Nadia - stop moaning and get a job.....

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15628823/Nadiya-Hussain-attack-BBC-cancelled-difficult-conversations.html

I think this woman needs her to realise her star has fallen like a lot of minor celebs. She has had a good run and everything has did was tired. New cookery blood should be allowed a chance.

I thinks it's undignified to start accusing her erstwhile employers of racism.

It's Loyd Grossman. I think this thread has been hilarious in regard to all the misspellings of people's names.

When do book sellers put in presales? She had announced the book to the public but it's likely it was already in the publishing schedule with retailers. If there was weak interest, then yes even on the day you put out the publicity for your upcoming book it could be that there was evidence it wasn't going to do so well.

But she said it like it was a bad thing, as if it was a failing. When actually, it seems like a deliberate choice and he seems quite happy and successful. Not a sad man in his 70s sitting around because his fame dwindled. That word has negative connotations about the feelings of the person involved, when he seems just fine.

Jamie Oliver forged a career based on celebrity, cook books and politics. He has sold a fuck load of books. His market is the affluent middle Waitrose loving twats of this world who have more money than sense. He has a vast marketing brand.

I would have thought the go to middle class Waitrose twat chef of choice would be the likes of Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Nigella Lawson, Rick Stein, Michel Roux Jr and of course back in the day Delia Smith. Jamie Oliver was a bit too mockney geezer for the Waitrose gang plus he got sponsored by Sainsburys which is a big no no. At best the Waitrose parents would buy their kids a Jamie Oliver book before they headed off to their solid redbrick university.

Yes, I like the Jamie Oliver books and don't like to think that I fit that awful stereotype!

Isn’t it more Ottolenghi idk, I wouldn’t get JO for dc either but they are into cooking.

I agree. I would think the vast majority of the cookery book buying world knows full well that Syria. Lebanon and Iran are in the Middle East, so majority Muslim, and there are several very good books from that region. Publishers haven't been 'racist' when publishing those books. All they care about is their bottom line. I wouldn't bother buying a cookbook specifically based on Ramadan if I wasn't fasting. Why would I? I would have thought as Muslims fast as a family from a very young age, they know what to do as a family already and what their family likes. They don't need a cookery book or to find out about fasting. Its a very niche market. Did her agent pitch her ideas to Channel 4 or any of the other channels? The fact she is only going after the BBC suggests shes pissed that they cancelled her show so instead of doing what Bakeoff and other shows have done and pitched to other channels she threw a strop and basically torpedoed her TV career. Who is going to risk being accused of racism if they give her a one year contract that doesn't work out, or if they don't want to employ her until she is 90?

Exactly. @nomas is being ridiculous. If you were to start a thread this minute and call it "TV Presenters You Think Lucked Into Their Careers", it would be filled to the brim with people naming white presenters.

I'm sure you'd get a few people name-dropping Alison Hammond and Rochelle Humes, but you'd have just as many decrying Phil and Holly's decade-long domination of ITV, or wondering how Dermot O Leary still has a career. There's an entire stable of GB News contributers you can be guaranteed would get a good bashing. Piers, Jezza, Richard Madeley. As would any of the presenters who've come over all yummy mummy influencer with brand deals, like Stacey Solomon. Or the poshos of yesteryear, who on reconsideration, might as well have been living on a different planet to the rest of us, and would struggle to become mainstream celebrities today. (Nigella Lawson and Kirsty Allsopp would be bound to get a mention.)

A lot of success in tv presenting is having the right brand at the right moment. There was an appetite for "mean" presenters in the mid 00s, which saw people like Jeremy Kyle and Anne Robinson become all the rage. In the 2010s the appetite was for "representation". Diversity, but only the kind you can see, and only if it's not too much trouble. Fast forward to the first half of the 2020s and it was all about influencers. If Mrs Hinch had a successful TikTok, give her her own tv show. That kind of thing. I think we're still finding our feet in terms of what people want post 2025, but it seems to be shifting away from that influencer vibe, so who knows? I think tv presenting needs some new blood in general, to be honest. It's all feeling a bit stale.

I own a Jamie Oliver book... I don't shop at Waitrose.

But he very much has settled into that niche in recent years. Maybe not so much in the past but certainly now.

I quite liked Nadiya as background TV but agree with others that she used some random ingredients. Often just because rather than because it made a discernible improvement.

But TV cookery and book tie ins have moved on. We took some books to a local charity shop a couple of weeks ago and they didn’t want cook books due to being overwhelmed with existing stock.

I’m someone who might be interested in a book/series about Islamic celebratory food; I’ve got the usual Ken Hom, Madda Jaffrey, Ottolenghi along with Christmas books by Saint Delia and Elizabeth David. I like trying new foods and ideas. The trouble is that I probably wouldn’t buy a book on Islamic food by someone who puts wotsits in macaroni cheese. I’d go for someone I saw as more authentic. It’s probably harsh, but her level of baking is more suited to instagram along with the wacky ingredients and upside down cheesecakes.

Do you think so? I didn't get the same impression. I can't speak for her intentions, but I thought she was just pointing out that he's not a household name anymore, the way he was when he was cooking on the telly. As you say yourself. And I think we're all in agreement on that being true.

It does sound like he's doing well in his current field, and good for him. But you'd get blank looks if you asked the average person under 30 who he is, let alone what he's up to. I'm pretty sure your average Gen Z couldn't even point to the pasta sauces.

Yes - that's my point - because they are massively oversubscribed there has to be an element of luck around who actually gets chosen.

It only takes one bad day when you are trying out and your chances are scuppered - without that pedigree you would struggle for financing or being awarded a Michelin Star - let alone two!

Yeah, he's been surprisingly adaptable. Probably the most out of all the tv chefs. It feels like he's tried his hand at everything, but he's managed to keep the core Jamie Oliver feel to all of it. Which isn't as easy to do as you might think.

Even this more upper-middle class later years iteration, where he's gone a bit River Cottage with it all, still feels like him. Someone like Gordon Ramsay struggled a bit more to reorient the brand, once Kitchen Nightmares fell off, and shouting in people's faces was no longer quite the done thing. Jeremy Clarkson had the same uncomfortable adjustment period, when the public got sick of seeing him on Top Gear and he pivoted to being a farmer.

Longevity in tv presenting is not an easy thing.

Oh dear, I need to look at those jars more closely!!!

Did I. It was just factual actually.

I’d say he stepped away in his later life to pursue his other passions rather than his fame dwindled, as that sounds like he then had to scramble to find a living.

it was always meant to be an anti Nadiya thread.

Middle Eastern cuisine is huge at the moment and there’s no shortage of books about it but Nadiya’s book is very much themed around the 30 days of Ramadan and I would expect that focus to reduce one’s audience further

The number one book in Middle Eastern Food & Drink on Amazon at the moment is literally The Ramadan Kitchen (Published January 2026)

If someone was genuinely interested in Middle Eastern Cuisine (and Indian), then a book themed around Ramadan would actually be very appropriate given how important food is to the festival.

Saying that someone into middle eastern and indian cuisine wouldn't buy a book because it was themed around Ramadan is like saying you wouldn't buy a Hairy Bikers cookbook because you don't ride a motorbike!

No one is owed a career,especially if you’ve come from reality TV, how many other winners of GBBO have had their own show? At one point John Whaite (S3) was on Only Fans.

In 10 years she must have made a decent chunk of cash.

There is not much money in TV anymore which is why we haven’t seen Nigella, Delia, or other established names with their own show for years.

Nadiya needs to dust herself off, accept that’s how it is in the business and get herself on YouTube, terrestrial TV is dead anyway.

Very interesting thread.

As an aside, i need to know what's happening with Lorraine Kelly though please

I wouldn't bother buying a cookbook specifically based on Ramadan if I wasn't fasting. Why would I? I would have thought as Muslims fast as a family from a very young age, they know what to do as a family already and what their family likes. They don't need a cookery book or to find out about fasting. Its a very niche market.

Huh? That makes no sense whatsoever - the books aren't about fasting...they are about breaking the fast. Food is a really integral part of Ramadan as are the traditions around families sitting together to break their fast.

In some households the cooking will literally be going on all day - extended family and neighbours all eating together.

A long time ago, I worked with a young Muslim woman - I think Ramadan was late spring that year so we were never able to eat with her to break her fast as by the time it was getting towards dusk, work had long since finished, but almost every day she would bring us in the most amazing left overs from the night before.

There will be some amazing recipes in those books that either wouldn't necessarily feature in general middle eastern and indian cookbooks or would only feature sporadically across several books. Ramadan books are like a curation of some of the best recipes from those regions.

Considering that it’s Ramadan at present I suspect that’s where most of the market is coming from. I’d expect sales would reduce somewhat later though just as Christmas themed recipe books will always sell more in the run up to Christmas . Obviously some who do not celebrate Ramadan will buy it but having looked at Nadiya’s book earlier it’s very much themed around Ramadan and its structure and I still believe that will make it somewhat less appealing to people who do not celebrate it. I suspect that a Middle Eastern book that focuses on a very specific holiday and period of time will hold less appeal long term than one that focuses on daily eating(Even if you could make those dishes any day of the year)

I do not think that it is at all equivalent to the Hairy Bikers situation that you describe unless they claimed to make food specifically for bikers which I don’t believe that they did. That they were Hairy Bikers was their niche and selling point but not really the theme of their books. At least not those of any that I own.

I always liked Nadiya but never cooked a thing of hers, as it's all very sugar-y and carb-y.

I suspect interest in all that is waning in this post-Mounjaro world.

She always seemed lovely though!

You've just named 2! Plus Stacey Solomon, Alison Hammond.

Nadiya won a competition based on actual skill not just being on TV, and she's continued using that skill.

I think she has considerable appeal as an individual but her recipes are often a bit bonkers or use a lot of UPF (i recall a mac + cheese recipe that included cheese doritos blended into the sauce) which isn't on trend right now.

Her last book was Islamic cuisine. There was no BBC show to accompany its publication.