Let Them Eat Quinoa

fish and chipsJamie Oliver is waging war on working-class people who eat junk food in front of gigantic flat-screen TV’s, with his new cooking programme ‘Jamie’s Money Saving Meals’, showing now on a, er, TV, near you.

In yet another round of the scurrilous ‘let’s bash the poor’ game, Oliver (worth an estimated £150 million), who built his reputation and fortune on his ‘cheeky chappie, one of the lads’ act, has demonstrated just how much he has lost touch with reality.

Does he honestly not realise why some people have large TV’s? He may be able to take his kids on exotic foreign holidays, day trips to farms, indoor play parks, etc but when your budget is severely squeezed and these are a distant dream, the TV dominating the room is a window on the world. Hemmed in by lack of transport and no money, how else are people supposed to entertain their families?

And when your only local shop is a Happy Shopper, with a restricted range of food selling at premium prices, where are we supposed to buy Jamie’s suggested ‘basic store cupboard ingredients’ (total price £150) which includes quinoa, sesame oil and kaffir lime leaves?

For someone who is supposedly championing cheap, wholesome food and a return to basic cooking skills, he’s certainly cashing in. Twenty recipes in his obligatory book to accompany the series require a food processor. A basic one is around £60. His branded version comes in at £150. Nice one, Jamie. And the cook book? That’ll be £26.

In addition, essential equipment includes three types of graters, a pestle and mortar and a griddle pan, and yes, he sells them all too. The graters alone will set you back £40. So much for saving with Jamie. He states, ‘the Sicilian street cleaner (has) 25 mussels, ten cherry tomatoes and a packet of spaghetti…and knocks out the most amazing pasta’. Oh spare me the middle-class vision of our European cousins. Patronising, offensive twaddle. His hypocrisy is breathtaking. The people he’s really targeting are the chattering classes who think austerity chic is an amusing distraction, not a grueling way of life.

I used to admire Jamie Oliver, but the only person laughing all the way to the bank is him.

p.s If you really want to, you can buy his new cook book for a heavily-discounted £9.99 at www.thebookpeople.co.uk

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16 thoughts on “Let Them Eat Quinoa

  1. david says:

    hi, good blog, yet another tosser telling us what is best.
    my mother used to say a little of what you fancy, plus there are quite a few recipes that are free, who needs a tossers book. Sorry can I say tosser. x

  2. Jenny Best says:

    Once again I totally agree with you. I used to like Jamie Oliver when he first arrived but now his whole concept is for the middle classes who are playing at being poor.
    Someone I know (a friend?) said to me recently that she was desperatey worried about money. This person has two flats and loads of savings and is fit and able bodied enough to find work. Grrrr. I’m a big Guardian fan but have you read the Guardian magazine lately……recipes and ingredients that are for the mega rich. Grrrrr
    Anyway, nice to be able to share my rant with yours! Keep up the great blogs.
    Jenny x

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Thanks Jenny!
      I completely agree re the Guardian magazine – I buy it on a saturday to read the blind date bit. The recipes are waaaay out my reach and normally have 20 odd ingredients. Bit like their fashion pages – they may feature all ages but certainly not all budgets. Meh.
      And as for Jamie Oliver, bish bash bosh, no thank you!
      X

  3. Tony Cardis says:

    Sense stress levels rising, have a bacon buttie, bread by Lidl, bacon by Tesco, HP sauce by Asda, might go into this cooking lark myself 🙂

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Yup! Am having fish and chips, lol. Back to bacon butties from tomorrow when I start work again. Been off most of summer!
      X

  4. Sally says:

    Ooh, he’s really hit a nerve with you today. Lol doesn’t help that it’s Monday too does it. Me I swear by the BBC Good Food website. Bloody marvellous. I now have a virtual folder on the site with all the quick recipes that I regularly do. Even managed to chuck out my backlog of old magazines (oldest was mar 2004) that I kept for perhaps one recipe. ALL the recipes are on there, including a surprising favourite of my kids ,chicken, mustard and parsnip one pot. All in , bosh bash bosh 40 mins later dinner on table. Should mention I am a huge fan of one pots.

    • stumbling in flats says:

      I love that website! Got some cracking recipes from there.
      Don’t get me wrong, used to love Jamie Oliver and some of his earlier campaigns, just can’t stomach him jumping on the austerity bandwagon and making money from it.
      Love one pots too, especially in the winter!
      X

  5. Samantha Thompson says:

    Jamie Oliver is a typical I’m alright Jack. It is way too easy to point the finger at what he calls the ‘right way of living’ when you are sitting on a huge income. I’m very pleased that he as made it but he needs to leave other people alone. He hasn’t got a clue what living on a budget is, no matter what previous experience he has of it. He is free from those restraints now and it’s now he decides to start dictating.

    I think his recipes are a bit much, it’s never cheap to cook the Jamie way. I always end up referring to Delia, BBC recipes or my favourite Gary Rhodes. He understands budget and time and ordinary, just nice!! Not that I cook much, my arms are just crap!

    Xx

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Fab comment, thank you! Glad I’m not the only one. Wish they just got a single mum or something to do a new cookery show – someone who knows what they’re talking about. I find it hard to take Jamie seriously when he talks about saving money then charges 26 quid for his book!!
      x

  6. Julie says:

    He has got my back up with this too!
    Trouble is, all the people producing the money saving twaddle you read about in newspapers, books and magazines are doing so for a wage. Hence they have no real understanding of how to feed a family whilst being skint. If they did they wouldn’t be recommending unrealistic ingredients and cooking methods.
    The ones that also wind me up are the recipes that require cooking for hours on end. Seriously, have they not seen the price of gas and electric?
    They also forget that we don’t live in a sun drenched climate, we have to pay through the nose for something that tastes even similar to an actual tomato.
    I think Mr Oliver may be close to his ‘use by’ date!

    • stumbling in flats says:

      Excellent points!! And yup, totally winds me up when I read a recipe that says ‘simmer for 4 hours’ or something? Really?? That’s more gas than I use all week.
      Totally out of touch. I actually like Nigel Slater’s recent programmes about using leftovers. Much nicer manner about him!
      And adore Delia too. Blimey. I’m hungry now. X

  7. Sally says:

    Nigel Slater is fab. His recipes are so quick and easy and I even find some of his store cupboard stuff is actually in my cupboard

    • stumbling in flats says:

      He’s adorable. Such a gentle way of talking. Love his recipes and he makes you think outside the box a little. 🙂
      X

  8. haha – I don’t know who this tosser is, but he does sound like a tosser. And I like saying tosser. Why do insults in the UK sound so much funnier than ones in the U.S.? Or maybe it’s the novelty.

    Sorry – absolutely nothing substantive to say. Just childish amusement at tosser. See how I squeezed it in one more time?!! *I* might be the tosser. (Yes, that makes it 5 times I’ve used the word in one silly comment.)

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