‘The Great British Baking Show’ Season 10 Roars into the ‘20s

The Great British Baking Show started partly as a history program. The first season (which never aired here in the U.S.) was part baking contest, part fundraising initiative, and part “British history of baking.” It wasn’t just Bread Week because that’s what the contestants were baking. The tent was also located at a historical landmark in a city known for its bread, while Sue and Mel (famous for the food history program The Supersizers Go...) visited factories in town that had supplied England’s population with bread since the 9th century, 200 years before William the Conqueror.

By the time the show reached the U.S., these had been reduced to a single five-minute segment, which PBS took out and moved to the end as bonus footage. When the show moved to Channel 4, Sue and Mel walked, and those segments left with them. But by then, the show had a new way to fold in baking history, after the wild success of “Victorian Week” in Season 6 (Season 3 for us). Welcome to the Roaring 20s, the tent’s tribute to Downton Abbey.

(The show never mentions Downton, but the episode’s timing coinciding with the movie’s release isn’t an accident, especially since before this, Historical Baking Week always fell just before the Quarter Finals or was the Quarter Final, while this is far earlier, when bakers who will not be able to manage are still here.)