Text Commentary - Text 17 (Food Glorious Food Anthology)

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Text 17 Commentary

The text is a transcript from the filming of BBC TV programme 'Nigella  Express', intended to instruct the viewer in how to create a "good breakfast" in the form of “one of the world’s best hangover cures” – “spicy scrambled eggs” with tortillas.  The context of production is that this text, as a transcript, details the speech and actions in the TV show and shows the presenting style in a way that allows an understanding to be given – and may allow for analysis of techniques used in an easier way. The show itself would also be useful for Nigella itself as it may allow her to create a recognisable ‘brand image’ which would help to sell her recipe books.  The primary purposes of the text is to inform and persuade people to make the recipe; with a secondary purpose of entertaining the receiver. The context of reception is that people will read this transcript for the purpose of looking into the show in more depth; perhaps analysing the presentation style Nigella uses etc. Overall, the context of reception for the television show itself is that people may watch it due to an admiration of Nigella or as they like her bubbly personality and the way she tries to make cooking fun, or simply as they saw the show while looking through channels.

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The text presents food as something luxurious, but also simple and easy to make; as something that you need to eat but that you can also love the “softness of this golden egg against the crispness of the golden tortilla” – this juxtaposition of opposite ideas helps to create an interesting effect, and may make readers more likely to try the recipes as they are shown as having a delicious end product. Lexical fields are used, such as words focused on the superiority of a meal such as “ultimate” and “best”. Nigella is shown to be both authoritative (“chop ...

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