Personally, I despise the way Jamie Oliver seems to have turned cooking into a gaudy contact sport. Food is to be prepared full stop, not to be flung about when being prepared. Don't even START me on those hands, every time I see him "knocking up some lubbly-jubbly creation", I can't help but think "dirt-under-fingernails/pube scratcher"

I sometines long for the halcyon days on Fanny & Johnny.....

As for Jamie's comments about British food being bland, has it ever dawned upon Jamie that out of all the countries in the EU, the British on average work the most hours a week and don't actually have several hours a day to spare emulating their Soweto counterparts in the kitchen?

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So what he's saying is, we should eat more hearts?



I guess the irony in Jamie Oliver points out the faults of Britain's ailing culture is lost on him.

The reason behind what he's talking about is pretty simple. There are whole generations of people who don't know how to cook, because at some point it was decided that teaching home economics (i.e. cooking) in schools was ultra-sexist. Rather than extend it to boys and girls, they just stopped teaching anyone these skills. The knock-on effect is that the knowledge gets lost. I only know how to cook at all because my parents taught me, but a lot of people won't ever have learnt, won't ever have had home-prepared food.

I think he's illustrating part of the problem in his comments, to be honest. On the one hand, he's shown how we're far more ready to blame these things on "the downfall of society" or whatever than look for something practical that would actually solve it.

Secondly, I think cooking shows like his really don't help. They allow people to experience cooking vicariously through television, rather than actually do it themselves. Unless I'm wrong, and the average cooking show viewer DOES take notes and learn to cook, then they're just food porn for people who'll then just head straight for the readymeal aisle. I mean, even the so-called "Naked Chef" makes cooking look harder than it is.

What basically happens is that the standard for "good food" is raised so high by food obsessives that someone who could make a perfectly acceptable sausage and mash or a curry or whatever doesn't bother. You can have a perfectly good diet on "British food", and I really don't buy the idea that our culture being eroded is somehow to blame. There's a fairly distinct set of meals that people in this country eat. The fact that we don't have festivals to celebrate them doesn't mean they're not there.

That's my views, anyway. I don't see any sense on blaming bad diet on "decline", or taking on grand causes like banning unhealthy food. It's totally unnecessary and counter-productive, since it gets people worked up about things they can't change and distracts them from things that they very easily can.

If you wanted to do one, really good thing, you could just tell people that, if you Google a meal, you can probably get a recipe for it on-line. I don't know if people just don't have cookbooks anymore or if they're scared of them, but it used to be that if you bought an oven you'd get a basic cookbook with it that would give you the mechanics of cooking. A celebrity chef's cash-in tract packed with exotic meals and ingredients is no substitute, because it tells you fuck all about day-to-day cooking; at best you'll make one or two of the meals at weekends, but chances are you'll never bother.

first things first: id totally hit it.

i agree with him. i always have agreed with him about the whole idea of being passionate about simple things in life like cooking your own meals, being with your friends and family and having a laugh. i guess youd have to read his books to understand what hes on about.

what hes trying to say is think a little about how you live your life. everything begins at home and good simple food. life is a matter of priorities and how you set them and its sad that people don't bother with things like making your life and environment better by caring about what you put on your plate.

its a pretty simple concept. but his whole celebrity thing just gets in the way of his message some times. and thats sad.

I read one of his cookbooks recently and it was easy to follow. It was great for home cooks. There was nothing fancy about the recipes...just fresh ingrediants and lots of herbs. If I took the time to prepare say a nice roasted piece of fish with herbs, that would be faster and healthier than take out any day. I work 9 hours a day. I don't do carry out on the weeknights. Takes me 1/2 an hour, maybe 1 hour at the most to whip up dinner. Growing up my mom worked full time and always had dinner on the table for our family of five. I helped her out of course.

i realize that. but i don't like you guys. so i'll call you whatever you want. (keeping in mind that i know you're irish, i just think you're a pompous dick now.)

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I have to disagree with you here. Regardless of our working hours, few of us are working so much that we don't have time to rustle up bangers and mash or something.

I mean, for it to be a valid excuse, someone would have to literally only have enough free time to put a ready meal in an oven and eat it before they're either in bed or back at the grindstone, and to be honest, there's a fair few really unfuckuppable meals that probably only take as much time as some frozen vegetable bake. They take slightly more effort during the time than throwing the thing in the oven, I'll admit, but it's not like you'll be back at the coalface during the 20 minutes or so between putting it in and taking it out. Chances are you'll be slumped down in front of the TV watching something shit while you wait for the oven timer to go off. What a waste! In that time you could just as easily have, say, cooked some mince in gravy with a few spices, peeled and cooked some veg... it's not horribly over-elaborate Soweto cooking and it's not what that cunt Oliver thinks we should be eating, but it WOULD address the problem he's on about.

So I really don't see that working hours are such a big factor, especially since few of us are working jobs that physically exhaust us any more. Most of us just get paid to spend 8 hours a day bored shitless pressing buttons and then go home. How is that going to prevent you from boiling some spuds instead of breaking out the Aunt Bessie's instant mash?

Honestly, I think most people are too scared of cooking than they are too busy, and that sucks because it's no harder than following the instructions. Again, it's the celeb chefs' fault in a way for making what they do out to be the only good food there is and making it look hard. Oliver can hardly preach either; as if his bosses at Sainsbury's want the public to stop buying over-priced ready meals and get back to home-preparing food from basic (and thus MUCH CHEAPER) ingredients.

I know, it sucks when people say that they don't have time. And then when you point out how long it takes they'll blame it on having to keep the kids occupied, as if they do something more than dumping them in front of the TV, rather than, I dunno, getting them to help them cook?

I'm not irish. I'm scottish and hence british.

btw clotty is funny when she lays into stuff, you just come across a vindictive bigot. I doubt very much if that bothers you though since you seem to have gone out of your way to purge your personality of every redeeming characteristic it used to have.

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If you ever feel useless and depressed, remember: one day you were the fastest spermatozoon of all.

Exactly. I didn't mind helping my mom. I would set the table for us or prep the salad. And I would help out with dishes afterwards. It was just part of growing up and being a family. It makes me sick when I am in the grocery store and I see people picking up nasty frozen or pre-packaged junk to feed their family. I know its hard when you have kids or work long hours, but once you learn simple techniques to prepare food fast it isn't that hard to put a meal on the table

Meh, Irish, Scottish, what's the difference, right?


I had to explain to someone the difference between England, Britain and The United Kingdom recently. I think I failed.

there is no difference.

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yeah i'm not bothered. and i don't give a fuck between irish/scottish anyway. either way a dick.

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The thing is, there's nothing inherently wrong with convenience food. Sometimes you actually don't have time to prepare food, and you will be doing something in between putting it in the oven and taking it out. A frozen pizza or something when you're eating before going out for the evening (to do your DIRTY SINFUL BINGE DRINKING rather than chugging a bottle of Merlot every night like my nice middle class parents ) isn't going to turn you into a taut slob in a pantsuit overnight.

That's what bugs me most, I think. Like with the healthy eating thing: there's nothing wrong with a bar of chocolate now and then as long as you don't go nuts, whereas if you try and ban them in schools or otherwise demonise them, some people will just not give a shit, and those who weren't pumping their kids full of lard anyway will jump on the fad of concern overdo it, so that instead of their kid having a Penguin bar a day from mum, he gets an apple to throw in the bin and probably stuffs his face full of chocolate on the way home. I've seen this in my own family; my cousins weren't allowed sweets at home whereas me and my sister were, so when we stayed at our grandparents, my cousins would trough through their chocolate like their life depended on it.

Moderation is great, it's just hard to promote.

No you're right. I wouldn't lie and say I don't eat frozen pizza or anything of that sort. It is a great convience once in a while. I mean I eat cup of noodles at lunch. It's just when pre-packaged crap/frozen/takeout is all you are shoving into your body on a regular basis well that is just gross. I have seen people who live like this. To me this is not appreciating life.

(i'm just cutting that down because it's rather long)

I don't think he's attacking the readymeal culture in that way. Also I don't agree that generations can't cook, yeah home economics isn't really taught in the same way it was (they still taught it at my school, I made crumble, toad in the hole, and pizza and stuff) but at what point does someone go from messing about in the kitchen to being able to cook anyway? almost all simple stuff tells you how to prepare it on the packet. I don't think he's saying this country is falling apart because no one can cook I think he's attacking the way we view our own food.

When I was in spain for an extended period people there looked forward to dinner, the food in supermarkets was not all spherical tomatos in firetruck red, it was just bulgey, weird looking things that tasted fantastic. It was there to be eaten and enjoyed. same with the meat and the wine.

I think he's attacking the value people here place on food, and by extension, themselves. They don't care, if they're losing knowledge it's because they think the knowledge isn't worth having. I don't know about england but in scotland more fine food produce is exported than consumed in the country. the manufacturers know they won't find enough people who view food special enough to look out an aberdeen angus rather than some bog standard cow. In spain it's the opposite, you have massive big butchers, the size of those inner-city metro tesco's that specialize in varieties of meat (one I went to was actually also a slaughterhouse), weekly markets of produce etc.

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If you ever feel useless and depressed, remember: one day you were the fastest spermatozoon of all.