Remembering Jamie Oliver at Fifteen Cornwall
As restaurants and pubs in England look forward to opening up tomorrow after the long lockdown, one very well known institution that will not be welcoming guests - in its old guise at least - is the famous Jamie Oliver restaurant Fifteen Cornwall. I mention it because I’ve just stumbled across a very old and fuzzy video I made years ago when Jamie was visiting the Cornish corner of his kingdom.
Here’s the video…
And here’s the newspaper article I wrote at the time…
You cannot help but warm to Jamie Oliver when you meet him. His general air of friendliness and frankness alone is enough to put him firmly in the non-pretentious league of national icons and celebrities – but his passionate enthusiasm for food earns him a place in a little sub-division of his own.
And it’s not so little, when you come to think about it. Only recently the government announced a blanket ban on the sale of fizzy drinks, sweets and the like in the nation’s schools, and there is little doubt that this long awaited sea-change was down to the energies of the cheeky TV chef chappy from Essex.
So it was with some dismay that I found young Jamie Oliver marching towards me with meaningful intent at the grand opening of his new Fifteen Cornwall restaurant at Watergate Bay the other day.
“Who are you?” he demanded, shaking me by the hand. When I told him, he looked confused: “Is that a good or a bad thing?” he asked.
“A good thing,” I replied. “My newspaper has done more than any other to promote the concept of buying local – which is something I’m sure you’d approve of.”
“Fantastic, mate. Fantastic,” enthused Jamie, before being hauled off by a public relations minder. As he disappeared into the media throng, Jamie shouted over his shoulder: “We’ll talk later, big boy.”
And we did. I was invited to join a special coterie of food writers who huddled in a rather over-full storeroom somewhere in the nether regions of the new restaurant.
Grabbing an offering of pickled mullet roe from a Greek magazine journalist, Jamie looked at me and lit up with the words: “Hi there big boy – you’re that local chap ain’t ya?”
Which was enough to get him spinning headlong into a Jamie Oliver stream of consciousness. The sort of stream which is his trademark – at least, when you get him onto the subject of food…
“Cornwall fitted the bill because someone had a vision and it fitted all the social and economic problems – plus there was the food,” he began, when someone asked why he’d chosen the county for his latest Fifteen project. Then, in his machine-gun staccato way, he enlarged upon why he begun the Fifteen scheme in the first place.
“Cooking is very hands on,” he said. “I could make anyone fall in love with food. We love doing it – these kids love it – we teach them to make all the pastas and they think: ‘f..k me, I can do this’. Then they go and make it at home and they love it again – then there’s the pat on the back from mummy or daddy – and they love that too.”
Jamie suddenly jumps to the excitement of sourcing raw materials: “What tomato? The big one of course. Or the pink one. Okay, so we find a nice tomato when we’re abroad, so let’s import our own seeds – let’s get a gardener to grow them for us. We’ll give him a guaranteed price – he’ll be happy – we’ll be happy.”
This line of thought has Jamie skipping to something else. This time it’s food politics and the ethnic differences that divide us from our European counterparts.
“When I go to Europe, people talk about food – but in this country we’re hopeless. For 100 years we were crap,” he says, diving into a spitfire description of how the Industrial Revolution took people away from real food.
“We used to be able to cook good food – we had roasts, we had herbs, pastries, cakes. I buy handwritten books from four hundred, three hundred, two hundred years ago - and I read them and I want to cry. Where are those things today? What happened to our food?
“Women were always the key,” he states. “Men as chefs? A load of bollocks. Women are naturally more maternal and sensible and they get clean hands and don’t mess about.
“That even follows today – Delia (Smith) is brilliant, yes, brilliant,” he declares - blinking - almost as if he’s surprised at himself for saying it. Then he names a list of other famous female cooks. “They are the heroes,” he trails off.
Then he’s back again: “But 20 years ago we began to turn the corner. It is changing. Food in England is an interesting story. My problem is – I’m saying history changes things – but it’s the government’s job to realise what’s happening. You have got three generations now who haven’t got a clue (about food) What’s this – a courgette a leek? Dunno. Where do chips come from – a potato? Duh. It’s out there – I tell you – it is out there.
“But now we are beginning to see a story. We are beginning to discover that everything we eat has a story. A chicken comes from six miles up the road – it is specially fed, it is well looked after - that sort of thing. And the students at Fifteen know those stories.”
Suddenly we’re into Jamie’s own upbringing. “I grew up in it (the restaurant trade). I was born in it. I love it. It had a terrible reputation, yes – but luckily I’ve worked for incredible people who have treated me like a son.”
Jamie stops momentarily to reflect: “What a weird thing - from being a young boy from Essex to being a bloke with 14 million books sold all over the world. I feel humbled. The public have made me very rich very quickly. So this (his Fifteen project) is one way of giving something back. As long as I am selling books, I will be opening Fifteens. I think I’m doing what the public expects me to do.
“I’m interested in sustainability,” he goes on, switching back to food politics. “It’s about having a healthy population – people don’t realise what’s in the food they eat. They don’t read the backs of packs – they just eat stuff and they think it’s all right. But it’s not. They (the general public) are unhealthy – and we have one of the richest governments in world. It’s disgusting.”
Suddenly Jamie stops and looks round at the half dozen food writers: “I’m ranting aren’t I?” he says shamefacedly. But when we tell him he’s in cracking form, he gets right back into his stride.
“England is most cynical country in the world,” he sighs. “I’ll have another kicking (from the media) soon. I don’t give a f..k about all that – I’m still proving myself with Fifteen, but I’ve had five years now. And I’m very happy Cornwall (the new Fifteen) is happening.
“I will be in Cornwall a lot more than everyone thinks I will,” he retorts when asked. “With the easy transport links, I can come down for half a day. I’m rather hoping I’ll be here regularly. I have a responsibility to be active here - I’m granddad really – I have to make sure it all fits together.”
And what about local ingredients – were the fine raw materials of the West Country of interest to Jamie?
“I think you’d be amazed at what things were like when I first started,” he replied, taking his own stream-of-consciousness angle. “As chefs we never went to a farm – just the phone: ‘Can I have 100 racks of lamb?’ That sort of thing. All chefs suffer from that. But here I can walk 20 or 30 metres and there’s sea spinach – it’s better than (Swiss) chard. Blanch it with lemon, serve with a bit of sea salt and black pepper. Fabulous.
“There’s wild mint, fennel… Go and talk to Neil - my boy running things here - he phones everyday saying: ‘Look what I found’. He can’t believe it. The seafood is great. In a cold-water sea you get incredible shellfish. Halibut. Turbot. Amazing.
“About 80 per cent of everything we (at the restaurant) have is local. Of course, you have to import the olive oil and things. No, I won’t need to monitor this. I’ll tell you why - because everyone says things like: ‘My asparagus is the best in world.’ Why do they say it? Click, cut, pick, eat – that’s why. It’s fresh – and fresh is always the best.
“I’m interested in Cornish lamb, beef and the rare breeds that signify this area. Yes, we buy organic – but it’s not that we are politically correct. A lot of people think organic is special – I say it’s not – it is normal.”
Head chef Adam Banks at Fifteen Cornwall
Jamie took one big breath as if to conclude – and in one brief truism he bought into the very line this newspaper has been pursuing for years: “Local first – that’s what I say.”
Years later I recorded this interview with head chef Adam Banks - and very talented chap he was too as you can see by the photos of the food above…
