Mystery Menu > Bake Off
An ode to conflict-free TV and Sohla & Ham ❤️
My default state is “sleeping under a rock,” so I was basically yesterday years old when I learned about Mystery Menu on the NYT Cooking YouTube channel even though it’s been going since Spring of 2021. In case you’re a fellow beneath-the-rocks dweller: the show was initially a Sohla-only vehicle, shot in her home kitchen. (If you doze even further than me below the earth’s crust (respect!), here is a great primer on who Sohla El-Waylly is and why you should care.) In the first three episodes, Sohla’s husband Ham was sometimes there, helping ideate, being cute. But according to him he was mostly “sitting in the bedroom holding [their dog] Vito, waiting for the shoot be over.” When the show moved to the NYT Cooking studio, for episode 4 (Coffee Beans), Sohla brought Ham on as co-host/chef. Much as I love watching Sohla be a mad genius on her own, bringing in Ham turned the show into the genre I often crave but rarely get: conflict-free TV.
Listen, I mainline Love Is Blind and Selling Sunset like the next bitch, but often I have to drink a lot to, like, get through it? Sometimes I have to pause my ep just to breathe for a sec. I’m not saying I’ll stop, but I don’t think “relaxation” is quite what I’m getting from that kind of binge.
Mystery Menu, on the other hand, leaves me genuinely soothed. Why?
They are very skilled, very interesting chefs and also major nerds. As always I have to block out my feelings about all the dead animals being cooked, but for better or worse I’m used to doing that, and at least Sohla and Ham do a fuck-ton of cool shit with fruits and vegetables, too. Each month, their culinary aptitude and vocabulary and breadth of knowledge is dazzling — Ham is as comfortable whipping up mole poblano as fruit chaat as a riff on an Italian bread sauce, while Sohla combines bits and pieces of pastry recipes committed to memory, references their origins with ease, always adds some unique spin, pivots with the best of them, and before you know it, she’s layering gin jello shots into a trifle and Hot Pocket filling into devil’s food cake.
The show has almost zero stakes. It’s not a competition, no one evaluates the final meal except the chefs themselves. The only thing adding any tension at all is the challenge of the mystery ingredient. But we already know for sure that they’re equal to whatever is in that bag. Show-stopping constraint-based improv has played a huge role in Sohla’s ongoing meteoric rise; watching her absolutely slay at it show after show has felt like a middle finger sustainedly raised at Bon Appetit, which I’ve really enjoyed. And then there’s the ticking clock — Ham and Sohla only have an hour to cook dinner and dessert! But, like. They’re professional chefs. And if they go over time…they can just keep going! Or not! Really whatever they like.
Almost as dazzling as the cooking itself is watching these two just collaborate and vibe. The first part of the show they come up with the menu, and they always get excited about the other’s ideas, riffing and amending till they have a menu they’re equally stoked about. And then they cook. I haven’t yet crawled far enough out of my pit of pebbles to watch more than the first episode of The Bear, but I just can’t get myself pumped to return to chefs screaming at each other of late. I know, I know, it gets there. But Mystery Menu’s already there! They’re already nice! Sohla and Ham help each other stay on time, they ask each other so politely to do a small task like turn on a burner for them, they are encouraging, even in the face of a praline sauce made with hot dogs. (When Ham says to a dejected, disgusted Sohla, “It just smells like sweet dogs!” after a big whiff, it’s very nice!) They laugh at each other’s jokes, they feel each other’s pain, they seem to annoy and stress each other out only rarely.
I mean, get you a man who etc etc. I am not alone in this. The YouTube comment section is rife with things like:
The real star of Mystery Menu is Sohla and Ham’s incredible collaborative relationship and the way they work together to get things done. No joke, they should show these videos in marriage prep classes to teach couples about what great communication looks like.
these two are geniuses and work so well together as a team, what a treat to see them think and work together.
Could it be we’re all starving for people just being nice to each other? Could it be that Western narrative being exclusively built around conflict is…problematic?? I do not have a well thought-out treatise on the topic, there is definitely, purposely conflict in my novel, it’s just something I like to think about. What if there was a spin-off that’s just Chrishell and G-Flip strolling at the mall and complimenting each other? Would watch.
I was already obsessed, but I felt especially motivated to write this as the debacle of The Great British Baking Show’s “Mexico Week” began to unfurl on my feeds last week.
Since its inception, it seems to me that what I love about Mystery Menu is partly what people love about Bake Off — the stakes are pretty low, they just do it “at the weekend,” it’s slow-paced, sometimes people are kind to one another. I’ve had my phases with the show, I’ve enjoyed lots of eps…but truly it’s nice to watch a show that isn’t regularly plagued with insidious racism??
When Ham makes mole, for example, Sohla reminds the viewer that he’s making a specific type of mole, that there are loads of different types; Ham owns that his take on XO Sauce is entirely non-traditional, even before he adds the Hot Pocket meat. These chefs’ actual wide-ranging expertise and experience allows them to be humble, and point out where they’re falling short or deviating from tradition. Because they know. And they don’t appear to pretend to know what they don’t know. This, too, I find soothing.
Is there a conflict-free show that you love? Let me know in the comments! Or as always you can like this post to wave hello, or share to your favourite social media site, I am actively accepting dopamine hits of all sizes at all times as the daylight hours continue to decrease, thank you.