The Naked Chef's Table

Jamie's a Legend for the kids

I’m in Greece. I’m spending two weeks here, alone, hopefully finishing the first draft of a novel that I hope to publish later in the year. Anyway, I’ve told Lisa, who has volunteered to edit the thing, that it’ll be done and dusted (well the first draft anyway) by the end of May. Now the temptation, of course, is to just potter around outside, or go to the beach. But I’m practising that deferred reward approach to incentivise myself to be productive. This morning I got up earlyish and wrote around 800 words. Then I’ll permit myself lunch on the beach. Or a visit to my favourite coffee place that serves fabulous leek and feta pie.

On the subject of coffee, I’ve had three cups during my morning drafting session. And a bacon and cheese toastie. The bacon is very good here. It’s American style streaky (but less fatty) although it spits ferociously in the pan. I had it sandwiched between two slices of sliced Greek ‘black bread’ - a bit like a dark version of malted wholemeal with added seeds and nuts. It’s very good, especially with crispy bacon and melted edam.

Now, I appreciate that I tend not to write about food on this substack. That was a bit of a digression. And I know that this description of my bacon and cheese sarnie is hardly culinary. But it’s something of a segue into the topic of this post…a review, of sorts, of the Chef’s Table episode with Jamie Oliver.

Thanks to my trusty VPN, I, last night, watched the first episode of the new Chef’s Table series. On Netflix.

Now, I know that many people are of the view that Netflix is one of the chief propagandists for the New World Order etc. Totally understand. But we need to know sometimes what the enemy is up to. But my experience of Chef’s Table has been good(ish) so far. Visually, it’s up there with the best of food porn. If you haven’t watched it, here’s the format. A chef is interviewed, documentary style. The chefs provide the narrative for each episode. Typically they tell a back story. Often there’s a tear-jerking hook - like kicking off the shackles of poverty or overcoming some childhood trauma to achieve great culinary success. And, cut into the edit, are the dishes. Beautiful, creative, mouth-watering masterpieces of culinary genius.

The last series was, I think, called ‘Noodles’. This focused on the art of tortured geniuses making pasta or egg noodles. The first in that series featured Evan Funke - an archetypical tortured genius who dedicated himself to making hand-made pasta like only the Mamas make in Italy. So dedicated was he to his art - indeed, passion - for making noodles that he forked out a lot of cash to make his way to noodle school somewhere in the Mezzogiorno - and even more to have a big wooden roller stick made to hone his sfoglia.

It made for compelling viewing, I must admit. But, out of interest, I had a look at the Google reviews of Funke’s restaurant in LA. Have to say, not the best. Overpriced. Not great service. And, sometimes, not especially good pasta. After all there’s a limit to the time anyone is prepared to spend in a big glass cube rolling pasta in public view. Eventually, the intern will get the job.

The latest series of Chef’s Table is called simply ‘Legends’. It features legends of the culinary art. And the first in the series features our very own Jamie Oliver.

Now this does beg the question, of course, as to what constitutes a legend. Our Jamie, bless him, is not exactly a tortured genius. He’s more a cheeky faux-cockney hero who taught the nation to cheat at making fish pie. And his restaurant chain went bust. So the reason he had achieved ‘legendary’ status according to the makers of Chef’s Table was because of his dedication to raising impoverished kids out of their life of inevitable benefits-claiming and academic under-performance. Oh and having to eat turkey twizzlers.

But the problem with a legendary social engineer as the subject of a Chef’s Table is that the ta-da, mouth-watering dishes need to make it into the edit. Hence the inclusion of archive footage from the BBC where a young Jamie is interviewed (when he was at the River cafe) making a big pasta sausage thingy made out of roasted squash. Or his fish pie from Naked Chef.

But, honestly, watch it and you’ll see, his big sausage is not what makes him legendary. No. It’s left to “Sir” Tony Blair to tell us. Jamie dedicated himself to making school dinners better.

A sequence is included (not even slightly staged) where an impassioned Jamie meets with the then mere non-knighted Blair who was, however, the then-PM. The scene shows the two in conversation and Jamie imploring the great statesman Blair to increase the funding for school dinners so that ‘the kids’ can get at least one decent meal a day and be introduced to lollo rossa. The great Blair buckles under the weight of argument for the kids. And agrees to hundreds of millions more dosh to be rolled out for better nosh, for the kids.

In essence this was what made Jamie a suitable candidate for legendary status as far as the Chef’s Table was concerned. The creation of a pistachio twist on a baked Alaska just doesn’t cut it any more. No. Our chefs, like our other masters, know better how our kids should be fed. We can’t let those pesky, stupid parents feed our kids all that processed slop. No. The state shall provide. And if kids aren’t up to learning their maths then they can become celebrity chefs - just like academically under-performing Jamie.

The programme also reminded us that Jamie had created Fifteen - a culinary boot-camp for academic underperforming kids - that rejected hundreds of applications just to find the fifteen up to the televisual standard. But, then, Fifteen went bust along with Jamie’s Italian. Perhaps Jamie should have paid more attention in class when they were teaching about negative numbers.

Television producers, unfortunately, just can’t leave well alone. Chef’s Table used to be a treat for the eye and the taste-buds, whatever they are. Now, unfortunately, even our chefs have to be social engineering legends as well as masters of chopping.