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Jamie roundup

Paul
2008-10-18 22:41:00 UTC

So. Jamie Oliver. What have we learned?

In the episode, we discovered the following things:

He’s a mockney prat.
Despite being one of the famous-est chefs on the planet, he doesn’t actually tell you anything interesting that you can use to make ragu with.
The recipe was bland and basic, and it still took four hours to make.
Recipe books, it would seem, are only any good if you already know how to cook.
Did I mention he was a mockney prat?

I stand by my ad hominem remarks. They add colour and—I hope—humour to an article that would, otherwise, be a long whinge about celebrity culture. They act like the seasoning that was woefully lacking in Jamie’s ragu. And they’re valid—-even if Jamie taught you how to cook like Ferran Adrià, he’s still got one of those faces you just want to hit. (Apparently Channel 4 viewers agree with me.)

Any normal person trying to find out about cooking would have sweated away in a hot kitchen for some hours, and at the end would have been rewarded only by that (not insignificant) warm glow you get when you’ve actually finished making something all by yourself. The food itself was certainly nothing to shout about: the sauce tasted like sauce from a jar, and the pasta was slightly less impressive than you’d get out of a packet. Any member of the Findus Crispy Pancakes generation would have wondered what all the fuss was about. Having said that, after four hours we were hungry.

I’ve since experimented a bit with the recipe, and found that it benefits from a couple of tweaks: for instance, I add nutmeg. Hugh has an excellent list of things you should do to ragu, which includes a few other things I’m going to try.

Maybe it’s not all celebrity chefs, though. Maybe it’s just Jamie, and some of the others are quite good. Fear not, for the science is not finished yet. Armed with the qualitative data from our Jamie test, we’re next going to see how he compares to other celebrity chefs. Coming up later in the series we’ve got all-new Normal People set against Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay.

Also, there’s been some discussion to the effect that the recipes in Jamie’s Italy come from stuff he’s stolen from the Italians, and aren’t actually Jamie’s recipes at all. Does anyone think we should offer him a rematch?

Comments

Hakuo0000 | 2008-10-19 03:23:16 UTC

Oh, oh, Nigella is so hot. ~~Random.~~ I’ve only seen her once, on Food Network, and it was damn well near like 3am. She made some pretty good toast..things…I have it recorded, just haven’t done it yet. (I’d love to toast HER…)

I’m not that big of a fan of Gordon, even though it’s funny while he’s yelling at someone. I wonder if the book will have that sort of stuff in there…“Are your eggs nice and fluffy? No? NO?! You fucking moron! I told you to add a pinch of milk, not a whole fucking cow!”

-Cough.-

Have fun with that. <3

Louise Dennis | 2008-10-20 10:58:35 UTC

I’m not sure this episode, at least, demonstrated that recipe books are only good if you know how to cook.

It showed they make assumptions about availability of ingredients and equipment that aren’t relevant for normal people but there was nothing in the episode where Steve was going “what on Earth does that mean”?

In a way the “a bit "meh” " conclusion undermined a lot of the ranting. If you see what I mean, the ranting sort of implied it was leading up to either a “he really is terrible” or “oh noes! we were completely wrong he’s great” but in the end it all built up to “Jamie Oliver is a bit meh” which was something of an anti-climz.

Hugh | 2008-10-20 11:54:09 UTC

I agree somewhat on the climax – unfortunately from a drama standpoint, that was how it turned out! The recipe’s well-written and easy to follow, but just doesn’t produce very good food. I’ll confess, that really wasn’t the result we were expecting.

One of the things we agreed on at the start of working on KKCook was that we’d always show what actually happened – we’d never try to bend our results to make them better TV. Hence, the slightly odd ending.

helen | 2008-10-25 18:57:06 UTC

As a consequence of a new year Challenge, I’m cooking the entirety of Nigella’s 2007 book, Nigella Express in 2008. 190 recipes in 366 days (and we’re doing okay!). I am a mahoosive foodie but I think you’ll see from my blog The Sacred Art of Eating that the vast majority of recipes in Nigella Express are easily cooked and taste grand. Plus, they seem to generally use real ingredients unlike things like Delia Cheat which relies on a lot of stuff out of packets. However I will agree with Louise that books like this assume you can buy quite exotic ingredients. If i didn’t work near Waitrose and a big Sainsbury’s (so if I lived just about anywhere else in Scotland!) I’d really struggle with sourcing. And instead I spend stupid amounts of money in Waitrose, but hey, it’s just one year, one challenge!

Amanda | 2008-10-26 10:31:41 UTC

I’m very much looking forward to your ‘normal person’ against Gordon Ramsey, having watched the car-crash that was Gordon Ramsey’s Cookalong Live’ last night.

Absolutely awful television. For a man that protests to hate ‘celeb chefs’, he’s currenty wearing the crown of ‘Most annoying celeb chef’.

The format is supposed to be simple – check the radio times or the web site for the ingredients, somehow manouver your tv into your kitchen, and cook a three course meal live alongside Ramsey. During the course of the hour, he’ll cut to ordinary people cooking via the wonder of web cams, and sprinkle through some segments criticising other celeb chefs along the way.

And of course, to prove that anyone can do it, a celeb of the week will be cooking alongside him in the kitchen.

In reality, he failed to give anything approximating proper instruction, he insulted or ignored his celeb (Patsy Kensit) to the point that she just looked upset and angry, and she totally failed to be able to cook the dishes. And that’s when she’s standing next to Ramsey. I actively found it unpleasant to watch, while his studio audience were reduced to nervous giggles.

What instructions there were, were delivered at break-neck pace with little hope of anyone with a fear of cookery being able to keep up. Things like scoring the pastry on the main course were completed, and then followed up with instructions on how not to do it.

‘Gordon proves that everyone across the nation can prepare and enjoy a three course home-made meal’, proclaims the website. Bollocks. I can’t see anything more designed to turn people off cooking than being made to feel like an useless idiot.

When he did cut to his ‘people at home’ cooking along, most of them were cocking it up too.

His segments criticising other celeb chefs – this week, St Delia of Smith – were also pretty patronising. So, he crashes her cookery school in a (rubbish) disguise. Just a cheap shot really.

For a man with as many television shows, franchses and him (and with a wife who’s a cash in cookery book queen) he should tred a little more carefully I think!

There’s another five weeks of this kitchen nightmare ahead. Jamie might be a mockney prat, but at least he seems to be interested in the people he’s helping to cook. I know which one I’d rather have try to teach me to cook, anyway…

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