No TV or Cafetorium Safe from Jamie Oliver
Who is the worst pop chef in the world? Rachael? Emeril? Tyler Florence? Paula Dean? No, no, no and no.
I’m tempted to say it’s none other than mushmouth Jamie Oliver — and it has nothing to do with the quality of his food. On the contrary. His eponymous early Food Network show (before the neon took over) was quite good. His cookbooks — including one he autographed for me at a book-signing — offer up simple and flavorful recipes. No harm there.
So what is it that makes Oliver so awful? It’s not what he cooks, but what he demands we cook. Oliver is on a crusade to have government stamp out obesity, and this burgeoning nanny-state obsession is turning him into a laughingstock, even as his own paunch grows.
Rather than following the mantra he established on those early episodes of the Naked Chef, or in his cookbooks — simple foods and good flavor, and a Gusteau-like “anyone can cook” mentality — Oliver is hellbent on using the British government to enforce his view of what his fellow countrymen should eat.
And so while English tabloids go gaga over meaty “broads” like Brooke “Hulk is my Dad” Hogan, here’s Jamie playing TV host to an obese man’s autopsy — apparently to shock people into eating better. But that’s hardly the worst of it, as Oliver is costing British taxpayers boundless sums they might otherwise have used to buy… I don’t know… Better foods? Treadmills?
Ministers have so far spent £220 million on improving school meals after bowing to the campaign led by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in 2005.
That’s close to $500 million! Thankfully, some measure of Oliver’s pontificating does come back to bite him. But it’s certainly not enough. Who’s waiving this study in his pudgy face, for example?
This man is a Huckabee-like menace to diners everywhere. If he wants to educate people about eating fresh foods, I’m aboard. But when Oliver crosses the line to cost taxpayers half a billion dollars, and pulls TV stunts that would embarrass even Geraldo, I say he’s an enemy of cooks, diners, and taxpayers everywhere.
