Jamie Oliver is right in his comments about the food choices of the poor
Jamie Oliver made some comments about food poverty in recent days. Naturally, the left wing sorts jumped on his being worth £150 million and completely out of touch. He is right and they are wrong.
In comments to the Radio Times, Oliver stated:
“Some of the most inspirational food in the world comes from areas where people are financially challenged… I meet people who say, ‘You don’t understand what it’s like’. I just want to hug them and teleport them to the Sicilian street cleaner who has 25 mussels, 10 cherry tomatoes, and a packet of spaghetti for 60 pence, and knocks out the most amazing pasta. You go to Italy or Spain and they eat well on not much money. We’ve missed out on that in Britain, somehow”.
He added:
“The flavour comes from a cheap cut of meat, or something that’s slow-cooked, or an amazing texture’s been made out of leftover stale bread”.
“I’m not judgmental, but I’ve spent a lot of time in poor communities, and I find it quite hard to talk about modern-day poverty… You might remember that scene in Ministry Of Food, with the mum and the kid eating chips and cheese out of Styrofoam containers, and behind them is a massive TV. It just didn’t weigh up”.
In an article for The Independent, a moralising lady named Jack Monroe suggests that Oliver “has no right to tell us how to spend our money” and whinges about “anger” and “despair”. The “freelance food-and-politics gob” hinges her attack on the television chef around the most bizarre of excuses also:
“Jamie’s stint on the television series Ministry of Food does not qualify him to talk about poverty. He is a poverty tourist turned self-appointed tour guide, and his comments are not only out of touch but support dangerous and damaging myths… Try cooking a budget fish pie, when you only have a single plug-in hob, or a microwave, or a disability that means you need to buy your vegetables pre-chopped, sending the cost soaring”.
Monroe certainly spouts a lot of first-class twaddle. Perhaps she and those like her ought to spend a little more time in the kitchen instead.
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