There are so many TV chefs we love to hate but there’s a very special spot for the teary eyed, school dinner revolutionary that is… Jamie Oliver.
Jamie Oliver became famous pretty much overnight. His media career began back in 1997 when he was working as a sous chef in Fulham. At the time he was working in a quaint, open kitchen restaurant called The River Café and the BBC just so happened to be recording a documentary there when Jamie was on duty.
His bubbly personality shone through during an unscripted interview and the rest is TV history – although, you probably wouldn’t be bothered to look it up.
Now, we’re not saying Jamie is a bad chef and his restaurant does serve fairly tasty food, but it’s the child-like air about him and his use of disgusting shock tactics that we’re not too fond of. No one wants to see a chicken carcass blended up on TV just as you’re sitting down to dinner…
Whenever he opens his mouth it seems as though he’s teaching from the top of the room to a class of five year olds. He just doesn’t have the spark or aggression that you’d associate with a passionate chef, like Marco Pierre White or Gordon Ramsay – although, he’s a different kettle of fish altogether, as you can read here – and Jamie’s grand plans of changing America’s eating habits were doomed to fail from the beginning.
The pinnacle of Jamie’s childishness, however, had to be when he broke down on national TV because he was worried his revolutionary school dinner plans would fail in the US.
Whether this charade was actually heartfelt or whether it was just for the cameras we don’t know, but we do know there was just no need for it. He was up against stiff opposition in the first place (as you can see in the video), but he was really just crying over spilt milk.
In fairness to the chap, he does do good work for underprivileged kids and he was named one of Britain’s richest under 30’s (he’s 37 now) so we have to give him some credit for that. Still, that doesn’t mean we don’t change the channel whenever his mug comes on.
Take the hassle out of being the chef tonight – remember – Don’t Cook, JUST EAT
