Summary
Perfectly suited to the current climate, Nadiya’s Time to Eat (Netflix) promotes cooking healthy meals as quickly and inexpensively as possible — and who doesn’t want to save time and money?
This review of Nadiya’s Time to Eat Season 1 is spoiler-free, insofar as such a thing can be spoiled anyway.
Since most of us have more free time now than we’re necessarily used to, it’s undeniably smart business for Netflix to drop Nadiya’s Time to Eat, which originally aired last year on BBC Two. Hosted by Bake Off alum Nadiya Hussain, and coming with its own accompanying cookbook, the show isn’t for gourmets. It’s for regular folks for whom cooking can be quicker, easier, and less expensive while still being delicious; Nadiya’s recipes are basically cheat codes.
The fact Nadiya’s Time to Eat gleefully takes shortcuts, “cheats”, and considers the means and abilities of its audience gives it a likable working-class of-the-people sensibility that most cooking shows don’t possess — how many times, for instance, have you been told to grab a handful of some homegrown herb or rare spice that no ordinary kitchen contains? And no, I’m not necessarily just talking about Netflix’s recent Cooked With Cannabis.
Timing is crucial, and our current unprecedented predicament seems an unusually perfect climate for a show like Nadiya’s Time to Eat. Nadiya’s insistence that cooking needn’t be stressful or time-consuming is a useful thing to hear, and her consideration for those who need to hear it most will ensure the point is taken. The upbeat and understanding tone makes following along with the recipes fun and somewhat enlightening. Eat better, eat inexpensively, and most importantly, spend the time you would have otherwise spent cooking on your family, yourself, and whatever else requires your attention.
