Chef Jamie Oliver: The Side of Him You’ve Never Really Heard From (S12/Ep.20)

Speaker A: Hey, everyone. It's our season finale, and before we jump in, I wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you to every guest who trusted us with their story this season, to our brand partners who support what we do, and to all of you who keep listening, sharing, and reaching out. This show exists because of you. While season 12 of beyond the Plate and beyond the Drink is wrapping up, we're not really going anywhere. We'll continue to release our audio newsletter heard every other Monday right here on the beyond the Plate feed. So we'll so make sure you're subscribed on your podcast player and follow along on social tplate podcast and at oncapi's Plate. And as I say, season after season, beyond the Plate would not be beyond the Plate without the incredible team I'm lucky to work alongside. So a huge thank you to the best in the biz, Ian Cohen, Joel Yetton, Sean Petrosian, and Sarah McClellan.

Speaker B: Me.

Speaker A: All right, let's do this. Got a very long Intro. Given his 40 plus years cooking and 25 plus years on TV, so bear with me. He is a chef, cookbook author, father, and philanthropist. Well, not really that long of an intro since everyone knows who he is. Hey, everyone. I'm Cappy, and welcome to beyond the Plate. This is a podcast where we sit down with the world's culinary elite to explore their journey into the food industry and the social impact they have made in their community. If you're new to the pod, welcome. If you've listened before, we're glad you're back. If you're just tuning in, don't miss heard our short audio newsletter that comes out every other Monday right here on beyond the Plate. I'm sharing what's on my plate, from culinary insights to restaurants and recipes, all in just a few minutes. Please enjoy this episode as we go beyond the Plate with Jamie Oliver. What is up, sir?

Speaker C: How's it going, man? Everything all right?

Speaker A: I'm doing well, thank you. Thanks for being here. All right, in some ways, that intro can be for someone in their 70s or 80s, but you've had this long, illustrious career. You just turned 50, and it seems you're doing some of your most important work. Since we're talking about age, does hearing the number 50 bother you at all or are you embracing it?

Speaker C: Uh, I think it surprises me. The thing about the Naked Chef is it was always about a young guy running around town having fun. And that's what kind of made me famous, I guess. And I was always known for that, so to say that you're 50 years old definitely doesn't feel like the same person, but of course it is and that's life and none of us are getting younger. I'm loving it, I'm really liking it. I think I'm already enjoying it more than my 40s. It's a really good excuse to I think go into a new gear and find different things, different hobbies, different purposes, question lots of things, be grateful. And at the same time it's not just me getting older but my k. My eldest is 23 and my youngest is nine. So five kids keeps me busy. So you know, I've kind of grown into my role finally. And I guess in some respects I've been doing the sort of the TV and everything that goes with it and uh, the cooking for a long time now. So it's uh, given me. I've grown into my role in some respects.

Speaker A: So tell everybody listening. Who is Jamie Oliver?

Speaker C: He's a 50 year old fella from Essex. I grew up in a little village in Essex which is kind of like about an hour from London, very rural. And I uh, grew up in a pub restaurant. My dad was a chef, my mum was a great cook. We grew up in the pub. And I guess growing up in a family business makes you sort of have to multitask and get stuck in and multitask and in some respects I've never really stopped doing all of those things but you know, that's kind of where I come from and I guess as a person, well, the person's changing I guess. Uh, it's been a journey. Obviously I'm very different now than I was from the 18 year old or 16 year old that left school with no qualifications. It's been an amazing journey and I think I've remained curious and open minded and tried to learn as many things as possible. Who am I as a person? Is uh, I might be the wrong person to ask. My wife would probably tell you.

Speaker A: What would she say?

Speaker C: Obsessed with food, which is unsurprising. I think she thinks that I'm a little on the strange side. I kind of spend a lot of my nights reading and researching sort of random things. I'm a random collector of information.

Speaker A: Mostly food or like a lot of

Speaker C: other things, food, agriculture and anything sort of people populations. I just find it all very fascinating. And of course the world that I live in, where I work in so many different countries, you know, we broadcast in about 120 countries around the world. So I've been lucky to travel to at least Half of them over the last 25 years.

Speaker A: Crazy. When did you become interested in food? How old were you?

Speaker C: But it's all I knew, really. I started cooking for fun about eight. And I started cooking for pocket money in my mum and dad's restaurant pub when I was about 10. And, you know, I used to just do Sundays for three hours when I was really little. And then pretty quickly I do, like, basically double, you know, like split like five hours in the morning, five hours in the night. And, uh, that would be my pocket money. I did that pretty early, but probably early, uh, than, you know, probably illegal, to be honest. I don't think it was legal. But it meant that I got quite comfortable with the kitchen quite young and it became sort of like very familiar and somewhere I was comfortable. And, yeah, that's, I guess, what shaped the way I cook and how I approach food and designing food and writing recipes and all of those things.

Speaker A: Can you paint a picture of little Jamie? Like, what kind of kid were you?

Speaker C: I think I was, like, quite polite, sort of quite a nice kid, but I was just a good quality raving idiot, really. I was just like, up trees, up buildings, up the river, curious.

Speaker A: And a different.

Speaker C: Yeah, not really frightened of much, just having a laugh. But very much out in the countryside and having a laugh. And it was minus the underworld. Uh, it was pretty much like an English version of Stranger Things. Bunch of dudes on BMXs, CBs, walkie talkies, parents with perms and great music. But, yeah, we grew up in a village, so there was probably like 15 of us that were always hanging out and there'd be minimum sort of six or seven at a time. So it was fun. It was really fun. But, like, I guess living in a pub was very unusual to all my friends and completely normal to me. When I walked into my house, I had to go through a commercial kitchen first, literally. Yeah. And it was a robust kitchen. Like, uh, even because they were doing proper cooking in the pub. Like, it was on the busy nights. There'd be like six, seven chefs on the shift and you'd have like, you know, start a main course section, veg section, sauce, the pass, a pastry section. So it was. It wasn't just like most pubs, which was like a local lady in a deep fryer and a freezer. It was like, set up as a proper French, you know, regimental kitchen.

Speaker A: That's wild. You've spoken openly about dyslexia. How did that shape you?

Speaker C: I didn't really know about it until way later, I think Dyslexia wasn't really recognized. Uh, I don't even think I even heard it said until I'd left school. Really, they didn't understand it. They didn't really recognize it. You were just either stupid or clever. I was in the sort of bottom groups for stuff and struggled a lot with the reading and the writing and that was it really. I mean, I think a lot of kids got. It's common for kids that are dyslexic or neurodiverse in some way, shape or form to um, be bullied and get bullied. It's really quite common. For me that wasn't the case, but I mean, but I still kind of. The school was still very unflexible about learning, you know, not getting any extra time in exams or. It was early days really. And obviously I've seen my kids now, they live in a very different world as far as recognition and understanding and slightly more individualized learning. But the truth is the classrooms are still not particularly inclusive. You know, there's probably about 20% of the class struggling to fit into sort of what you would perceive as the normal protocol of what you should be doing to be considered clever. Having done documentaries about it since and having met professors and scientists of the brain and that specialize in those areas, you start to realize that it's not a disablement, it's just a difference. And actually everyone's different. And even the 70% of kids that find school quite normal and they, you know, and can toe the line, they're also really diverse in the way they learn. They happen to fall into the protocol and not be sort of pulled out or struggle like us. Uh, I guess what I'm trying to say is education is a long, long way from being optimized to allow every child to sort of thrive as quickly as they could or should or be supported as much as they could or should. So in some respects, like in the world of AI and science and data and all of that stuff, the good news is there's probably lots to change and lots to be learned as far as how, uh, the next generation of kids are going to be taught and made to feel and supported. And having had five kids and being pretty engaged in all things kids, the education system in the US and the UK is just, it's a s. And it's man made and it's not gravity, it's not genetic, it's not from the gods, it's a long way from perfect. And that's not to say that I don't appreciate teachers or anything like that. I think teachers are amazing, really amazing. They need to be trained more diversely and loved more and paid more and incentivized better. And uh, like I keep saying, there's probably a lot more that we can gain from our uh, next generation as far. I mean because ultimately the country's job is to spit out a load of 16 year old kids that are going to go and thrive in what you call the workplace or out there in the big world, be productive and at the same time, you know, you want them to be happy and have good mental health. Right. So you can only really achieve that if you help every kid find a place of acceptance and happiness about themselves and then amplify the best version of themselves and get that balance between what they're naturally good at and also that little parrot of pulling and stretching and uncomfortable. You know, like growth is definitely through being uncomfortable. So I feel kind of cool about that. We did this documentary this just last year and it went massive and actually ended up changing the law in the UK about how teachers were trained.

Speaker A: That's amazing. That's great. Thank you for sharing all that. That's incredible knowledge, incredible work and I'm sure that's going to really make a difference for someone listening or many people.

Speaker C: There's someone listening, could be a parent, they could be someone young or old. But I think sort of slightly strangely in our cultures it's um, understanding neurodiversity for better and for worse. But m most importantly understanding it logically and scientifically, biologically, we haven't really been in that place and there's a lot of, a lot of people that are masking protect and suffering and also struggling and embarrassed. Do you know what I mean? And in some respects it's really not that deep. I feel like there's a good energy in the US and the UK where people are starting to just fess up about stuff. And although some people might complain about it. Oh, everyone's neurodiverse these days. When I was a kid they weren't and it's like, yeah, well when they were kids they were probably the kids getting the cane. I went to primary school when kids got the slipper for being naughty. You know what I mean? They were probably all neurodiverse. It's good, it's good that we're talking. And now parents can get online and research and get the latest research. Not something that's in a book that's five years old and way out of date. And when it's Your precious little kid. Absolutely. There's parents that, uh, are really worried about their kids for any of those kinds of challenges. Right. It keeps them up at night. So I think when you have and um, when you foster a kind of environment where it's very normal to discuss and talk and appreciate that actually everyone's different, 100% of people are very, very different. I think we'll be in a much happier place. It's hard for kids, but I think it's really hard for parents as well. I think it's much harder for parents to sort of sit back and watch if you've got an unhappy kid that's struggling and sort of going around in circles.

Speaker A: Okay, so back at home, when you're a kid, were family dinners a thing or were mom and dad at the pub?

Speaker C: Yeah, they were a thing because like, we worked in a business and we lived. Sorry, in a business. The pub in those days would close at 3:30pm and um, then it would reopen again at 6. So we had to have dinner at 5 if we wanted to have dinner as a family around a table in peace and quiet. Quiet, right. So we lived upstairs in a pretty small setup. And for half of my childhood, like me and my sister shared a room and we had a small front room with a table in it. So mum would cook food downstairs and bring it up. But then at 6 o' clock again, like, you know, all the curtains would be open and the front door will be open and the fire would be lit and we'd be back open for service again. And by the way, it was a busy restaurant. We could do 80 covers in the restaurant, 180 in the bar, and we'd smash those numbers like three days a week and then it would kind of tick over nicely three or four days a week. So it was kind of like only quiet for two hours. So that, yeah, five o' clock we had family dinner. It would always be home cooked. I never ever. Like, my wife references her childhood. I'm like, what was that? I don't understand that. Like Pop Tarts and bits and pieces. Like we did this. Why would we have Pop Tarts? We've got like a walk in fridge of like everything. We would have classic dishes, lasagnas, cannellonis, cottage pies, shepherd's pies, fish pies, spaghetti Bolognese, chili con carn. Really classic stuff. But then also just have nicely cooked protein. So it could just be a beautiful double fillet of lemon sole, butter, salt, pepper under the grill, one green and one potato or something. Like that. It could be that simple and that delicious, or it could be a grilled chicken breast brushed with something interesting and some kind of carb and veggie. Like. So it was, you know, Mum was a good cook and she did a mean roast and all of the things I mentioned above, like, she killed those recipes. Like, she really did. In a good way, by the way. So like a hipster kill and not a. Kind of a, uh, not a dictionary killed. But she was a good cook. My dad was a trained chef. He worked in France as a younger man. And I didn't realize that, but they were both kind of. They revolutionized pub food. So they were probably legitimately. They were probably one of five pubs in the country at that time in 78, 9, 10. The 80s, which had. I mean, you could have pubs with good food for sure, but not ones with like, dynamic restaurants and a brigade of chefs. That was interesting. Like, uh, we didn't have anything frozen. We used a freezer for sort of making compound butters and stuff like that. We'd have. I remember we used to have frozen snails that would come in from France that used to freeze. We'd regen them sort of under the grill until they sizzled. But like, basically everything came in fresh. Scallops, lobsters.

Speaker A: Did you learn a lot from observing how dad and the cooks cooked?

Speaker C: I didn't have a choice. If you were like, oh, yeah, my dad used to listen to Elvis when we were young. He's like, yeah, my dad used to receive boxes of langoustines and lobsters and like, turbot and halibut and brewer. Yeah, I knew all the fish and all the shellfish by the time I was 12 because it was there every Tuesday and every Thursday, which was fish day. You're seeing it in kind of films and dramas on, um, Netflix and stuff like that. But like, the 80s were wild in some respects. Of course, there's always some dodgy stuff, but like, there was some great music. There was a kind of chicness. Like people dressed up. It's like sometimes you go out. I mean, I went out last night to like a semi fancy restaurant. I mean, everyone kind of looked like shit.

Speaker A: Really.

Speaker C: No one looked fancy.

Speaker A: They're wearing sweatpants and sweatshirts and shit.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's like, you're going to get dressed up, guys. You know, it's like super. I mean, I'm sure they were comfortable, but like, in the 80s, people used to dress up and like, look fancy and like, I mean, and when they went to work, they looked like they were going to work and when they were hanging out there in the football club, they looked like they were hanging out there in the football club. And it was all the brands and, you know, Fila, Toshini, Rossini, you know, Gallini, all of the, um, Cappa, Le Cope, Sportif, Lacoste and Le Shark and all these like brands. The casual era, as we called it. In a way, the two restaurants that I lived in mirrored like the best of bar food. Is that feeling that you'd expect from good bar food. Sort of slightly more humbler prices and humbler food, but still very delicious.

Speaker A: Yeah. Are there moments you dreaded, like at the restaurant, did your dad give you tasks that you were like, dad gave

Speaker C: me tasks every minute of every day. Dad had an aversion to anyone not contributing to the show, but it was also all that I knew and it was a family business. And even though I didn't really understand the emotion of pride, I was very proud of my parents in a beautiful restaurant. It's quite a famous local place out of nothing. It was when they bought it, it was like, you know, stunk a piss and it was just like run down and shit. And it was an old like 16th century pub that totally needed love. So it needed the energy of like a young couple. Dad was powered by his two little kids that he wanted to provide for. So it was a nice life. And um, contrary to the bar food, we had the restaurant food which was fancy and we had all these local sort of 50, 60 year old women that would kind of be your servers and they just had that amazing charm that only a 50, 60 year old woman can have. Do you know what I mean? You just can't fake that they'd done it, seen it, smelt it and felt it and like they just, they'd had a lot of life. So their ability to talk to a table and have a laugh and make you feel comfortable and probably all of them changed my nappy, do you know what I mean? They were all my auntie or whatever you want to call it.

Speaker A: That's so cool. That was your first professional kitchen you saw, obviously, but did you went to. You got a culinary education at Westminster Catering College. How did you learn about that and why did you go there?

Speaker C: It's kind of common practice to go to culinary school and then ironically, kind of a cliche that thick kids go to culinary school. I don't know if it's the same in the States, but like it's like a, it's not true, but B, it was just like, that's what everyone said.

Speaker A: This was the 90s or so.

Speaker C: I was born in 75, so this would have been sort of, yeah, the early 90s, like when I was in

Speaker A: high school, people are like, you should go to culinary school. And I'm like, that's stupid. But then, uh, so then I went to university for two years and then I'm like, wait, I'm going to culinary school. And I left my university and went to culinary school.

Speaker C: Well, I think because of what I said when we went to, by the age of 15, I was quite an able cook. So probably if you'd have put me to do a stage at most good restaurants, I could have just about pulled it off. Uh, uh, by the age of 15 I'd kind of gone through the cycle of the kitchen, which was a traditional French regimental kitchen, like more than several times, more than 20 times. So I was already in a position where like the kids that were coming from college at 20 were getting trained by me at the weekend at uh, 13, 14, 15. So in a way that's when I had to start designing tactics of teaching through showing. And also when you got a hairy ass, uh, 20 year old getting trained by a 13 year old, that's quite a tense scenario to be in. So you don't wanna get your head kicked in. So you had to kind of like train them in a way that didn't demasculate them. So it's hard to understand. But you have to see it. I was like 2ft taller than smaller than them, but I had all the trap in the world. I was cocky, cheeky, sassy, and um, could use a knife like a Ninja. Even at 12, you know, if you think about like how talented BMXs or ballerinas are at 10, 12, like the minute you start talking about like cooking and hot oil and sharp knives, like, everyone thinks, oh, no, no, no, no. It's like, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like kids are totally able. Everyone has to learn how to use a blade and respect it at some stage. It might as well be young. In actual fact, it's better if it's young. And certainly if you go to, to developing countries, kids are uh, honing those skills very even younger, you know, to survive and to get by. So I went to culinary school when I was 16 and they accepted me. I did essentially a day stage on an open day and they're like, yeah, you coming in? So they didn't even ask for my exam results. You just turn up, be counted, put your name down My dad was there, he was obviously in a suit and was talking like, industry shit to the lecturer. Like, the lecturer's sort of like, looking at, uh, the lecturer. Like, dads look at lecturers and. Yeah, yeah, like, take him, sort him out.

Speaker A: Did your dad know you needed more of those, like that foundational education?

Speaker C: I think he just thought it was part of, like, you know, 16's quite young. I think he thought it was kind of part of the process. It'll be good on your CV that you're never gonna use. From my point of view, I could have easily gone straight into the restaurants and, like, I didn't really want to go to college, but I think I'd struggled and done so badly at school that actually this was the beginning of me being able to stick my finger up, uh, at school and say, fuck you. And I went to Westminster College, where we were learning pretty hardcore biolog and French and science and learning about bacteria and food poisoning and all that sort of stuff. And butchery, fishmongery, sugar work, chocolate work, all the different types of meringues and how they work and blah, blah, blah, blah. So probably the truth was that I could do 80. Like, everyone was going in, was starting from about 10% or zero, and I was probably about 85% from a physical point of view and then. But it did mean that I could focus on the theory. So for the first time in my life, I was able to sort of do exams and smash it. And when everyone was concentrating on the physical, practical side of cooking, of course I was finessing that. And that never stops, by the way. You're always finessing that. But it did mean that I could really concentrate on the stuff that I'd struggled with, which was the reading and the writing and getting it down on paper and passing my exams. And in actual fact, I didn't just do the nationally recognized qualification. We were on a transition year. So I did the old qualification times three and, uh, I did the new qualification qualification times three, plus a separate one that was unique to this college. And Westminster College was the oldest catering college in the country. So I think at that stage it was like 350 years old. So, yeah, old school and had, you know, Escoffier had cooked there and had, uh, a presence. And obviously London. I was a country boy, right? So I was what we would call a country bumpkin. And, uh, so we were like, in my class was every imaginable religion, shade of, color of skin, just. I was learning that I'd grown up in a very white Part, uh, of ethics. This was an extraordinary time for me to open my mind about people culture, being a grown up, being at a go down the pub and how, you know, we can drink at 18 in the UK and to be fair, most of us had fake ID at 16 anyway. So it's quite common for 16 year olds to be getting on it down the pub, which obviously in the states it's like 21 and they're pretty strict about it. Less so in the UK, but 18 is the age, so. But just learning how to not drink too much much in a drinking competition, this is stuff you gotta learn. I knew that downing three pints of beer within an hour is probably not a great idea, but it was exciting.

Speaker A: Did you go from there to work at the Neal street restaurant?

Speaker C: Yeah, I'd done a kind of few bits of like work experience in the local area back home that were fancy and then. And I continued doing stages at college. Um, but my first job after college was the Neal street restaurant.

Speaker A: Did that help shape who you are today, that experience of that?

Speaker C: Yeah, I met Gennaro and I got to work with Antonio Colicio, who was a legend and very famous at the time. Kind of like the Pavarotti of the kitchen. And his right hand man was Gennaro, who was kind of the one that was doing, really doing it and was a chef. Antonio wasn't a chef, he was actually a wine exporter. But very charismatic and very cool. So Gennaro was working there and um, he'd be there at like two in the morning and work through till midday. The only job I could take was, um, head pastry chef. So I had to basically blag that job and I'd be there nine till three, six till one in the morning. I'd only see Gennaro in the morning and I really, you know, after a few months I really wanted just to sort of learn pasta and bread with him, but Antonio wouldn't let me. Cause like, Gennaro was like his secret little weapon and it's where a lot of the secret recipes were. And I kept asking and he kept saying no. And then as I got close to Gennaro, basically I kind of, I worked out like I need to sort of become proper friends with Gennaro. So other than just conversing with him in all those sort of ways, what I did was. Cause I was the last one out of the kitchen as a pastry chef. We used to, that part of London was busy till late and you'd get before theater and after theatre. So I'd get the last tube home from Leicester Square at 1:30 in the morning, and I'd tray up all of Gennaro's trays and I'd get all of his bread mixes ready and I turn all his ovens on and I break down the kitchen so it is ready.

Speaker A: Was that part of your responsibility or you did that?

Speaker C: No, no, I did that just to kind of save him. I thought, if I can save extra hour in bed, the chances are we're gonna become friends. We used to take the stale bread from the day before. We used to have this massive machine that would, like, turn it into the finest breadcrumbs, almost like semolina. And we'd dust trays with that. And then what I do is, like, I try and tell a story through that. So, you know, you do a couple of normal trays and then it would say, good morning, Gennaro. And then it'd be a couple of normal trays and then I'd just draw a massive cock, um, and say, morning. Drawn in stale breadcrumbs that were the kind of crispy base of all the loaves of bread was gonna put on there. So, yeah, after about a month, Gennaro just said, don't worry about what Antonio says. You can come and work with me now. That was great. But the only way I could work with him is if I came back at three in the morning. I mean, I don't know how I did it. I used to do 9 till 3, 6 till 1, 33, 30 till 7 and then 9.

Speaker A: Holy shit, 3. For how long?

Speaker C: Yeah, so I was doing. I did three shifts. Three shifts a day for about a year.

Speaker A: What'd you do? So you go home and sleep an hour or, uh, two.

Speaker C: Yeah, I had a scooter so I could get home in, like. Like 15 minutes. And I was, like, 18. So, like, I was bouncy. I just put my head down for two and a half hours, zip back. I was just lived in the kitchen, basically. And then after a year, I discovered the River Cafe Cookbook, the blue one. Just visually and graphically, there was nothing really like it on the planet. And it felt like a kind of calling a mecca. Like, the vibe was, like, really unconventional and, uh, the seriousness of food was so intense, but the kind of vibe was so unusually relaxed.

Speaker A: How did you find that book, like, at a store? Was it, like, did someone have it? How did you come across that?

Speaker C: I found it in a store. We had a lot more independent bookshops and there was one that's still There actually in Portobello Road called Books for Cooks. And it's still there now. Cute store that, uh, you just kind of have a little sniff about. You could go there and have some random thing fermenting or the mushroom pickle book, you know, like, no one's going to write that book. Yes, they have, you know, Whatever Matters cookbook you can dream of. Like, it's been written before. And you go and find it in Books for Cooks and then do your research and then try and resuscitate it into a modern context. But I found the River Cafe book, and I just said to Gennaro, I've got to go here. And he's like, go on. Um, go. He knew of Rose and Ruth because Rose used to work with Antonio. But interestingly, they'd fallen out and they didn't get on. And I'd cooked a couple of their desserts that I put on my menu at the Neil Street. And Antonio loved them until I told them it was from the River Cafe. And he was like. He was super pissed off. But, yeah, I phoned up the River Cafe, spoke to Rose on the phone. She said, come in, have an interview. I did my interview. I wore a suit. A really cheap shit suit. You definitely don't do that at the River Cafe. Cause they're all kind of like sage leaves, linen, and Birkenstocks. They're very Chez Panisse, I was gonna say.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: And actual fact, like, um, I was reading a lot of Alice Waters at the time as well, and falling in love with her writing. Patricia Wells, Marcella Hassan, Stephanie Alexander, all women, actually, just kind of blown. And because I'm dyslexic, you have to read slowly and several times. So you really. The downside is it's inefficient and slow. But the upside is, like, when you get in, you're deep. Like, you're, like, detailed deep. So I got the job at the River Cafe and then just had three and a half of the most incredible years working there. And I loved it and accelerated through the kitchen quite quickly and became part of their fabric quite quickly. And of course, that's where the Naked Chef was discovered.

Speaker A: Hey, everyone. There's more of our conversation with Jamie Oliver and Joe. Just a couple minutes. We're excited to share that our friends at Ford's Gin are back this season, and they're once again mixing up something special throughout the season. They're creating custom cocktails inspired by the guest you're hearing from right now. Today we're going to Hear from Kayla Mata, uh, trade advocacy manager for Ford's Gin. Kayla created a drink inspired by Jamie Oliver's new book, Eat Yourself Healthy. Kayla, I'm very excited to see what you came up with for us because being it's the top of the new year and, you know, we're all looking to be a little more mindful of what we eat and drink, I'm kind of curious to see what you created based on this book.

Speaker B: Hey, Kathy. Yeah, thanks. So I decided to come up with a Tom Collins style drink. I feel like Jamie did such a great job at, uh, emphasizing the joy of nourishment in Eat Yourself Healthy with all of these bright, colorful fruits and veggies. I just found it super energizing. And so with that energy, I decided to create something a little bubbly. Hence the Miso Collins. So the Miso Collins starts with one and a half parts of Ford's gin, half a part of fino sherry, half a part of fresh squeezed lemon juice, a quarter part of miso honey. We'll get back to that in just a moment. And then we're gonna go ahead and put all of those ingredients into your shaker tin. Lightly shake, strain over a Collins glass with fresh ice and top off with soda water. Now, your garnish is gonna be a lemon twist. And there you go. There is the miso Collins. But to get back to that miso honey, on how to make that super yummy, delicious syrup, it's going to be one cup of honey, one cup of brewed dandelion tea. Now, you're going to want this still a little bit warm. 2 tablespoons of miso of, uh, white miso. Specifically, we're going to want to go ahead and stir that all up until everything's pretty much dissolved and strained out. This will hold up into the fridge for about two weeks so you're able to enjoy more cocktails later on. I feel like the Miso Collins goes really well with a lot of fish dishes, a lot of bright veggie dishes, citrus forward. Jamie has such an array of globally inspired dishes. I'm sure you can find something to enjoy this cocktail with or on its own.

Speaker A: This cocktail sounds amazing. I mean, if it weren't for anything like, I'll take this syrup and, and find many uses for it.

Speaker B: It's super delicious.

Speaker A: This is awesome. Thank you, Kayla. Appreciate you, Joe, Brooke and Anna Mains for being part of this fun little series this season. If you like this one, you'll find more fun cocktails throughout the beyond the plate Season. The Ford's team also contributed in episodes with chef Enrique Olvera, Asma Khan, Leah Cohen and Jake Cohen. To get the recipe for this cocktail, check out the episode notes in your podcast player. To learn more about Ford's gin, go to Ford's gin.com and follow them on social media. Ordinary Ford's Gin. Please drink responsibly. Ford's London Dry Gin. 45 ABV Brown Forman, Louisville, Kentucky. Ford's gin is a registered trademark. Ford's Gin, the cocktail gin. Okay, so do I have this right? You're. You actually had a day off. You were covering a shift on the line. There's a BBC crew filming there and the cameras come on and you are just being yourself, educating, telling people what you're doing in the moment and the next thing you know, you're getting calls to make a food TV show.

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, that's the compounded version. I mean, I don't think I was considering educating anyone.

Speaker A: But you were kind of doing that. I mean, you were teaching, like you said at the pub, you were 13 years old teaching 20 year old cooks how to do shit. Like you were a teenager. This. You worked your ass off.

Speaker C: It came naturally to me, but they were just a crew in my way, getting on my nerves.

Speaker A: But they were probably saying, tell us what you're doing and what is that ingredient?

Speaker C: You know how annoying TV people are. Uh, and um, and then. But also it was a Saturday night, we were fully booked and I was covering someone, so I was two hours behind on my mise en place. So I would normally make sure that my section is like, got, uh, plan A's, B's and C's. And you do good mise en place so that you can handle any ebb and flow of service when you're getting your ass kicked. I got this fucking crew asking me all these questions, but yeah, you're trying

Speaker A: to get risotto out the door and they're like, uh, what is that?

Speaker C: I was kind of like excited a bit and, and sort of just focused really. And then didn't think anything of it because they were cutting it and editing it for months. And I think it went out about four months later. And then I didn't know I was in it. I was working the night it was on tv and then the next day they were like, oh, you're in it. Oh my God. Yeah, you did this bit and you did that bit and you did that bit. And I'm like, really? And then the phone call started and the first phone Call was from the BBC. And um, then I realized about sort of four minutes in that it was actually the general manager of the River Cafe pretending and taking piss. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, oh, fuck you, man. Like just normal banter between colleagues, you know, kiss my ass and all that. You know, general rudeness between colleagues that love each other. And that was that. But then in service, that was about 11 o'.

Speaker A: Clock.

Speaker C: It was just for a bit of a laugh. And then like in service, about 12:30 and about 1:30, I had two phone calls from the real people. One of them was a researcher for Optimum TV for Pat Llewellyn, who found and produced the Fat Ladies, obviously the Naked Chef. And then afterwards it would be at Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay.

Speaker A: Did you think they were fucking with you again?

Speaker C: Yeah. So when they phoned up, uh, the real guy phoned up and said, oh, we're just phoning you to talk about you possibly meeting us and filming. I said. And I just went into the abuse again. Cause I thought it was Giles playing again. I'm like, dude, we're in the middle of service. Kiss my ass. And I obviously, I told him to do something with a broom to himself that is illegal in most countries around the world. And uh, I could tell I kind of knocked his confidence. And then he said the words pilot. Film a pilot. And what was the other word? It's gonna want to film. We want to do a filming of a pilot and get it commissioned. And then I realized I'd made a massive mistake and I, I had to apologize profusely and.

Speaker A: Oh my God.

Speaker C: And then there was another call that day as well. And then we kind of hooked up. We m met up. We did like a little version of what you would call a sizzle, which was pretty crap. Very rough, very ready. Me and my little one bedroom flat in Hammersmith with my girlfriend Jules. And it Sat at Channel 4 for six months and they passed on it in the end. And then it turned up on the desk of a guy called Mark Thompson, who I think is still. I think he might be running the New York Times now. He certainly did. Lovely man. And he was head of BBC2, which was famous for doing those shows. And he commissioned me. In a week. In a week. You know, I'm quite. I'd say I like to think I'm quite good friends with him now. And I, uh, go, why did you. Why? Uh, I think what happened? He just said, oh. Cause you were like naturally this and that. And we wanted to take a Chance and stuff like that. But I think that is true. I also think there might have been like weird things happen in broadcasters when there's a gap in the schedule and. Cause they trusted Pat Llewellyn. She's a woman that delivers on her, uh, six shows on time, on budget. Like the equation just, I think is a lot of luck. I mean, I'm very touched that they thought I was so charismatic from my terrible pilot. But I think, look, in some respects the BBC, the way it's structured, it's always supposed to be able to make programming that commercial TV can't make. It has to be diverse and inclusive. It has to take risks on new talent and it has to be this. That. That's the kind of theory. Right. So anyway, ended up with my own series and it was, um. And I just written a piece of paper just saying, look, if you want me to do this TV show, I want to strip down restaurant food to its bare essentials and just make food really simple. And then from the word strip, stripping and bare, that's where the Naked Chef came from. And the rest is history.

Speaker A: Incredible. Okay, so fame came pretty quick for you. I'm curious that relationship with fame and also like a follow up there. But when did you realize you needed to use your voice for more than cooking?

Speaker C: The Naked Chef exploded. Not just around the uk, around the world. I didn't even understand the concept of distribution and different countries buying your programs. The book went straight to number one. It actually went to number one before the show came out. So there was clearly a hunger for a younger voice. And my first book was a pretty decent book. It was beautiful. And if you look through it now, it still stands up. It still looks like a kind of fairly modern and contemporary book. And then, yeah, I started kind of just looking at doing stuff that was a bit different. I set up my own restaurant, which was a charity that was powered by kids that were kind of, let's say, lost. Some unemployed, some out of education, some fresh from prison, some homeless. And that was without doubt the best thing that I've ever done. And sort of started to. Because I was never particularly campaign y or political or, you know, I was never like advocating anything other than talking crap and having fun and loving food. I wasn't that kid. But while I was open minded and always open to learning, I knew I could train these kids from troubled backgrounds. And the proof of the pudding is now like, of the 480 that we graduated, like there's a handful that have, uh, run Michelin star Restaurants had their own Michelin stars. You know, when I took my wife to Amsterdam for our, uh, 25th wedding anniversary last year, I went to my favorite restaurant, which was one of my students restaurants. You've got those full circle moments. But those young people did teach me a lot, lot of powerful lessons about second and third and fourth chances, about the concept of transformation. And that kind of skewed me towards other documentaries and how to make them documentaries and how to run a campaign and how to gather the thoughts and feelings of the public and turn it into votes and force government to change legislation and policies. And so weirdly, I got really good at it quite quick. And again, I don't know how, but yeah, I mean, that's sort of. They taught me and grew me into the person that I am today.

Speaker A: Really. That's so good. So let's talk about the new book, Eat Yourself Healthy. I believe you've always walked the walk, whether it's cooking, going into schools to shine a light on school meals, and trenching yourself on a specific cuisine. If I, correct me if I'm wrong, you travel to blue zones to where people live the longest. Why this book now?

Speaker C: I think, look, it's uh, the public in the UK and the US are, uh, pretty sick pretty often. That's more normal than abnormal. And it's nothing that we should be proud of, really. I don't, you could say, oh, uh, is it down to ignorance, laziness, greed, you know, all of these things. But the truth is the food that we eat has changed a lot in form 45 years, and the composition of those foods for like, has changed and the environment that we live in has changed a lot. We've been beating the crap out of our bodies and thrashing our, uh, kidneys and livers and all those things. So I think if you look at that from a sort of health data point of view, trying to write a book that can really hold gently the hands of people through breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, drinks, desserts, nibbles, uh, snacks, feels an appropriate thing to do. And having trained in nutrition, but also got an amazing nutrition team and got my little octopus tentacles around most of the cleverest minds in the weird nuances of food, farming and biology and health and science, like we all talk all the time because it's tough out there for them. Even if they've got fascinating news, that doesn't mean they can get it out to people. So we all help each other. So I just thought I'd try and bottle that, uh, into a book. And um, through the language of delicious, colorful recipes. I mean, if you flick through the book now, it's beautiful, it's colorful. None of it's lucky. There's the right amount of meat proteins, fish proteins, bean proteins, like the right amount of veggie, vegan and regular recipe. Like everyone's been taken care of, right? There's recipes that I know you're gonna love that hit home. Um, and then there's recipes that you might like and then there's recipes that you've never even dreamt of eating, but maybe, just maybe you could try something new. So it's all like a slightly neurodiverse equation of structure and format, but you know, there's 50 hacks in there. There's a two week Kickstarter, uh, which is like, to anyone that feels not great and feels like they could be better, have more energy and be more alert and just be happier, I would genuinely endorse the two week Kickstarter if you can do that. Amazing things happen in two weeks if you stick to it and if you don't, if you don't lie to yourself. That two week Kickstarter is using delicious food to make you cook, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner, um, seven days a week for two weeks. So that your body is being flushed with all the things that it needs, needs not by luck, but by design. And I really, really, really believe in it. And I also think if you can do it, then do four weeks. It's super powerful. Like, like if you need to lose weight, then there's enough deficit in the three that you'll throw off weight and water and inflammation. And just like you're just. The dynamics and diversity of nutrients in that two week plan is mega. Um, and so your body gets a holiday, right? The truth is, is if you don't feel your best, like, you deserve this. So it's not just the kind of food and the flavor and the nutrition that you're consuming, but just in the two week plan there's a diversity of technique and cooking methods as well. So it really could help you reconnect your relationship with yourself and your body and food. And the language of just like. Because cooking's not rocket science, it's just doing stuff to stuff to make a meal. And like, you only shit if you buy it. So it's just everyone's busy, everyone's distracted because we know that and because marketing and advertising is designed around what we know, it's not luck. We know down to the postcard, postcode, you know, of where you live, right? So if you want to have control or more control in your life, you have got to learn to cook. It doesn't mean you have to have a career in the kitchen. It just means that you need to be at a shop and you need to be able to cook some basic stuff. And if you start throwing in a family into the equation, then oh my God. And I'm not saying this in a lecherous way, I'm just saying the point of this book is that I have done all of the hard work for you. I've done all the. So you don't have to do the two week kickstart plan. Just go in there, flick through it. I'll do this, I'll do that. Oh, that turned out cool. Oh, cool. I'll do a few more. Maybe I will do the two week kick. It might take three weeks, it might take three years for you to go, I feel like shit and I don't know why. And um, there's going to be loads of people in your algorithm telling you why. And it probably when you sort of watch a three minute bloody annoying video, they're trying to sell you some supplements or something to stick up your ass or in your arm or something like that. And it's just like, okay, cool. And yeah, I'm trying to sell you a book. So I guess I'm as guilty. But I just think it's um, the book's full of kind of thoughtfulness and uh, like wholesomeness and there's vibes of sleep in there as well, hydration. And we're just one you to feel better. And um, by the way, like, it's food's much more than this. Food can be sassy, it can be romantic, it can be Larry. It can be big and bold and audacious. It can be indulgent. And we know all the things that are indulgent. We love. You don't need, you don't need educating in that. But it also can nourish you and heal you. And people in that field hate you saying things like heal. But I'm telling you, the national, like 95% of Americans don't eat enough fiber. If you do your research, it's like, like literally a few tins of beans difference. If you look at the difference that that would make to America as a society. And if you look at like how not having enough fiber affects like you're making you prone to heart, uh, attacks, strokes, cardiovascular disease, but also terrible microbiome in your stomach and then terrible mental Health and inflammation and la, la la, la, la, la, la. It's like from a tin of beans. It's like. Yeah, it's like. Honestly, it's mad. There's a lot to be gained. And a lot of the things that. Or the majority of the stuff I'm asking you to buy are the cheapest things in the supermarket, right? There's veggies, pulses, spices. You know, these are all very affordable. And, yeah, we gotta be clever around the proteins. And food is not cheap. I get that. But M, eight times out of 10, if you cook something, you're gonna probably make it. If you cook something for four, you're probably gonna be cheaper than getting a takeout for four.

Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna do a speed round. Close it out. Speed round number one. What did you have for dinner last night?

Speaker C: Oh, last night I had some versions of. Of sushimi and sushi followed to a different continent. A beautiful pumpkin tortellini and then followed by a kind of almatone chicken from an Amish community with various sources. It was quite a wild, disparate menu. I credit you that.

Speaker A: Was this a food crawl or one place?

Speaker C: It was a restaurant, but it was a nice night.

Speaker A: Nice name. A smell in the kitchen.

Speaker C: You love the smell in the kitchen that I love. Uh, there's so many. And they all mean so many different things, from burnt caramel to beautiful strawberries and rhubarb kind of compotting down as a dessert or a jam or something. But things like kaffir lime leaves in laxas, and it's all beautiful smells.

Speaker A: How about a smell in the kitchen you hate?

Speaker C: Oh, the smell in the kitchen that, uh, I hate. Shouldn't be any, really. I mean, look, don't get me wrong. If you're fermenting stuff and you're letting that jar breathe and burp, that's pretty ropey. I'm um, not gonna lie. And fish sauce, which is integral to Thai cooking. And actually, there's fish sauce in Mediterranean cooking as well. That stuff is ropey, but used with respect, is very good in the food.

Speaker A: How about what pisses you off in the kitchen?

Speaker C: What pisses me off in the kitchen? I think just general violence and misogyny and anger.

Speaker A: Uh, what makes you happy in the kitchen?

Speaker C: Being with an amazing team. I mean, I think, like, if you've got a good team and if they're happy, kitchens, ironically, are very, very happy places. And they really can be, and they really should be. And the camaraderie, the friendship, the ban. The kind of Sense of protection that you have from one another is a really, really beautiful thing.

Speaker A: How about a book or a resource you'd suggest to young cooks?

Speaker C: The hard one, because the genius of books is they're so nuanced. It's going to be something like the book of ingredients, or like, I think it's like the thesaurus of flavor. Just like something that is a place to go where you can see what flavors are best friends with each other and maybe how you can link that within one of your special that you're designing in your brain. There are fundamental books that are just classic, like the River Cafe book, which I think sets a scene which is beautiful. And then, you know, you could find something beautiful and Italian from Patricia Wells. And like I say that Stephanie Alexander, Marcello Hussain, Alice Waters. These are good, fundamental books. Fundamental in the sense of. I think what's needed in the sort of thoughtfulness of recipes is the feminine, really. That's just my opinion. But I think as a man, I can, you know, I know how the ego and structure and control and format and kind of operations can overtake the sort of much, um, more interesting, uh, well, they're important too, by the way, not to be frowned upon, but I think, um, Rose Gray, Ruth Rogers, all of those. If you look at the recipes they write, they're very thoughtful, seasonal, and tuned into the day. And I think you've got to get into that. I mean, it's probably we all were, uh, many 100 years ago, but I think since the modern times, like, you could always order like 40 racks of lamb every day, and you don't realize how many sheep you've just taken a part of. Like, so, like the idea of buying a whole lamb or a half lamb and being forced in a beautiful way to use every part, every cut and break it down and fast cook and slow roast. And so I think from an American side, like, I think the Chris Bianco cookbooks are amazing. I think anything from Mark Vetri is really, really golden. Really, really interesting. They're good soul food lads. But I've kind of diverted your question, so I apologize. I didn't give you one book.

Speaker B: Uh, you're good.

Speaker C: So many.

Speaker A: That's good. I hope people, someone listening, looks up all those books and knows how important that they are and can be for what they're up to. So we have an audio newsletter called Heard where I share a few things on my plate at the moment. Restaurant. A product or ingredient, a recipe, something social impact related. Can you give me one thing on your plate that I can feature in a forthcoming episode of Heard.

Speaker C: Yeah. One of the beautiful books that I've got on my plate at the moment is a book called the Pasta Book by Mark Vetri. And it's really beautiful. And I think he's a, uh, super legit, super talented chef, and he's sort of hand holding you through, like, awesome pasta dough and variations and fillings and trying to get your head around just the elegance of sources with attitude and textures. And I think it's always. I mean, I would consider myself a good pasta chef, but I would say that he is a, uh, unusually excellent pasta chef. Like, he's on a sort of league of his own. And it's. And also, I think, you know, you're always learning. Right. I don't actually feel that I've mastered anything. Like, I'm good at many things, but I'm master of probably none. And some people say, oh, I've got too many cookbooks. It's actually a really normal and quite a beautiful thing because there's. It's so diverse, isn't it? Some of the best books on the planet that can take you to another place or make you think differently are, uh, very focused and nuanced that most normal people wouldn't be into it. Some of my favorites are like, just odd little random books about random things.

Speaker A: Awesome. Love it. Okay, I want to wrap it. Can you give us the overall Jamie Oliver philosophy on social impact or giving back?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think that my philosophy in any of the social campaigning that I do is not particularly rocket science. I mean, I think it's. It's identifying something that feels wrong around child health and public health. But we're very focused on child health and really learning as much as you can about it. So it could be, you know, if you're a kid from the projects on, um, free school lunches and you have provision 180 days of the American school year, but in the holidays, you've got nothing. And mum, um, and dad have got nothing. And you're like a street child in those holidays. And you're. And we can measure those kids getting unhealthy in those holidays and their parents being in high stress because little Johnny hasn't got provision. That what we call holiday hunger. That's been a campaign of ours for years that we're trying to, you know, we've worked very hard to make sure those families in the UK have provision. Right. Cause that's a pretty bad situation, right. In a developed, successful country like Britain, like, for, you know, 1.2 million kids to be in that place is not great. So working on things like that, but really you identify something that's wrong. It could be that school lunches are rubbish, it could be that they're being advertised to, it could be that they're being tracked and followed and hunted on gaming and the places where they hang out socially on their iPads and phones and being manipulated by most likely junk food or energy drinks. So that's the kind of stuff that I do. We learn a lot about it and we just follow our moral compass. And if everything lines up, then we try and tell those stories normally through documentaries or programs. And then we try and get a reaction from the audience, wherever they might be and get them to vote. We set up campaigns and it's kind of analog in a way, even though it's very digital. But to make change, if you're a parent or a person that's passionate about something, the first emotion you're gonna feel is very lonely. It's very lonely being someone with something that's uh, wrong and they're unhappy about to make change. You'll feel like you can't make that change. But if you get five people together and then 10 people people together and you can create a united front, then the next step is to try and get to 100,000 people. And by the time you get to 100,000 people, pretty much you can do whatever you like. And a lot of the camp or most of the campaigns that we've done, even in the non digital age, we get a million FYI, governments. And I'm sure you've all been on a masterclass on governments in the last four years in your country, like most politicians, certainly in the uk, they say this, everyone from different parties say this. Uh, I don't know if they're taught this at politician college or whatever, but they essentially say maybe us and we will. And if you think about that, really. So you actually want us to go and do all the hard work, you have all the millions and billions of pounds worth of resource, you have all the permission to open doors in every university and every clever place in the world and you want us laymans to go out and gather enough data, uh, as well as go and work and hold the family together and make you a new will. So like, it's like, that's always amazed me, but they've said it multiple times across multiple parties and that uh, whether they say the same words, they imply it in other countries that I've worked in as well. So Yeah, I think people struggle with the concept of making change. It can be done.

Speaker A: Love it. Thank you for everything you have done and continue to do and will do into the future. I appreciate you and your time and where can people find you?

Speaker C: Where can you find me? Well, if you've got Freeview channels on your tv, there's a fine place called the Jamie Oliver Channel channel and it's on Samsung TVs. It's on like three view or free to view channels. Jamiel.com Thousands of free recipes that you can indulge in. You can come and find me on Instagram, which I love, and Facebook for different audiences. Even TikTok that I'm trying to get my head around, even though it's like way, way late.

Speaker B: But.

Speaker C: But yeah, I mean, I think it's, uh. That's where you can find me if you're interested. I think I'll tell you what's been really nice, actually. I did a thing for Netflix last year called Chef's Table Legends and actually I'm really proud of that. I was like the only Brit on it. And obviously it's very hard for me to tell my story because that would be very. I had to have someone else come and tell that story. So that was quite nice to sort of, I guess finally do a bit of a retrospective and look back over 25 years. So if you've never seen my work or much of my work, then that's probably a good place to start, right?

Speaker A: For sure. Dude, thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. Enjoy the rest of your time here.

Speaker C: Thank you.

Speaker A: I'm going to be out your way actually, in April.

Speaker C: Yeah, we'll reach out. If you get to London town, come and see us.

Speaker A: Awesome. Thanks, man. Thank you so much. Have a good day.

Speaker C: Lots of love. Look after yourself.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker C: See you, dude. All the best.

Speaker A: Find all social media links for myself beyond the Plate and our guests in the episode notes and on Beyondtheplatepodcast.com as always, a big thanks to the whole beyond the Plate team. And if you have a moment, we'd be grateful for your support by. By rating, reviewing and even hitting that subscribe button to the podcast. Thank you for listening to beyond the Plate. I'm Cappy and remember, there are never too many cooks in the kitchen.