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Well, the naked chef, Jamie Oliver, is at it again. He’s bitten off more than he can chew, though. He’s cooked up too much of a storm to handle and actually cried in frustration over his latest serving, a show about helping Americans to eat right. But the Americans don’t like it, and Jamie is one unhappy cook.
Building on previous success
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution premiers this Friday, 26 March, on ABC. A show modelled on his previous UK hits, Jamie’s Ministry of Food and Jamie’s School Dinners – the latter resulting in a complete overhaul of the school dinner program in the UK – the naked chef is now on a mission to help the most obese nation in the world change their relationship with food.
Locals not impressed
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Good intentions? Probably. But when he arrived to start shooting the show in Huntington, West Virginia, he was reduced to tears by locals who couldn’t swallow his suggestions, including the idea of not feeding children pizza and milkshake for breakfast, and the concept that TV dinners and fries are no good, or that chicken nuggets are ‘killing America’. Commenting on Huntington residents’ response to Oliver’s ideas, The Independent called them ‘hostile locals’.
This in a time where Jamie Oliver has been celebrated for his efforts to address obesity and unhealthy living. In February, according to BBC News, he won a Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) prize for his campaigning, in a time when America’s First Lady, Michelle Obama, has launched a campaign to improve the way American families eat.
Who made him king?
But what can one expect from Huntington, a town named by the Centre of Disease Control as the unhealthiest city, in the unhealthiest state of America, the most overweight nation in the world? Apparently a radio host from Huntington told the naked chef to leave because they didn’t want to eat lettuce all day, asking in the end, ‘who made him king?’ according to American newspaper The Star.
Oliver is optimistic
But a teary-eyed Jamie, after being forced to apologise for some of his remarks, is still focused on helping Americans to eat right and said in a press release earlier this year, ‘The time is right for people to rediscover the sense of pride, satisfaction and fun you can get from cooking for the people you love. There’s an incredible community in Huntington, and I want this experience to be a celebration of what we can achieve when people come together. I want to prove that turning around the epidemic of obesity and bad health doesn’t have to be boring or dull in the slightest. Wonderful stories will unfold in Huntington, and hopefully this will inspire the rest of the States.’
Controversy
But even back home, in his campaigning to teach his fellow UK citizens to eat healthily, Jamie has been hauled over the coals for certain statements like the one he made way back in 2008, reported by The Telegraph in August of that year, about his British people being materialistic drunks who have lost all connection to culture, causing a ‘new poverty’ and resulting, essentially, in bland, heartless food.
His show premiers on Friday. Internationally, the previews have received moderate reviews, but time will tell. Who knows, maybe in the end, Jamie’s anti-obesity campaign and his food revolution may actually sizzle away fat like a George Foreman grill, and take bad culture with it, for that matter.
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