Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours - Jamie Oliver > Reviews (13)

Jamie Oliver - the Marmite of TV chefs!! A cheeky geezer or a pain? I love Marmite - unfortunately I cannot say the same about Mr Oliver.....Nevertheless, I will endeavour to be objective about this latest offering from the a) marvellous Mockney or b) Orrible Oik (delete as appropriate).

This book has been produced alongside his TV series of the same name, in which he went to teach the poor Northerners of Rotherham how to cook and eat properly - I think it came as a huge surprise to many of Jamie's loyal followers that BOTH gas and electricity were available in the poor North - I'm sure they were expecting coal fires, mines and tripe for tea.....NB I am from the North myself and live in the South so please don't get all 'regional' on me........I am not being regionalist!

The book opens with a dedication to Marguerite Paton, one of the original Ministry of Food* girls and known to the older ones as amongst as one of the first celebrity cooks.

* The Ministry of Food came into being shortly after the beginning of WWII to advise the nation about food and nutrition and to ensure there would be enough food to go around.

Anyway, Jamie intends this book to teach anybody to cook within 24 hours. Once we have learnt a single recipe from each chapter, Jamie encourages us to 'Pass it on' to at least a couple of friends...if they then do the same, then pretty much everyone in the country will be able to cook the same meal in the very near future........I am not a recipe, I'm a person....

To make sure we do, a page is set aside for 'The Pledge' which we need to sign and date to make sure we don't forget.....Now if I want to deface this book, I will do so by drawing glasses and a moustache on Mr Oliver's face which appears so prominently on the cover, thank you very much.

So onto the book itself. A section on essential kitchen equipment comes first and advises that we need pans, knives, bowls, tongs, trays, jugs, tin openers etc etc. So, now we are armed with the tools of the trade, we need to ensure that our store is stocked with the basics - vinegars, rices, pasta, herb, spices, Jacobs crackers - yep, you read that right - sauces, Maldon sea salt etc etc. In all about 60 to 70 items are deemed as essential.

Right, now onto the meat of the book. It's divided into different chapters. I'll pick some examples from the recipes to give a flavour of the book.

Twenty- minute meals - designed for our busy lifestyles, such delights as a spicy Moroccan stewed fish in couscous - in Rotherham?????? - "By 'eck love, none of that foreign muck for me - I'll 'ave me tripes, thankee very much!"

Quick Pasta - as it says on the tin, a range of pasta dishes, from the classic tomato spaghetti to a Pasta Al Pangrattato - as this is made with stale bread, it is ideal for the poor people up North, of course.

Tasty stir-fries - Quick, easy and all in one pan - ideal for the thick, provincial Northerner - nothing to go wrong! Why not try a lovely Chicken Chow Mein - (makes use of a tender, juicy Asian cabbage call bok choi, which is simple to cook and really tasty Jamie tells us patronizingly and there's even a picture to make sure we really do understand....

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Easy Curries - Simply sling a jar of Patak's curry paste and it's done. A nice Chicken Tikka Masala recipe along with instructions to make the perfect rice. Also has a selection of side dishes, such as Aloo Gobhi and Bhajis. To give him his due, this section does also contain mini-recipes for 5 different curry pastes, from Korma to Vindaloo. Or alternatively, the northern town of Bradford has probably the most, and best, Indian restaurants in the country..............

Lovin' salads - a really, really patronizing chapter this one, concerning evolution salads. What's an Evolution salad? I hear you cry in unison. It's a salad that evolves by you adding one extra ingredient at a time....to allow you to gain confidence......and to see that a plain, simple salad can be absolutely fantastic. We have a green salad - (lettuce, bacon, pine nuts and parmesan), potato salad (potato, bacon, chives), tomato salad (tomato, olives, beans), cucumber salad, carrot salad etc. We then move onto the philosophy of a salad (yep, you read that right! - to mato or not to mato?), and then onto.....wait for it.....the chopped salad family! Oops, nearly missed out the jam jar dressings for your salads - step by step guide to make a range of dressings.

Simple Soups - ranging from leek and potato soup to tomato soup - nothing truly astounding here but a nice section on how to 'pimp up' your soup (you see, Jamie's down with kids, in the groove, talking the talk etc).

Of course, it wouldn't be complete with the Homely Mince chapter - recipes burgers, meatballs, minced beef Wellington (hmm sort of a mince pie really), lasagna, mince pie (again) and also, of course, Chilli Con Carne. A real seventies sort of chapter.

Another chapter is devoted to stews - well, in fact one page covers stews - a basic stew recipe and then a choice of beef and ale, chicken and white wine, pork and cider and Lamb and red wine to put in it........but he then goes onto what else you could do with it - put a pastry lid on (then it's pie, not a stew isn't it??), make dumplings, put potatoes on it (then it's a hot-pot, not a stew isn't it?), mash (then it's a cottage pie, not a stew isn't it?).

Perfect roasts covers beef, pork, chicken and lamb - with, of course, the traditional accompaniments of roast potatoes, gravy and Yorkshire puddings........

What I neglected to tell you before, is that the book is interspersed with photographs of real people who are pictured and quoted - 'the ready meals are gone', 'it was all about buying family-sized boxes of ready-made lasagna...', 'Learning the recipes that have been passed on has changed my life completely', 'I'd never cooked with herbs until I was passed a recipe', 'I have promised my first-born to Jamie Oliver as thanks' etc. You get the idea by now. I did, of course, make the last one up!

All in all, as a basic recipe book, this is not a bad book. The idea of pledging to pass on a recipe to others is, I think, just another gimmick. The tone of the book I believe is patronizing and condescending but if you can get past that, then an okay recipe book, not particularly original, nor particularly exciting and with a price tag of £25.00, very expensive.