Hi Spongey

Actually I have just read what Leccy wrote and it appears that I got the wrong end of the stick re the education programme - although I still maintain that I would be pretty fed up if I were a teacher..


Re the school dinners - I am glad he did good. But I think he has let that success perhaps go to his head and wants to change the world.
On the other hand what is wrong with that?

I suppose I just have to admit I don't like him or the way he does this " man of the people" bit, MAYBE I should just watch the programme and then judge..

issy xxx...believe me there's plenty of times we're cursing mr oliver when we're rushed off our feet and then have to still work out the nutrional/calorific content of each dish!!!

I bet - but the trouble is it is the home and parents that need the education around food - not schools.

i think the thing is issy they're looking at it that the school lunch maybe the child's only hot dinner of the day,or their main meal...........we have to be particularly strict with the kids on free school dinners....making sure they have something proper to eat..........as some will still try to get through with 2 drinks and a small bread roll...........often then giving one drink to their mate who isn't on free lunches thus saving him buying one......

it is an absolute minefield...........and as i said earlier we still get kids asking what certain dishes are...and it's not a spectatcular dish either....

for instance one friday we had fish and chips as per usual......and also some chicken curry and rice to use up as well........a child came up and the convo went like this......

him....'what's that?'

me..'it's chicken curry'

him..'well what's that?'

me..'that's fish'

him 'what's the difference?'...

and that unfortunately is what you have to deal with sometimes...that a 12 year old lad doesn't know the difference between two pretty standard meals

Thats awful Spongey - the whole of how we as a country view food needs to be looked at.
You know we scoff but there is an awful  lot to be said about teaching proper cookery in schools - you know the basic stuff. I think kids would love it.

School meals did really need to change 'though Issy, and they did...and sure he did something where he was teaching families to cook cheap, nutritious meals as I recall?

That's part of the government strategy that came about as a result of Jamie's school dinners campaign Issy :  to give every secondary-school pupil an entitlement to learn to cook from 2008. All pupils who wish to will be able to take lessons on basic cookery skills allowing them to leave school with a 'licence to cook', giving them knowledge to prepare a range of healthy meals

Hi Cali

I saw that programme - he had a grandiose scheme of teaching one person to cook one thing and then they taught someone else?
But as I recall it was not a particular success.We have got a whole generation of people out there who just don't get cooking and therefore don't pass the skills on to their children .

That's great BUT will it go by the wayside with all the cuts?

Hiya Issy  I didn't really see it so don't know how successful it was, but, oh, I dunno, at least he was trying to do something, he couldn't teach every one of them to cook himself! I agree, 'though re needing to do something, I can't believe that so many people don't have even the most basic cookery skills

The sad thing is that if people can cook they actually save money bUT it is having the confidence to do so.
Delia may be much maligned ( although I love her..)  BUT her cookery course was brilliant and did teach the basics. Perhaps Jamie is too "hail fellow well met" ( sorry an old expression).

He irritates the life out of me sadly....

Maybe, everything is 'under review' under the Con-Dems, including the Healthy Schools Programme and certainly the Academy programme that they are pushing will mean those schools that become Academies will have freedom re delivery of the curriculum,so it will be up to the individual schools

See, she really gets on my norks, I find her so 'mother knows best' and Little Miss Prissy, (although I have several of her recipe books, that I like!)...each to their own I suppose

OMG Maybe I am like Delia so that is why I like her

I just find her comforting... 

...do you support Norwich City?

NO!

But I do like Colman's mustard and that is from Norwich 

Agree with the OP and the first few posters on here.  Can't stand the hideous revolting little pipsqueak!  He makes my skin crawl, and nothing grinds on me more than know-it-alls lecturing us on what to do, how we should be eating, how our kids should be eating.. yada yada yada!  Just piss off and mind your beeswax Jamie Oliver.  Im still alive arent I?  And so is me granny who's almost 90 and never fussed over any stupid faddy 'healthy foods,' that pious little knobs like Oliver dictate that we should be eating all the time.  

And I buy microwave meals and frozen foods and pre packaged foods more than anything else!  I don't apologise for it, and don't care what anyone else thinks!  Anyone who grows their own food from scratch and cooks from scratch (so they say!) obviously has plenty of time on their hands.  

Video of Issy

Delia is brilliant, and her recipes always work for me.

Her Christmas cake recipe is still the best and I love how she tells you not to panic if it doesn't look right...

She's very reassuring, Issy.

Curse you Cali for finding what  I do on a Saturday

Can't stand Delia - she's a real hypocrite. She slagged off vegetarians and vegetarianism for all sorts of reasons, and then, a few years later, brought out a veggie cookery book. My DIL bought it for my son and tbh the recipes aren't up to much at all. Janet Hunt and Rose Elliot are much better if anyone is looking for a veggie recipe book.
Issy, I think your dislike of JO is colouring the way you look at what he does. Not a criticism hun just an observation. I'm not bothered by him one way or the other but I would have thought with your background in health and nutrition that anyone who gets the issue of healthy food into the news has to be welcomed.
Considering the vast amounts of money that crap eating habits cost all of us via the NHS I'd like the government to be a lot more proactive with the issue of healthy eating

From what I heard the Ministry of Food was a really good success and the courses are booked out months in advance. 6500 took part in Rotherham alone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-e...h-yorkshire-11373365

The scheme has even been extended to Australia.

http://www.reuters.com/article...dUSTRE6A71S020101108

I'm not getting at you Issy, or anyone else who doesn't like him...I just wonder where the perception that all his ideas have failed have come from when it appears to me that most of them have worked

Veggie - you are spot on.
How could I argue with what he does? BUT I really cannot stand him so cannot be objective.
However I would rather have him than Heston Blumenwotsit. 

leccy - I am in the middle of a rather large slice of humble pie here... 
I will read up on those links. BUT have got to watch Dispatches tonight as it is all about hospital food...

Issy, I really do rate her recipes and her Christmas book is great, there's just something about her that winds me up!

She's no Nigella  

Cooking from scratch doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming. There are foods out there for all budgets.

I really went off him a few years ago, he got right on my nerves being on the telly non stop, his mug was everywhere I can totally relate to anyone who he annoys. 

I'm a bit of a sod for sourcing things though...think it stems from arguing with people on political blogs.

That Dispatches thing looks interesting Issy, saw it advertised.

It is going to be grim BUT I think it needs to be said to be honest...

Aye, it takes ten minutes to cook some pasta, sauce and hoy some basil or something on it.

jacket potatoes - nature's fast food
And with beans and cheese - yum

Issy, You're right about that Heston servicearea or whatever his name is. What a plonker. I saw a bit of him on Graham Norton the other night, he didn't impress me.
Btw I find it very difficult to divorce my dislike of someone from what they do so I totally understand your attitude to JO. It's even worse when they are doing something worthwhile and they send you into a stabby rage (as Saz says)

One of my faves Issy

Jacket potatoes are the best Cupcake..

LOL Heston service area...

He is a plonker IMO. I am a great believer in good honest food that is not too mucked about with. I recognise that a lot of people disagree with me and that is fair enough. He has apparently won a lot of awards for his restaurant the Fat Duck. BUT ( and this is where I agree with Jamie), food should speak for itself and a simply prepared dish made with good ingredients would beat snail porridge any day.. IMO

I'm a bit of a food geek so I quite like Heston and his scientific approach to it. You can't actually cook anything from his programmes though. 

Couldn't agree more Cags, that's not to say I don't occasionally pick up a ready meal or a pizza on the way home from work if I've had a late one, but, generally speaking, I'd much rather cook something from scratch, largely 'cos I love my food and it tastes better

he has got a new programme on tomorrow - I am going to have to watch it - just to wind myself up

Marks and Spencers do the best ready meals...

*drools.*