Bak's TV Week: Jamie's America

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has another new book to flog, just in time to milk the lucrative Christmas market for all it's worth.

 

It's called Jamie's America and features the fat-tongued berk posing in a 'trendy' blue hoodie front of the stars and stripes.

 

He wears a soppy grin on his ever-smackable mug, and clutches a bag of what looks like cabbage leaves.

 

In order to maximise sales, Jamie is back on Channel 4 with a new series of hour-long ads masquerading as public service broadcasting. The first of these saw everybody's least favourite school dinners crusader (well, mine anyway) turn social commentator as he headed for the mean streets of Los Angeles. No doubt to patronise former gang members within an inch of their lives. And, one presumes, his own.

 

The problem with Jamie's American Road Trip though is that our guide seems to have forgotten he – much like Steven Seagal in Under Siege – is just a cook. A glorified cook with millions of pounds admittedly, but a cook nevertheless.

 

He is not – I repeat NOT – any of the following: a politician, a social worker, a grief counsellor, an authority on drugs, the man who can bring about world peace and harmony simply by spouting clichés and platitudes at everyone who crosses his path.

 

Yet somewhere along the path to mega-stardom, Jamie Oliver appears to have forgotten what it was that made him so popular in the first place. That's right: his easily understood 'naked' cooking methods. But with cooking now on the backburner (no pun intended), Jamie gives his god complex plenty of room to grow as he tries to fix LA's problems with a few poorly chosen words and almost no recipes whatsoever.

 

Food For Thought?

 

Jamie's first stop is at a large Mexican family feast where he gatecrashes the party in order to stuff his fat face with as much of their home-cooked food as he can manage.

 

Like Grandma Maria's gorditas - which leave our intrepid chef speechless, giving us viewers a well-earned break.

 

Having clearly taken some time to assemble his thoughts, Jamie finally opens his gob to impart the wisdom that: "It's like really posh cheese on toast… with beans."

 

Thanks for that insight Jamie, but can you give us the recipe instead please? Oh I get it: it's in your book. Funny that.

 

Grandma Maria left Mexico with her husband in the 1950s in the hope of providing a better life for her children. She brought with her years of experience in traditional Mexican food preparation and a life story worthy of a Hollywood biopic. Only to have a doughy Essex half-wit come to her family home 50 years later and call her 'tiger'. Oh the indignity of it all.

 

This theme continues when Jamie visits the home of a chap called Rigo, a former crack dealer, gun owner and member of LA's notorious Blood gang. Jamie is quite clearly way out of his depth and attempts to mask this by calling everyone 'man', sounding every bit as ridiculous as he looks. At least he didn't call any of these thugs 'tiger'. Still five more episodes to go though.

 

Rigo is hosting a memorial dinner for his dead uncle Emmanuel, also a member of the Blood gang. As the sweet peppers start burning on the barbecue and Jamie pries just a little too far for comfort, Rigo starts to sob. Jamie, clearly taken aback by this, consoles him with the words: "He was a big man to go down."

 

What he should have said (and what he must have been thinking) was: "The man was a violent thug and a drug dealer. The world's better off without him." What's the matter Jamie? Scared to speak your mind?

 

Jamie Oliver: Crimestopper

But boy do those enchiladas look good. Likewise the mouth-watering huevos rancheros that Jamie rustles up for breakfast the next morning.

 

I'd love to know how to make me some of them there tasty treats.

 

Wouldn't it be great if Jamie not only made the huevos rancheros, but also explained what ingredients he was using? Or how to put them together? Fat chance.

 

Instead, Jamie lectures us on crime and explains that: "Food can break the cycle of crime." No, I'm not kidding; I'm absolutely serious. Unfortunately, so was Jamie.

 

Maybe he meant that criminals should be force-fed until they're too fat too run away from the police. Too obese to get through the doors of the local bank. So porky that they're easily spotted from police helicopters.

 

Because he surely didn't mean that the ability to cook can turn hardened criminals into poncy chefs? But if that is what he meant, why aren't Jamie's shows being used in rehabilitation programs at prisons up and down the country? Could it be that either a) he's talking b*llocks, or b) his shows don't include enough actual cooking to qualify for such schemes? Answers on a postcard please.

 

"This week has been about learning about chains of behaviour and actions," bleats Jamie as this interminable hour of vanity TV draws to a close, sounding for all the world like he's wrapping up an episode of Sesame Street. Well it certainly hasn't been about cooking, has it? For that you'll have to buy the book.

 

Quotes Of The Week

 

"Where's Pamela Anderson?" - Arriving in LA doesn't do anything to improve Jamie's cheeky chappy comedy routine.

 

"I may be a token white boy but I'm feeling right at home here." - Perhaps you should just stay there then, Jamie.

 

"For all the bleakness and troubles in these neighbourhoods it's great to see friends and families just come together." - It would be even better if you could just give us that huevos rancheros recipe.

 

"Food can break the cycle of crime." - Don't be so ridiculous.

 

"Drugs have got so much to answer for." - Thanks for your contribution to the drugs debate, Jamie.

Bak On TV

Read more of Stuart Bak's TV reviews in our Couch Potato archive. Do you agree with Stu's opinions? Disagree? Drop him a line on bakontv@hotmail.co.uk