Jamie Oliver webchat, Thursday 29 August, 2.45pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're chuffed that Jamie Oliver is paying a return visit to Mumsnet this Thursday. His first MN webchat was back in 2010.

Jamie has a new book out, Save with Jamie: Shop Smart, Cook Clever, Waste Less (all subjects dear to MNers' hearts). It has 100 brand-new recipes designed to be accessible, reliable and, above all, affordable.

This is what Jamie says about his new book: "For years I have been telling people that if you look back through history, the best food in the world has always come from communities under massive financial pressure. But the proviso is that you MUST be able to cook! If you can't, and have no money, that is where the trouble starts. This is a cook book which, from start to finish has tasty recipes, all dedicated to great value, is a brilliant weapon to have on the shelf, and is relevant to every household. If you use this book the way it's intended, you should end up saving a wodge of cash from your wallet."

And to tie in with the book, he has a new six-part series on Channel 4 starting on Monday 2 Sept at 8pm.

Please post your question and join Jamie for a chat at 2.45pm on Thurs.

Read the New Statesman article on the initiatives in Spain that involve very famous chefs without accompanying books and TV shows before you applaud his 'social conscience'. He is using real social problems to make money from. There is no need for the TV fanfare to accompany true philanthropy. Plenty of people (famous and non) work behind the scenes to help.

If you think all this is solely from the good of his heart you are terribly misguided. He is ambitious and cheffing is not enough for him, fair enough but to slate those who buy the poor quality products he sells from supermarkets and fail to address all these issues because ironic questions about one direction are so important is a joke (I did laugh at those questions when I read them a minute ago )

Anyway I am off to convene a working party to my local park to forage something for dinner tonight. I might have to settle for roast skateboarder garnished w/ pee soaked grass though.

Absolutely slev. He was never going to win on MN.

I have started a German recipe thread

I think that there are plenty of us who have been happily shopping in Waitrose/Sainsbury/M&S and are now feeling the pinch. Sorry if that sounds smug and unbearable to those who are really struggling but we've taken a massive wage cut this year, and are having to rethink our shopping and cooking strategies.

So, while I don't have to count every single penny, or worry that I will run out of money by the weekend, I do have look more closely at what I am buying and where I am shopping. I think that this book is aimed at us, no matter how far the marketing strategy was pulled off course by the ill-advised comments made earlier in the week.

You summed it up perfectly Slev.

Morris I can't speak for everyone, but I want Jamie to stick to what he does well - inspiring, enthusing and encouraging about aspirational food and making feel-good telly.

What I don't want is him using his high profile and popularity to make nasty comments about the more vulnerable in our society when his knowledge is based on his popping in and out of poverty.

Somerset of course he's not going to respond although shame on him for that although as I said, I wanted to air my opinions and those of my patients.

He's a celebrity. he's much more likely to respond to a star fucker (June Flaum Singer can be credited w/ that term)....

Nasty comment - was that the TV thing? I don't have a problem with what he said, and I'm glad he doesn't live in real poverty. I wouldn't want anybody who doesn't have to to live in real poverty.

The irony Morris Zapp is that he pontificated about knowing what is wrong with the poor and then proposes meals for £1.38 per head is budget meal.

'Budget' for whom? Poor people?

My last words go to Somerset as she breathes a sigh of relief that i am shutting up.

que necesita para investigar la pobreza en España. Tal vez tu y Jamie podría hacerlo juntos.

Sorry for the school girl Mexican. Long time since I lived there.

He was never going to win on MN

He could have won. If his first point was, "I made ill-informed comments in the comfort of an interview. At the time I thought a budget meant cooking for four on £120 per week. I now know it's more like a third of that. I thought people were making a choice. I've learned that living in poverty means having very, very few choices.
I've learned a lesson and I'm genuinely sorry for any upset my comments caused".

point being that he is castigating the poor for their food 'choices' and very much inferring that good healthy cheap meals can indeed be rustled up out of thin air.

you can't then object to people challenging him on having said that.

you're quite right - delicious healthy food can't be rustled out of thin air morris. jamie needs to acknowledge that too before castigating the poor for their eating habits whilst defining 'budget' eating as half the cost of takeaway.

If you bang on about poverty and poor peoples choices,When you will never have to make those choices , then try to sell them your expensive poncy books.

What do you expect to happen?

and he could have said - i now realise that having a telly and having money to spend on fresh food every week have bugger all in common.

I don't follow the maths.

Are you suggesting that Jamie expects people to cook his meals for their family breakfasts?

Don't most people have toast/ cereal etc.

lunch and dinner he said.

as if budget means spending half what you'd spend if you lived on takeaways other than for breakfast.

He said up there, somewhere, that they didn't include breakfast, Morris.

I guess what he's saying is that anybody who eats takeaways can cook this food, for half the price. Takeaway food outlets thrive in poorer areas.

In his experience, and in mine and surely most people's, takeaways are something that some poorer people can and do choose to eat. If people literally cannot afford a takeaway, and I know that many can't, then the book will not be for them.

yeah there's loads of people out there on a budget buying two takeaways a day for their family i'm sure

Breakfast doesn't have to be expensive, Swalloweafly. A bag of oats is less then £1 and lasts ages. Add a little fruit (chopped apple) and some milk and you get fruity porridge. It costs 25p or there abouts. You couldn't need a whole bag for a family of 4, nor would you need a whole apple each or a whole litre of milk each.

Does the man have shares in Olive oil?

And does Boffins Austerity book come in paperback as I dont have a kindle?

Then he shouldn't have used that womans lifestyle to promote his book.If he wasn't aiming it at the plebs

He should have targeted a wealthy family who eat expensive takeaways.

You can put the kindle app on your pc and use the recipes that way.

He never castigated the poor, he just said that those in food poverty often made choices about food that looked odd ("didn't weigh up") to many people.

I think he is actually drawing attention to the fact that a lot of food poverty in the UK is about lack of education and is about being ignorant of what is good healthy food. It's not about what money you have and what you choose to spend it on, it's about not knowing what to spend it on.

It's a shame that Surestart have had their funding cut, because they were running classes teaching young people how to cook the basics.

If you know how to cook, feeding your family for £1.38 a portion becomes a doddle. If you don't have that knowledge, then it is something that seems unachievable.

He's giving his book to libraries, he is working with the Government to ensure that schoolchildren are taught basic cooking skills. He is doing a lot more than most people here, and I think that deserves some applause.

worldgonecrazy if someone said your parenting choices "didnt weigh up" you wouldnt take that as castigation then!