Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on August 21, 2012

21 August 2012 Last updated at 00:01 By Anna-Louise Taylor BBC Food

Recipes from bygone eras are making a comeback, featuring in programmes such as The Great British Bake Off. But why?

"In baking and cakes there's only six core recipes and then they're just tweaked and amended," says Paul Hollywood, master baker and presenter of BBC One's competitive baking show.

"Nowadays 'new' recipes don't really exist."

Styles of cooking from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s keep on returning, he says, as "what goes around comes around, just as in music, fashion and art".

In the first week of the latest series of The Great British Bake Off, in which 12 contestants compete each week to be a star baker, Mr Hollywood demanded they create a 70s French dessert: rum baba, a "hybrid of cake and bread".

"I have been doing rum babas for a long time. I began years ago in the hotels I've worked in like the Dorchester," he says.

"Picking rum baba, I felt it was time to bring it back. What we find with doing anything on Bake Off, is that is really sets it off again, like with other things we've done, like homemade sausage rolls."

But why is it time for a retro food revival?

"There's one person on Bake Off fascinated with recipes straight out of the 70s, and for anyone really, it takes them back to their youth," says Mr Hollywood.

See the rest here:
The return of retro recipes

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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