People Are Furious About The Strange Way Nigella Lawson Butters Toast

Talking and writing about food can be a surprisingly controversial profession, and Nigella Lawson knows this truth better than most. During her decades in the limelight, the famed self-taught cook, food writer, and TV personality has gone through the tabloid wringer and suffered considerable personal tragedy. Nevertheless, she perseveres and continues to preach the joys of home-style cooking, evidently unafraid of the ill winds that may blow her way. 

Regardless of her previous experience with unfortunate public attention, it's probably fair to say that Lawson didn't see her most recent scandal coming. As CNN tells us, she has just drawn the British public's ire for her ... toast-buttering technique. The clouds for this particular storm started gathering on Lawson's BBC show, Nigella's Eat, Cook, Repeat. In a recent episode, she told the viewers that the perfect butter-to-crunchiness ratio is achieved when the toast is buttered at not one, but two different stages. According to Lawson, this gives the toast a "fabulous crumpety bite." This might very well be true, but her system also caused a surprising amount of outrage. 

Here's why people are furious about the strange way Nigella Lawson butters toast.

Lawson's method involves first spreading butter on the toast immediately as it pops out of the toaster. After the toast cools off a little, she then gives it another butter layer, before sprinkling a bit of salt on top. While this sounds pretty delicious in an opulent, not-counting-the-calories-today kind of way, many of her British viewers were less than thrilled and felt like this is a clear-cut case of making toast wrong. Fans took to Twitter to voice their grievances about what they perceived as an affront to the concept of toast. 

"Personally, I only butter once ... twice is overkill/toast carnage," one Twitter user opined. "I am all for invention but, really, toast with added salt! And double butter, too greasy as well as too salty and unhealthy," another concurred. Meanwhile, others expressed their wholehearted support for the greasy treat. "Having toast and butter for lunch, inspired by the great Nigella Lawson," a user contributed.

It's been a weird year, and Britain probably has a few non-toast things to worry about, as well. As such, some astute Twitter users have pointed out the frivolity of the whole situation. As one put it: "Nigella Lawson advising people how to butter toast makes the 10 o'clock news. Britain has officially lost it." Lawson herself put it even more succinctly: "Has the world gone mad?"