but they are known for their baking show, The Great British Baking Show. After six wildly successful seasons (one of which is available now on Netflix) on the BBC, finally the delightful Mary Berry is coming to our shores. For the next few weeks, American bakers are competing for the famous British baker’s affections on ABC’s The Great Holiday Baking Show.

The best of English cooking — save your oxymoron jokes — is usually colonized from other countries. But baking is a whole different ball of dough. Baking is science, concentration and accuracy, three things the English excel at.

And while reality contests normally feature the histrionics, shaming and ego displays at which Americans excel, The Great British Baking Show has proven that humility, perseverance and endurance have a place on TV screens.

Our American food competition shows are wars, where the contestants battle for the chance to win a television slot, their own restaurant or a magazine feature. And when we go to war, we bring the big guns. The Cake Boss likens himself to a mafioso. On Cupcake Wars, the winning contestant turns 1,000 cupcakes into $10,000. On ABC this week, if you were in the market for a seizure as a lead-in to the bake-off on Monday night, you could have caught The Great Christmas Light Fight, an opulent waste of electricity that gifted $50,000 an hour to whichever family in America could rack up the biggest Con Ed bill at Christmas time.

The Great British Baking Show, on the other hand, is more refined. The winner gets some flowers, a cake plate and the chance to feel chuffed for a day or two. It’s unclear if the Americans will get much more.

But successful baking makes for a quintessentially British sort of contest. The attention to detail for baking is different from the savory cooking challenges that dominate our reality shows. Searing, grilling and roasting are things that can all be eyeballed. But baking requires measurement, chemistry and faith that cannot be properly measured until something comes out of the oven. Even then, a delicious looking baked treat may hold secrets that can only be discovered once Mary Berry, the great cake detective, slices into it and eats it.

While American bakers might see no shame in relying on styrofoam and cardboard to support their towering confections, Mary Berry does not believe in cheats. Her expectations for baking are simple: complete and utter perfection. If the contestants are lucky, she’ll offer high praise. She’ll say something was “nice.”

The American bakers are not quite up to the task, but that doesn’t mean they won’t give it the ole college try. For this series, Mary left her British co-judge Paul Hollywood on the other side of the pond and is now paired up with Brooklyn pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini (as you’ll learn in the first episode, he’s “the man who put the sexy into a pastry tube”). Together they demand that when contestants bake something “it should taste as good as it looks.” More difficult for Americans raised on Betty Crocker boxed cakes is to the task of recreating the blind recipes they’re given for the “technical challenge” round. In England, the contestants have a least a fighting chance at competing with Mary Berry’s encyclopedic knowledge of cooked carbohydratesan understanding of Mary Berry’s institutional knowledge of the thousands of carb-loaded British concoctions in existence (anyone up for a raised venison and pigeon pie?). Previous English contestants were expected to know and recreate such seemingly fictional delights as Spanische Windtortes, cream horns and flaounes.

In America, the contestants are going to be learning about her recipes as they cook them. Perhaps that’s why they started with half as many contestants on this journey and simplified the asks that are made of them.

As with so many other British traditions (high tea, cricket, colonialism) Americans don’t really understand the rules, or maybe have the chops to compete, but we’re happy to play along and follow their example as best we can. For example, this wobbly and fairly sad tiramisu cake was the winner of the technical bake last night:

The American contestants may have a few showstopping tricks up their sleeves, but Mary Berry’s competition is a war of attrition. The British cake mistress will find their weaknesses and exploit them until their concoctions collapse. Did the contestants over proof their dough? Did they let it cook long enough? Were they not able to predict the proper chemistry equation for a ginger snap with eggnog cream? Furthermore, were they not able to predict what the fuck a ginger snap with eggnog cream even is? Probably not. Like many other American endeavors, this show makes up for a lack of qualifications with extra enthusiasm.

And why not? We have Nia Vardalos (the brains and face of the My Big Fat Greek Wedding franchise) and her husband Ian Gomez (the adorable puppy dog from the often neglected Cougar Town … #RIP) hosting to console us. I didn’t realize the two were married IRL until I watched the first episode, but what a great pairing. They are sweet and empathetic national treasures, and it’s so pleasurable (and rare!) to see reality show hosts chosen for their personality and entertainment value over their spray tans and glassy eyed stares.

In exchange for her baking pronouncements, the contestants have the opportunity to teach Mary Berry important American colloquialisms, like the name for a sweet biscuit (a cookie, duh), the Brooklyn pronunciation of water, and how to wear skulls rings while rolling out dough.

For Americans, doing the same thing over and over again is the definition of insanity. For the English, it’s called baking. And the fact that Mary Berry has lowered her standards a bit to come teach us a thing or two about baking? Well, that’s quite nice.

Meghan Graham (@keanesian) is a writer and co-founder of Brick Wall Media. She lives in fear of Mary Berry uncovering her soggy bottom.