Jamie prepares huge TV study in healthy diet drive
tour of Italy with close friend and mentor Gennaro Contaldo which reveals recipes and techniques from “the last generation of true Italian nonne [grandmothers] the incredible matriarchs”.
In the interview he reflected on his early days when he rose to fame with his first TV series The Naked Chef in 1999 and he became unpopular with male viewers.
“Women around Britain made me succeed,” Oliver said.
“For the girls around the country, old and young, when their husbands said, ‘What’s for dinner?’, they said, ‘See that boy? He’s 23 years old.
“‘If he could cook for his missus and all his friends, look what he’s cooking, it’s simple, look he’s getting his hand in there’, and they went ‘Go on’.
“If you look back in the papers and study it, men hated me for two years, and I got chased and punched a few times, I had loads of abuse.”