Jack Monroe off Twitter

[beammeuphottie]

The latest in the ongoing saga is that JM has left Twitter after being 'hounded off'. The incident that seemed to provoke this...someone critiquing a photo of her mums roast potatoes. It just gets more and more bizarre.

To be clear, I don't like to see public pile ons and some of the abuse directed at Jack has been unpleasant. But a lot has also been reasonable, polite requests for information regarding her patreon which have largely been totally ignored. And her supporters have to be some of the most cruel people on Twitter. It seems like it's fine for JM to voice her opinion but as soon as others do the same they are called out for bullying. And ironically subjected to vile comments from her followers. Go figure.

Am I the only one who thinks she's probably best having a little Twitter break? But eventually if she's ever to redeem her reputation she needs to show some transparency regarding public donations.

Exactly. I don’t know the area, but she has identified the part of town where she lives, plus she’s posted loads of photos of her house (inside and outside), and it has quite an unusual design, so I guess it would easy for someone local to find it. She’s pretty clueless about internet safety.

She has said that her next books will be a book about poverty (using people’s stories that they have sent in), and a memoir. I think those are two separate books, but who knows. And it’s a while since she mentioned them. She’s also talked about doing a children’s book, a crime novel and a big glossy book of Cypriot recipes. Plus a compilation of writing by black food writers (though I think she dropped that one fairly swiftly).
However, I suspect her publisher’s patience must be running out at this point. The latest cook book was at least 18 months overdue.

She’s pretty clueless about internet safety.

Particularly for someone who has claimed to have been stalked repeatedly, threatened with rape and death, and who has a SB to protect, too.

Even if she is prepared to risk herself, you would think that she would be very, very careful about her son's safety. She doesn't seem to think any further than the next 5 minutes as regards consequences.

If she is publishing a memoir, then she has a chance to redeem herself. If it all has been lies, then she could tell the truth about everything and explain how she ended up in such a mess. It could be pretty compelling reading. She could than do a mea culpa interview like James Fray did. She'd sell zillions of books that way I bet. Far more than if she does a bog standard memoir now that her reputation is in such doubt.

I can really see the temptation to make yourself look more interesting or overplay your role when your job is basically trying to get and keep followers.

She would still have to rectify the Patreon situation and the other murky stuff around her various fundraisers. And there’s also the issue of her recipes, and why she’s never tested them. And why she claims a position of knowledge about poverty issues when she gets so much wrong. But yes, coming clean as a compulsive liar (and the reasons) would be quite compelling. Especially as I suspect a lot of the influencer/social media culture is fake to some degree.
It could open up a conversation about the importance of critical thinking and why you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the internet.
This would take a lot of courage. But Jack has always been very hard-faced about her fakery and I’m not sure she’s anywhere near the point where she’d consider an mea culpa. And her career would be completely different afterwards.

I did used to support Jack as I thought she was genuine, I thought the unpleasant behaviour she sometimes showed was due to MH issues. However since Hunger Hurts 2 I've been delving into a bit more and now think there are definitely some issues with her. She's not all there.

I don't believe she's as poor as she's made out. The boiling soap thing did make me laugh as why would you just not use the soap? It's cheaper than shower gel and lasts longer anyway.

My question now is why did the Guardian and BBC support her for so long? That's part of the reason why I thought she was genuine. Granted I didn't think she was brilliant on Daily Kitchen Live but gave her a pass as it was at the start of lockdown iirc and we were all feeling a bit frantic. There was lots of mistakes on live telly at the time. I do still think she has the potential to be good on telly if she gets a bit more experience and calms down a bit. As she is very pretty.

However as I say, if her activities don't add up then why would the BBC and the Guardian give her a platform. You would have thought they would check out her story and her charitable activities. Especially the BBC as I would imagine they are quite strict about vetting presenters these days.

Agree I think the media have a lot of questions to answer about the platforms they give people on what must be such scant due diligence

Also agree about the media. The Guardian in particular has been really irresponsible. They published this piece about her being in recovery from alcoholism after she had been sober for just 10 days.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jan/05/jack-monroe-i-am-an-alcoholic-mea-culpa

Sorry, she'd been sober for a week, not 10 days.

There is a small article in the Southend Echo. Some interesting comments online.

The answer to that is already on the thread.
The media chose her as an acceptable face of poverty and pushed her as such.

Or, thinking about it a different way, the readers of the Guardian and watchers of BBC cookery shows, they won't want White Dee from Benefit Street... She'd be considered 'Scrounger' or 'scum' because she's on benefits and has kids in a council house etc.

Jack, however, plucky young women with added labels.. tattooed, single mum..etc and she was non binary that insisted no one talk about her gender even though she will monetise her gender by calling her book a name highlighting and playing on her gender..
all very acceptable to the Middle Class and those wanting to sell papers and get clicks to articles etc and so on.
Same reason white middle class photogenic kids that go missing get far more media coverage.

I think you're spot on Anon - and she's also the "poverty poster girl" of the people who will never have to try to cook and eat the nutritionless, foul-flavoured stuff* that she pushes on other people.

Does she eat her own recipes, I wonder? I'm prepared to bet that she doesn't. In fact, she seems to eat a lot of takeaways if her tweets were anything to go by (I'm not on twitter now, so maybe she's changed). And the portions are tiny.

*Yes - I have tried her recipes. Only two of them - the first disaster I thought it was my fault. The second I knew it wasn't, and I sent the book back to where I got it from, a charity shop. I couldn't afford to waste money on ingredients like that, and resented the quid or whatever it was I'd invested in the book.

I ended up just recycling her book - the recipes are so terrible I didn’t want to give it to a charity shop and encourage more people to waste time and money trying to cook them. Only time in my life I’ve chosen to destroy a book.

You're right, Gorilla.

I should have slung it.

That Slopalong thread on the other forum is quite a revealing read. The recipes are dire and just don’t work! It does make you wonder how she’s got away with it for so long.

Cause her books have only ever been bought by people to virtue signal not due to necessity.
They're to be left on coffee tables and kitchen shelves so visitors and dinner party guests see them.

A truly poor person that needs calories on a strict budget are far more likely to spent £10 on frozen pizzas than £10 on a book by a poverty tourist.

Why are the recipes so bad? I haven't even looked at one so I don't understand how they can all be so bad??

And what's the other forum?!

They're not all bad.

Some are ok but hardly "inspired"

So like, here's a perfectly acceptable recipe for cookies cookingonabootstrap.com/2015/12/15/perfect-chocolate-chip-cookies-3p/

But it's just a generic recipe... And I have no idea why you'd spend 72p for ingredients + heating oven to cook them when you can buy entire packs of biscuits for 55p.

Now her own recipes.... H

This ricey soup is what she calls "risotto" cookingonabootstrap.com/2017/09/20/red-wine-and-mushroom-risotto-43p-vegan/

mmmm I don't even want to try making this, sounds fucking vile.cookingonabootstrap.com/2014/03/20/pork-and-prune-burgers/

Don't have prunes? Swap them for sultanas.... :/

Google slopalong @Hungrycaterpillarsmummy

Even bbcfood didn't publish recipes as they were and added per portion.
Original claiming to feed 4 (now mind me I was on cal diet and that 65g was my portion of pasta but I had veg and loads more tom and cheese, they have bread, fine, but still...)
cookingonabootstrap.com/2015/02/05/penne-pappa-al-pomodoro-vegan-21p/?amp=1
Vs
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/microwave-penne-pappa-al-pomodoro

And these i just picked up now. So the original recipe would be about 400cal unless my fitnesspal is mistaken.
Unless you are losing weight 400cal meal is too low. That's why bbc has it at 550 and changed the amounts😐
This is just one example of what people mean.

Also, now i am confused because main argument for using hoops was that pasta takes time to cook on hob and all "you can do it in microwave" used to be batted off on here. Turns out, you don't need to rinse hoops....

Because she’s more concerned about hitting a certain price point or certain cooking time than actually making them edible.

I believe most cookery writers have had experience with restaurants or working in the food industry etc before writing a book.

JM knows little about food tech and what goes with what and nuances of flavours etc.

She's a pure amateur that just chicks things together and hopes it's edible.. i also think she reads proper recipes and just switches out proper ingredients for crap ones and thinks it's the same, rinsed hoops for proper pasta for example.
Plus, she refuses to list calories because she had an eating disorder.. I don't know how that works tbh, but I believe that's what she said.

Here's another that claims to serve 4 'small' portions or 2 "hungry" adults

cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/02/13/bread-bean-fennel-stew-17p/

1 X tin tomatoes 100cal
1 X tin baked Beans 360cals (but actually less, as they get rinsed of the sauce...)
2 X slices of bread 200cals
And herbs etc which don't provide calories worth adding in.

So a generous upper estimate of 700cals for the entire meal. (But realistically it's probably only 600-650.)

Is 300-350 calories REALLY enough for a "hungry adult"?

I'd expect one "hungry adult" to eat the lot tbh

Don't have prunes? Swap them for sultanas.... :/

Yep = according to Jack, all fruits are interchangeable . . . all herbs are interchangeable . . . all veg is interchangeable . . . all spices etc etc etc//

I don't think any of her recipes is ever tested - ingredients or method.

And god knows why she's boiling and then simmering the baked beans for 20 minutes... Until they're "soft" how much softer can a baked bean get?