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The new judge is dismantling diet culture with big bites and no nonsense. We need more of this on TV, now more than ever.
I’ve always loved Nigella Lawson. I’m a fellow foodie, I’m a writer – which means I’ve devoured her written recipes as fervently as the dishes themselves – and I’m also a woman. Nigella has always represented the essence of womanhood in my eyes. She’s confident and unapologetic in her love of indulgence, something that’s sadly rather revolutionary in our diet-driven, skinny-seeking culture.
Growing up, Christmas was signposted by the arrival of Nigella’s festive cooking shows. I’d watch glossy eyed as she’d feast on a delectable buffet of treats, from her famous Guinness cake to fruit studded mince pies – often tucked into after dark in a satin nightgown.
It was rare to see a woman chef – or any woman, for that matter – enjoying food so earnestly. Perhaps it was because Nigella was viewed as somewhat of a sex symbol, not in spite of her audacious appetite, but because of it.
Needless to say I was thrilled when Nigella was announced as the new Great British Bake Off judge, replacing Prue Leith after nine series. Prue was beloved for her funky glasses and reserved (some would argue, standoffish) nature. But in a world where weight-loss medication and restrictive ‘What I eat in day’ videos have flooded my algorithm, Nigella was a welcome breath of fresh air.
The new judge is the antithesis of her predecessor in many ways. She’s warm, emotional, and – most notably – unafraid to take big bites. Prue Leith was known for her conservative taste testing, often judging a bake by whether it was ‘worth the calories’. Nigella, on the other hand, has already stirred up discussion around her shamelessly heaped forkfuls of cake and constant anti-diet commentary. In the second episode of the new series, she called out Paul Hollywood for referring to a contestant’s cookies as ‘naughty’.
‘I don’t approve of talking about food as naughty,’ Nigella quipped. ‘We need to take our pleasures where we can in life.’
As someone who is constantly force-fed damaging discourse about food, I cannot express how revolutionary it was to hear a woman – a successful, famous woman – say something like that on one of the country’s biggest TV shows.
The language and behaviour we use around food is more important now, perhaps, than ever. Not only because of the diet culture that shapes our society, but because social media gives everyone a platform. That has ushered in a new age of misinformation and allowed the spread of dangerous narratives around food and body image to spread quickly.
Scroll through social media and food is routinely presented as a negotiation. There are ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods, ‘cheat meals’ and ‘guilt-free’ alternatives. There are endless videos documenting exactly what women eat in a day, often accompanied by an implicit promise that if we replicate the contents of someone else’s fridge, we might somehow replicate their body, too.
Against that backdrop, Nigella eating a large forkful of cake on Bake Off feels radical.
