Showbiz

Great British Bake Off accused of cultural appropriation after 'racist and ignorant' episode

Image:
Image:
GBBO / Twitter

The Great British Bake Off has faced backlash for its inaugural “Japanese Week” with people slamming the episode as “ignorant and racist”.

The baking show set three Japanese-inspired challenges for the contestants on Tuesday’s episode – steam buns, a matcha mille crepe cake and a “kawaii” show-stopper round.

But during the steam bun challenge, some of the contestants used non-Japanese Asian-inspired flavours.

For example, one contestant made Chinese style pork buns while another used Indian-inspired ingredients like smoked paprika, mango chutney and apple sweetened lentil dahl.

And people thought it was “ignorant and racist”.

As well as cultural appropriation:

While another contestant was called out for decorating her steam buns as pandas – which are from China, not Japan.

GBBO has yet to publicly comment on the backlash.

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