You’ve got to wonder if the review-bombing of With Love, Meghan was always going to be baked into every conversation about the show and the Duchess of Sussex. What I mean is, the same people are always going to hysterically criticize and mock every single thing Meghan does and says, to the point where it’s just baked into the system and it becomes white noise. Oh, they’re at it again, “it” being “hating on a woman making a breakfast sandwich.” If anything, the critical tantrum worked entirely in Meghan’s favor – it doesn’t matter if you were genuinely interested in WLM or you were hate-watching it, the numbers are the same and the numbers are great. Meanwhile, millions of people just watched it and actually picked up some lifestyle and cooking tips which they are now going to incorporate into their everyday lives. That includes the beans-on-toast people, the Land of Unseasoned Food. Apparently, there have been spikes of interest in several food items & recipes featured on WLM.

The Duchess’s show is something like a lifestyle magazine come to life: it is a guide to hosting the Montecito way. It is a show of brown labels and glass jars, of fruit displayed in a rainbow and lavender on the towels. Is it inane and insufferably twee (at one point she says “goodnight, sweetheart” as she puts a cake in the oven)? Of course. But it appears the public are viewing it with a less cynical eye, and some may be taking Meghan’s advice to heart.

In fact, according to Waitrose, since the show began airing on Netflix, their website has seen some huge rises in interest in particular ingredients. According to the supermarket — the Standard has no way of verifying it — there has been fresh interest in everything from edible flowers to bruschetta.

Some of these rises are perhaps more telling than others. There has been a 3200% upping of searches for truffle salt, for instance, though one wonders how many people were really looking for it before. On the other hand, honey — ever popular — has spike 49 per cent, suggesting the show really has had an impact. Other items also seeing a rise include edible flowers and crudites, both up a whopping 200 per cent, “assorted fruit platter”, up 33 per cent, “microwave popcorn”, a rise of 200 per cent, and bath salts, fizzing up by 65 per cent. Somewhat curiously, searches for sparkling water also risen by 233 per cent. Had viewers not come across sparkling water before?

The full list of items With Love, Meghan, has had an impact on is below:

‘Crudites’ + 200%
‘Honey’ + 49%
‘Sparkling water’ + 233%
‘Assorted Fruit Platter’ + 33%
‘Truffle salt’ + 3200%
‘Microwave popcorn’ + 200%
‘Edible flowers’ + 200%
‘Bruschetta’ + 50%
‘Focaccia’ + 86%
‘Bath salts’ + 65%

[From The Evening Standard]

LMAO, I was in the grocery store on Friday and I paused in the produce section, wondering if I should buy a veggie platter too (sorry, a crudite platter). What’s also amazing is that some of these are deep cuts – like, truffle butter wasn’t even a huge part of that episode. She only made bath salts in one episode (the first one). Honey and edible flowers are not a surprise, those were used consistently throughout the show. Focaccia was only in one episode (the one with Delfina Blaquier, who is absolutely gorgeous in motion – seriously, still photos do not do her justice). I would also not be surprised if there were spikes in Google searches in the UK for “parboiling chicken” and “Korean fried chicken” or “chicken tinga.” Right now, multiple British newspapers are running articles about Meghan’s one-pot pasta though – the Korean and Mexican recipes might be a bit too much for the beans-on-toast crowd.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.