To think that Jamie Oliver is a Goady goady mc judgy pants personified!

[LEMisdisappointed]

judgey much?

It reads like a clip from the daily mail - actually, it probably is!

Now there are people, i have a friend who can make an amazing meal out of apparently nothing (she is italian though!) in ten minutes flat - although she has lots of those ingredients that are expensive to buy in the first place but go a long way,i would never know what to do with them!

I am such a boring cook, i have a small repertoire (sp) of meals that i cook - over and over again, the ingredients in my cupboard are basic because i can't afford capers and porcinni mushrooms etc. I rarely fall back on ready meals and feed my family healthily. But its boring really and i can understand why some people use ready meals - time, money - So yeah, making your own pizza will be cheaper than dominos or tesco fineset but it is not going to be cheaper than icelands £1 pizza is it? Not from scratch, not from the start - yes if you divide the amount of pizzas your flour, cheese, tomato sauce and anything else you want to put on it by 20 it might be cheaper but those ingredients have to be bought in the first place.

See, I would welcome cheap and easy ways to make my meals more exciting and thankfully we are not on the breadline this month, but im not going to watch that smug little bastard telling me how i can just knock out some pucker tucker out of a packet of anchovies and dust from the cupboard!

I have always thought him a smug twat - this confirms it!

[limitedperiodonly]

Adulterated ready-made food was a massive problem in the 19th century

I remember bringing that up on a thread about the horsemeat scandal cory.

That turned into a 'bash the ready-meal guzzling classes' thread too.

[ubik]

Oh yes - Sweeney Todd, Cory The grim story about what the demon barber put in his pies.

It's interesting reading social history of Victorian times - the hand-wringing about the lower classes and their wanton behaviour, drinking and lewdness. The gangs of feral children roaming the streets; who needs the Daily Mail?

[mignonette]

"She is so healthy, she is fit, she has willpower and she never drinks any alcohol"

Interesting equation of factors there. All you willpower less drinkers. We can argue until the (organic) cows come home but the conflation of these character descriptions in one sentence exists and unless this cynical young man comes onto MN to fully explain himself they will have to stand.

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

I was at our park the other day, which is next to the allotments (4y waiting list iirc - we have turned our little front yard into a veg patch instead, but not been very succesful) and could hear a couple of the owners there talking about what to do with their massive surpluss - they aren't legally allowed to sell the food they make. Unless it's for the allotment fund.

If you could change that there's lots of potential to help others there - just passing on to people you know doesn't always get to those who need it most, and it would make owning an allotment more economical if you could sell the surplus at cost.

[cory]

Of course this doesn't mean it's a good thing that people should have a sub-standard diet. Whether they are Victorian pie shop devotees or modern Frenchmen scoffing tripes a la mode de Caen out of a tin or Brits feeding their children chicken nuggets.

But it's a question of how you go about it to change things.

[mignonette]

Cory Yes the horrors contained in flour, sugar and other dry goods. Those lovely old rose tinted times when people were poisoned by their little local corner shop.

[mignonette]

And JO wittering on about working 15 hour days w/ his Father and his young employees moaning about a 48 hour week (which is the legal amount) whilst his 'immigrant' employees are happy to work longer hours and work harder.

Doesn't make it right does it? I dare say I could go to a developing World nation and employ three hundred staff who would be prepared to work an illegal amount of hours for less pay and work harder for it. The thing is, should we be allowed to? I wouldn't want an exhausted Doctor attending my crash call nor writing up a complex Px for one of my patients. Nor do I want my meals served by an exhausted Polish/Lithuanian/ English national. I respect employers who do not flout British and EU working directives or make their employees feel guilty, inadequate or 'unbutch' (his term) for daring to want to work the legal maximum.

[Darkesteyes]

A couple of months ago there was an interview with a chef in Marie Claire. the way ppl are treated in some of these kitchens is appalling She talked about the time a co worker was deliberately burnt on the back with a hot palette knife.

[PoppyAmex]

mignon actually that's not the sentence that was published.

"She is so healthy. She is fit, she has willpower and never drinks any alcohol. I have tried to get her drunk so many times."

This is the correct sentence; the adjective "willpower" is related to being "fit", not the "never drinks any alcohol"; that's why there's an "and" in that sentence.

So what he's saying is: "She's healthy and she's fit because she has willpower. She also never drinks, although I tried to get drunk."

Anyway, this is madness - he clearly is not insulting mothers who have a drink that's just silly and misquoting him and deliberately misinterpreting him is unnecessary and adds nothing to the discussion.

[FasterStronger]

Nor do I want my meals served by an exhausted Polish/Lithuanian/ English national.

that's a pity because they want that opportunity and you want to deny it to them.

[ubik]

working in a kitchen is hard, hard work. my BIL is a head chef and has worked punishing hours since he was 17. double shifts from 7am til midnight, always weekends, evenings. It destroys relationships and mental health. It's not a job everyone can cope with.He is 30 and is desperate to get out even though he earns £40,000+ No wonder these chefs grab a media career if they can.

[PoppyAmex]

Dark that's horrible!

I wonder how many of those people are British nationals though - imagine if you're stuck in that environment because you don't have a choice and/or don't speak English and can't find something else.

[mignonette]

Faster I want my meals served by a Polish/Lithuanian/English person who is properly paid and works no more than the EU maximum and is not made to feel that they are a slacker because they won't do more.

If you are comfortable w/ the abuse especially of foreign nationals then that is your prerogative .

I personally like living in a multicultural country, work alongside nurses from at least eleven countries that I count off the top of my head. I believe in equity and a fair days pay for a fair days work and not the exploitation of an eager workforce.

[mignonette]

My DD is a patissiere which she went into after leaving a Russell Group university w/ a first class honours degree. She is at work by 3 a.m making our bread and cakes then continues until 5 p.m. She then does stock control, rosters etc at home. She knows she has no choice if she wants to own her own patisserie one day.

The industry stinks.

[FasterStronger]

mignonette - so is JO breaking employment law?

[FasterStronger]

have you seen stories in the papers where JO's staff say they are being abused?

[Darkesteyes]

A little early yet Faster but i wouldnt be surprised if journos start doing some digging especially after todays remarks.

[ubik]

You can opt out of the working time directive. It's a very macho industry. BIL works double shifts, runs marathons and plays contact sports.

I look at masterchef and these people with nice jobs who want to work in a kitchen and I'm

[mignonette]

That I would love to know. He moans about EU working directives and uses the fact that he worked himself half to death to complain that this no longer is allowed under the law. However find me a catering business which doesn't override the directive and I'd be surprised. Even our local cinema puts staff on 48 hour shift patterns (ex job of DD) and if employees dared to object, they got rostered for either the lousiest shifts that nobody wanted or never got a bank holiday time and a half shift again so they learned to keep quiet if they wanted to keep their zero hours contract job.

JO states " I think our European Immigrant friends are much stronger, much tougher. If we didn't have any, all my restaurants would close tomorrow. There wouldn't be any Brits to replace them".

Now I cannot be sure why he doesn't have many British staff working for him but my DD's teashop/patisserie is staffed by a mix of British and non British employees and according to DD they all work their asses off. Now it could be said that an employer wanting to override EU working directives will choose his employees w/ care to ensure they will not complain about this.

How would we obtain JO's rosters for his restaurants? That I would like to see. If he cannot run his empire in profit within EU law he is less of a success than he wants us to think he is.

Simply because he once worked 15 hour days aged 13 doesn't make it right. We once worked doctors to near exhaustion and put children in factories. Maybe we should scrap employment laws totally?

[fromparistoberlin]

i reckon mignonette is one of JOs exes, cruelly dumped. seething as she looks at the lovely "jools" flogging mothercare rip offs in Red magazine

I jest, but suprised he deserves this vitroil TBH!

jesus, save it for Assad

[mignonette]

I meant to write +48 hour shift patterns for the cinema. They regularly do 60 hours, some of them with cinema multiplexes open from 10 a.m till gone Midnight. Then they have to get home afterwards.

[mignonette]

Now who is bitching about his 'talented' wife Jools, From .

I work w/ some of the most marginalised people you can imagine and these comments filter down into a groundswell of anti feeling. That is why I get passionately angry. These comments hurt real people. And I am sick of fools like JO drumming up publicity in such a cynical way. It is an easy, lazy wayto do PR.

[ubik]

TBH mignonette this is what shift work is like. I only work 18 hours a week (allegedly) but over a bank holiday weekend will work 3x 10-hour early shifts starting at 7am, finish at 4pm and then go straight onto 2X nightshift 11.30pm - 8am.

[mignonette]

Ubik I have been a psych nurse for 28 years. I understand shift work and split shifts. I have worked night shifts from 2030 hours leaving at 0800 the next day then back on a late at 1330.

Plus on calls now where I go back to work at 0900 after spending all night attending 116/117 or section (2)'s.

[ubik]

Jaysus mignonette you need to have a talk to JO about the definition of hard work

Which also pisses me off - so many people in this country work really, really hard at jobs which benefit folk far more than being a TV chef and yet we are all supposed to kiss his arse when he pontificates about 'the poor.'