‘I THINK WE’RE DONE WITH BABIES, BUT YOU NEVER KNOW WITH JOOLS’
Jamie Oliver on family life
Nearly 20 years ago, I interviewed a very young, unknown chef called Jamie Oliver about his first book, The Naked Chef. His drive was apparent even then and it was difficult not to be won over by his charm and passion for food. It’s been a remarkable journey ever since. Now 43, Jamie is as well-known for his healthy eating campaigns as for his books and TV series. In those two decades, he’s developed his Fifteen venture, helping unemployed youngsters train as chefs, and launched Jamie’s Italian chain, which has not been trouble-free. He blames a ‘perfect storm’ of high running costs, Brexit and low consumer confidence on the decision to close 12 of the Italian restaurants but is determined to push on. ‘Through the darkness comes some light,’ he says. ‘I think – and I am massively biased obviously – that mid-market dining in Britain is better with me in it, because I will always push for better.’
Then, of course, there is the fascination with his evergrowing family. When he published his first book, he was about to marry Jools, his childhood sweetheart. Now they have five children – his eldest, Poppy, has turned 16 and his youngest, River, is almost two.
Jamie is remarkably unchanged when we meet to talk about his latest venture, a lavish book and Channel 4 TV series – Jamie Cooks Italy. So, what has he learnt over the years? He shares his life lessons on food, family and fame, Jamie-style...
It is chaos in our house. In a nice way. You have teenage emotions, you have nine year olds, you have babies in nappies. I’m mainly a weekend parent – I will get to the key school events but I’m flat out Monday to Friday and normally see the children a couple of nights during the week. I’m happy with that, I think they are fine with it.
I honestly thought I would have two children. Jools probably would like another child. I think we are done, but you never know with Jools – she has a very powerful, magic spell that can grow on you!
Being in the public eye feels normal. I’m getting towards a moment where I have been in the public eye for longer than I haven’t. I think it has been an amazing journey, I am very grateful. At school I spent time in special needs and struggled with spelling and reading. So to say, ‘Oh yeah, this is Jamie Oliver, he’s Britain’s bestselling, non-fiction author,’ is a bit weird, like going from one extreme to the other.
The industry can eat you up and spit you out very quickly if you are too faddy, if you haven’t got real expertise or rigour. You don’t have to be great at everything. If you look at The Naked Chef, I was a baby. I had been cooking since I was eight and I was technically pretty good but I was really only brilliant at three things
and that was roasting, salad and pasta. That was Naked
Chef 1, 2 and 3 with a few desserts thrown in, which was fine because I was a pastry chef, so I could do that. I have developed and you always have to challenge yourself.
The best work I have ever done has been through feeling generally uncomfortable.
I am a very happy person, always glass half full. You don’t often see me down, although sometimes I feel like I am being challenged. My best work – the really good stuff, like my restaurant Fifteen and those amazing students, and my campaign for healthy school dinners – comes out of me being just miserable enough.
I constantly take flak.
It can be tough, I think you have to be single-minded and, not in a smug way, you have to be righteous. You have to know you’re doing the right thing; you can’t waste 18 months messing around. You can’t presume through logic that everyone is going to get it, because everyone has a totally different lens on life.
I remember the berating I took from customers
when I banned smoking in my restaurants, three years before the ban. You look at it now and say, ‘Of course, how can you have a bunch of non-smokers eating beautiful scallops and then you also have someone on their third ciggie of the hour?’ But that was normal then, and it’s not now. I try to be ahead of the curve. The reality is, I’ve never done anything clever. The concept of not feeding rubbish to the next generation of children isn’t rocket science.
We love sugar, we think it’s delicious, but you should respect it.
Cake has never lied to you. Cake has never said, ‘Oh, I’m healthy, come and have a bite’. There is enough room in your daily amount of food to have a treat. I am campaigning about the misuse of sugar; where the breakfast aisle should really be called the cake aisle, and the same goes for the pasta sauce aisle, too.
My new book is a real labour of love.
Jamie Cooks Italy is about the last generation of nonnas (grandmothers) who didn’t grow up with microwaves. These are old-school grandmothers; their memories and their references are like another world. I wanted to learn from them – and to really learn takes a lot of time. It was meant to take a year and it took two. Penguin said, ‘I hope it is going to be good’, and Channel 4 said ‘Well, you can pay for the overspend!’
As romantic as it sounds to be cooking with nonnas, they are nearly 100 years old.
They get chippy, they have to sit down all the time, they have to have lots of little sleeps. This is normal, this is called getting old. But also there’s a little girl in there somewhere and they are cheeky, and have hands like teenagers, making amazing pasta. I haven’t made pasta for years and they are smashing me to bits. There was so much to learn.
I have to treat going to the gym as work, or I won’t get there.
I treat sleep like work, too. I have to set alarms to tell me to go to bed – at the age of 43! It is pathetic but it works. I put on a little eye mask, I get the room the right temperature and I open the window. It works brilliantly and I have improved my sleep massively. I had five years where I was getting three hours’ sleep a day and your optimistic Jamie was getting less optimistic. That was not me and so I fixed it. Jamie Cooks Italy (Michael Joseph, Penguin Random House), is out on 9 August
‘I constantly take flak. It can be tough, but you have to be singleminded’