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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Save with Jamie Oliver £6.60 per kilo for fresh pasta V £1.30 dried

127 replies

Mynameismina · 07/10/2013 20:38

Just checked on sainsburys website. Seriously is he suggesting that buying fresh pasta is the budget option?

OP posts:
MOTU · 08/10/2013 12:09

He's not doing recipes for people on very low incomes, he's doing stuff that is lovely food while being conscious of cost and waste . If his previous books ate the base l

AnaisHendricks · 08/10/2013 12:11

I think Jack Monroe is pretty, but she hasn't had the benefit of Jamie's media training and years of experience.

I'd love for her to come and do a web-chat.

MOTU · 08/10/2013 12:12

He's not doing recipes for people on very low incomes, he's doing stuff that is lovely food while being conscious of cost and waste . If his previous books are the base line then this is cheaper but of course it could be cheaper. I commented that it would be cheaper with home made pasta but my DH pointed out-"not everyone's cooking mental like you"!!! This series is aimed at people who lead very wasteful expensive lives needlessly. I think it's never going to be a hit with MN people as we're already spending considerable t

MOTU · 08/10/2013 12:13

He's not doing recipes for people on very low incomes, he's doing stuff that is lovely food while being conscious of cost and waste . If his previous books are the base line then this is cheaper but of course it could be cheaper. I commented that it would be cheaper with home made pasta but my DH pointed out-"not everyone's cooking mental like you"!!! This series is aimed at people who lead very wasteful expensive lives needlessly. I think it's never going to be a hit with MN people as we're already spending considerable time and effort to feed our families well on a budget! But there are so many clueless people out there that this might help..............

MoominMammasHandbag · 08/10/2013 12:16

come on MOTU, spit it out Wink

squoosh · 08/10/2013 12:17

Speak up MOTU, I can't hear you!

TheBigJessie · 08/10/2013 12:20

If screen presence means saying "pukka" more times than a Rudyard Kipling book, then thank the lord!

froubylou · 08/10/2013 12:42

I have several of JO's books, and actually do use them! Jamies Dinners and also Jamie Italy are actually quite good. Don't like the 30 min one or the Great Britain one muc personally.

I think it would be pretty boring either watching programme about cooking on a £40 for a family of 4 budget or even buying the book. Realistically your options are limited. Pasta (dried), seasonal veg and cheap cuts of meat will be your friend. As will rice and pulses. And I wouldn't pay £15 for a book to cook like that, nor would I watch a TV programme for 30 mins that had recipies that use those ingredients.

I have cooked on a budget before. Me and DD and DP on about £30 a week for 6 weeks. It happens. We managed. Wouldn't want to do it again.

Now if I take the time and effort to follow a recipe I want it to be something nice. It doesn't have to cost the earth, it doesn't have to be WOW, it just has to be something tasty. Can't afford to spend a fortune. Lamb at full price I don't buy as it's too expensive, as is cod but give me either half price or better and I'm in. See a chicken roast as a good value meal and we have the odd takeaway. To give you some context of budget.

When he did the Ministry of Food I worked in the town it was being filmed in, on a butchers market stall. We were told by the producers that the programme was what people have suggested. But the budget was higher. Family of 4 being fed for a week on £50. But when he started researching families to work with many didn't have the skills to be able to cope, so it changed to the Ministry. According to what we were told.

Interestingly all the grub he used making that show was bought (AFAIK) from the local market and shops. Good for the local economy at the time. However Rotherham Market (though a good market) isn't known for its ethically sourced/free range/organic approach to produce. In fact, I can't think of one butchers or veg stall that has that sort of stuff as people just wouldn't pay for it!

He has done good things. School dinners in particular he raised lots of issues and has made a change for the better. He won't get it right all of the time but I think cooking on a real budget just would be good telly, nor would it make a good book. There are things and meals we all know that we use when its 'skint week', maybe we ought to get a collection of them together and release them as a book?

PeppiNephrine · 08/10/2013 12:46

MOTU is right, its not meant to be a michelin star on Jobseekers prices. It's meant for the chattering classes, the ones who used to blow a tenner on organic oil at the farmers market on a sunday morning and are now marvelling over the bargains in Aldi while putting it into their waitrose bags.

Fresh pasta and dried pasta are different things for different dishes. Italians use both depending on what they are making and how much they like cooking

sparkle12mar08 · 08/10/2013 12:48

I've said it before and I'll say it again - something has gone very wrong with the marketing and promotion of this book & series. Somehow the notion has got out that it is about true budget cooking, when it really isn't and was never intended to be. I think the producers are going to look back and think what happened? Me? - I think it was the Radio Times interview that did it, and the subsequent media furore.

squoosh · 08/10/2013 12:51

The thing that went wrong was Jamie giving interviews when his PR people weren't around. All that finger wagging at poor people with poor diets and plasma TVs and romanticising the lifestyles of Sicillian street sweepers, it got people's backs up.

MOTU · 08/10/2013 13:33

Why on earth do I try an post from my phone??! Anyway got there in the end......

Darkesteyes · 08/10/2013 13:42

limitedperiodonlyTue 08-Oct-13 10:06:55

I have an idea for a Jamie Oliver reality TV programme but mine doesn't involve living on benefits in a bedsit.

Mine would be in a big forest with banjo-strumming hillbillies. I might make them cannibals

PMSL at this I dont do reality tv but for this i would make an exception Grin

MrsKoala · 08/10/2013 13:59

I get what you're saying Sparkle. And i have some of his books (all gifts) which vary in their popularity in my house. His early ones just have me laughing, they aren't even recipes, just assembling ingredients on a dish and drizzling something over. His 30/15 min meals were good when i had a baby. We made a conscious decision to stop eating frugally and invest in all the quick/store cupboard ingredients - to stop us reaching for expensive takeaways, so it was a kind of healthy saving of sorts (i find crappy food really makes me depressed, especially when tired and establishing bfing). But we were lucky, we could afford to do that. Once i got back on my feet in the kitchen i went back to my frugal ways and the books went back on the shelf.

However, if any chef was going to do my 'challenge' (a little disingenuous i agree - i know who the audience is - i just hate the way it's billed as frugal, or to help those who are really struggling) upthread. I would say a fridge is allowed. Most people can afford them. But markets are not - it would need to be food accessible to most in the UK (i actually thought Sainsbos menu wasn't bad when they did feed 4 for £50 - do they still do that?) and even in you didn't have a supermarket near you, most could deliver for a couple of pounds extra.

DeckSwabber · 08/10/2013 16:10

I liked the school dinners stuff as well. We still eat the chocolate sponge pudding!

OneLittleToddleTerror · 08/10/2013 20:37

Oh god I'm watching the lamb episode on sky+. Really, £750 a month on food for 2 adults? Maybe that's the target audience?

And I can see the £22 lamb shoulder now. It doesn't look that large does it?

Do people really have left over rice and beef? This is in the beef rendang. I never have that.

Monty27 · 09/10/2013 00:43

Jamie's 30 minute meal wonders. The shopping is done, all there, pick the herbs from the side of his ergonomically designed kitchen, a really expensive chopping board, knife, oven.

I've never seen anything so contrived ever. It's even worse than x factor. Grin

I'll say it again. Prick.

Retroformica · 09/10/2013 07:11

He would have been much better to have made lots of pulse/bean/lentil dishes like Dahl or curry. Lots of healthy rice in those dishes and you wouldn't be stuck with crappy pasta - we all eat too much wheat as it is these days

CogitoErgoSometimes · 09/10/2013 07:37

YABU... Oliver is using the word 'budget' aimed at Sainsbury shoppers who are not, by and large, hard up. All they are are costed recipes. Budgets can be high or low and he's gone for something mid-range.

Trills · 09/10/2013 08:16

I liked the 15/30 minutes meals shows much more because you could see him actually cook the food.

The trouble with a "feed x people for £y" is that it would be out of date by the time it went on air because rices change so much

It would have to be sponsored by one supermarket as different places have different prices. What would happen then is that people would complain that they didn't live near a Sainsbury's (for example), and accuse Sainsbury's of putting down the price on the ingredients used in the show but putting up the price of other things to make up for the loss, to make it look as if they were good value but actually ripping off people on a budget.

MisselthwaiteManor · 09/10/2013 08:53

I had a look at the book the other day, the RRP in the cover was £27. I think that says it all. That's a weeks shop for people who are genuinely on a budget.

stubbornstains · 09/10/2013 09:07

If he venerates Italian cooking so much, did he suggest some of the dishes that hard up Italians actually cook? Pasta e fagioli (pasta w/ borlotti beans)? Risi e bisi (rice and peas)? Pasta literally with oil, garlic and chilli (and yes OK, always with fresh parmesan)? These are all genuinely delicious, by the way.....Bet he didn't.

stubbornstains · 09/10/2013 09:08

All made with dried pasta, obvs Grin

limitedperiodonly · 09/10/2013 09:50

I ate spaghetti with butter, black pepper and cheese last night stubbornstains. I'd been out for a big posh afternoon tea and suddenly got hungry at 10pm with nothing in the house.

Lovely, it was. Not much of a recipe though.

When Jamie Oliver berates people for not being able to cook and eating takeaways in front of their giant tellies I always think: 'Be careful what you wish for, mate.'

Because if people knew how easy cooking was, they wouldn't buy his books and he'd disappear back into a restaurant kitchen, working hard for a low wage like lots of us do.

stubbornstains · 09/10/2013 10:01

That is not the kind of thing a dieting pre menstrual stodge fan needs to hear limited....I will not be having that for dinner tonight yes I will Grin