British TV Show Bridges Cultural Divide, With Cake
LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron praised her coolness under pressure. Bookmakers monitored her performance. Television watchers admired her soda- flavored cheesecakes, blue chocolate peacock and a mountain of éclairs in the form of a nun.
The victory of Nadiya Jamir Hussain, a petite 30-year- old, head- scarf- wearing mother of three from northern England, in a popular reality show called “The Great British Bake Off” has been greeted by many in Britain as a symbol of immigration success.
Ms. Hussain’s popularity, bolstered by her self- deprecating humor and telling facial expressions, helped the final episodes of the baking program attract well over 10 million viewers per show, according to news reports.
In a country where baking stodgy desserts has a history dating back centuries, the success and public embrace of Ms. Hussain, the daughter of Bangladeshi immigrants, seemed like an immediate and conspicuous counterpoint to a speech the day before her victory in which the home secretary, Theresa May, told a conference of Conservative Party members: “When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.”
News media across the ideological spectrum greeted Ms. Hussain’s win as a seminal cultural moment. “Never before has a Muslim woman wearing a hijab been so clutched to the nation’s bosom,” wrote The Telegraph, a conservative daily newspaper.
Even Ms. Hussain’s triumphant final dessert, a “big fat British wedding cake,” offered a multicultural message of sorts by fusing her Bangladeshi and British identities. The lemon drizzle cake was decorated with jewels from her own wedding day and was perched on a stand covered with material from a sari in red, blue and white, the colors of the Union Jack.
Shelina Janmo - hamed, a cultural commentator and author of “Love in a Headscarf,” noted that Ms. Hussain had managed to defy prejudice through her honesty, her cheeky sense of humor — and her baking prowess. In one stressful episode, Ms. Hussain said she would rather brave childbirth again than try to bake another chocolate soufflé.
Not everyone has embraced her, and some critics have accused the BBC of political correctness by featuring minority contestants. Writing in a recent issue of the tabloid Daily Mail, Amanda Platell, a columnist, suggested that another contestant on the show would perhaps not have been eliminated in the semifinals had she baked a “chocolate mosque.”
But Ms. Hussain had the last word.
“I am never going to put boundaries on myself ever again,” she said after her victory. “I’m never going to say I can’t do it. I’m never going to say maybe.” She added: “I can, and I will.”