Jamie Oliver has portrayed the English as a nation of beer-guzzling cultural illiterates who live on a diet of dreary food munched in front of wide-screen televisions.

In an interview with a French magazine, the 33-year-old celebrity chef decries his nation’s materialism, binge drinking and unrefined palates and declares the country’s diet “bland”.

The chef’s outburst comes just days after he insulted Germans when he appeared to suggest that it was odd that a nation which had overseen the Holocaust should be upset by scenes from his recent television series, Jamie’s Fowl Dinners, which showed battery chickens being gassed.

In an interview in the latest edition of Paris Match, Oliver laments that, unlike France, England has lost its gastronomic traditions and that he could find better food in an African slum than in an English shop. Commenting on the fact that 80 per of the English no longer sit around a dinner table, Oliver says: “It’s true in the centre of London and in the big northern cities. It’s linked to the new poverty.

“It’s nothing to do with famine or war – quite the opposite. England is one of the richest countries in the world,” he said.

“The people I’m telling you about have huge TV sets – a lot bigger than mine – they have state-of-the-art mobile phones, cars, and they go and get drunk in pubs at the weekend. Their poverty shows in the way they feed themselves.

“I found the cooking of the inhabitants of the slum in Soweto in South Africa a lot more diverse than ours. It’s true! I’m going to be harsh, but I think a lot of English people’s food lacks heart. It’s bland.”

To the suggestion that the English can’t savour food because they drink too much, Oliver responds: “It’s true. Historically we’ve never produced wine. We have a culture of alcohol and we’re more beer orientated: the only people who drink more than us are the Irish and the Scottish.”

Asked by the French interviewer Mariana Grepinet how British and French cuisine compared, Oliver says: “In the past, British cuisine was similar to Italian cuisine nowadays, without the pasta and risotto. Steam cooking, grilled meat, herbs, spices – we used to cook fabulous dishes. It’s all in the past.

“Unlike French people, and I regret it, we lost our traditions. In gastronomy, the world evolves and changes.

And right in front of us, isolated from everything, you have France, where nothing changes. It’s not a judgment, it’s an observation. In terms of grand restaurants, it seems to me that only one country competes with France, and that's Japan.” Oliver is planning a new series for French television.

Taste for trouble

— In 2005, Oliver was criticised for slaughtering a fully conscious lamb on one of his television shows

— In 2006, he apologised to dinner ladies for painting them in a bad light in his school meals TV series

— In January this year he said sorry to Sainsbury’s staff after criticising the supermarket for failing to join in a live debate on chicken welfare

— He sparked anger last week with a jocular remark on the Holocaust after German complaints about how he gassed chicks on television

Source: Times archive

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