You can’t smack naughty kids so I make mine eat chillies instead, says Jamie
WITH f our young children underfoot, Jamie Oliver has resorted to drastic methods of enforcing discipline.
The TV chef said he gives his brood hot peppers if they misbehave.
He explained: ‘I give them chillies for punishment. It is not very popular beating kids any more, it’s not very fashionable and you are not allowed to do it and if you are a celebrity chef like me it does not look very good in the paper. So you need a few options.’
He said he once tricked his 12-year-old daughter into eating Scotch Bonnet, a particularly fiery chilli – much to the annoyance of his wife, Jools. At the BBC Good Food Show, Oliver said: ‘Poppy was quite disrespectful and rude to me and she pushed her luck. In my day I would have got a bit of a telling- off but you are not allowed to do that.
‘Five minutes later she thought I had forgotten and I hadn’t. She asked for an apple. I cut it up into several pieces and rubbed it with Scotch Bonnet and it worked a treat. She ran up to mum and said, “This is peppery”. I was in the corner laughing. [Jools] said to me, “Don’t you ever do that again”.’
Scotch Bonnets have a rating of 100,000–350,000 on the Scoville scale, which measures heat. Most jalapenos are just 2,500 to 8,000. Given his struggle to impose order on daughters Poppy Honey Rosie, Daisy Boo Pamela, 11, and Petal Blossom Rainbow, five, and son Buddy Bear Maurice, four, perhaps it is no surprise Oliver is not keen to add to his family.
He revealed he argued with his wife of 14 years about the idea, saying: ‘You know what she said last night? She is 40 in about ten days and I took her out and she goes, “OK are we going to have another kid then?” I said, “You what?”.
‘The woman wants another baby. So watch this space. But with all the power in my body we are not having another baby.’
He admitted, however, that Mrs Oliver usually wins the arguments at home – even about food.
He said: ‘ My wife l oves a destroyed steak. I have been with her since I was 18 years old, how romantic, but it is hard to keep loving someone when they want a well- done steak. I have tried to tell her but she is a very singleminded, dominant woman.’
The couple – who have a combined wealth of £240million – met when they were 17. The chef drove to a cinema, but crashed the car. He has joked she started dating him out of pity as a result.
Mrs Oliver, a former model, has worked as her husband’s PA and now designs children’s clothing.