Who is Jamie Oliver? The man, the myth, the well-oiled machine of a cookbook and recipe empire. Like every generation since the release of The Naked Chef, I went off to university with a Jamie Oliver cookbook under my arm. I have a few of his books and find them useful — reliable recipes (tried by a team of recipe testers), enticing photos (created by a team of photographers and stylists), easy to navigate instructions (honed by a team of designers and editors).
Jamie Oliver, the brand, is the everyday lad who grew up in front of the nation’s eyes — from carefree Vespa riding to tackling school lunches and sugar in drinks. The concept that he has a team of cultural advisers seems a natural evolution of simply growing up. I am sure that Oliver, like most people, doesn’t want to upset people, and when faced with criticism has tried to find ways to address the situation. And he is doing it in the very unremarkable way of gathering a team to help.
The issue central to cultural appropriation is power. Therefore, no matter how many people Oliver is surrounded by, he is always going to be veering into the arena of cultural appropriation. He can, as can anyone, cook whatever cuisine he wants to. He can do this with respect, with research and with correct accreditation (which in the recipe world includes naming a dish correctly). But when someone is making money, or gaining recognition and kudos, off the back of something that is not their own — and therefore off others’ work, histories, talents, techniques, culture — that is an appropriation. The teams that Oliver has, to watch out for cultural faux pas, are presumably non-White. In which case the responsibility of a White chef’s professional conduct is left to the shoulders of brown and Black people; an appropriation of knowledge, albeit one that is attached to a salary or consultancy fee.
If we lived in a world where there were Chinese chefs, Black Caribbean chefs, Sri Lankan chefs all with the same footing and cookbook empire as Oliver, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But we aren’t, and as Oliver points out in the Sunday Times article, he is a phenomenon — very few people sell the number of books he does. Why is that? Foods from the Global South are not considered with the same value as the Global North, unless touched by a White hand — aka a Jamie Oliver. He brings perceived value and accessibility to these foods.
Cultural appropriation is also about the multiplicity of stories. There are many Italian chefs winning global awards and talking about their grandmother’s handmade pasta/ragu/bread made in their kitchen/country house/dining room table, that we don’t think a twist on a lasagna recipe is in any way authentic. And we will still pay good money to eat at a fancy Italian restaurant, even if our non-Italian mothers make an excellent carbonara. We know that there are many, many ways to cook, eat and be Italian.
The path that Yotam Ottolenghi is on seems a possible road to take. He openly co-authors books and has a diverse group of chefs that have benefited from their collaborations with him, and are now seeing successes on their own — Goh Helen, Ixta Belfrage, Ramael Scully, to name a few. Maybe this is what Jamie Oliver is looking to achieve with his new show, give exposure to new voices in cooking. But until his brand is not all about the lovable lad, the boy-done-good — the individual — there is no room to truly share space, and all we are left with is faceless teams on hand to explain that “Empire Chicken” is a truly terrible idea.
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