Poke your nose into Australian homes and there’s a good chance you’ll find a requisite Jamie Oliver recipe book on the shelf. His enthusiastic, down-to-earth approach to cooking has been eagerly lapped up by Aussies for decades.
But there was a time Jamie wasn’t so confident. In his early 20s when he was given his first TV series, The Naked Chef, he was as green as a cucumber.
“A lot of people don’t know this, but the first program we made was ditched,” Jamie, 49, tells TV WEEK. “The first series was only six half-hour shows. We actually made seven because we f***ed up the first episode.
“The reason was because I had no confidence and I had no ability to present effortlessly down the barrel of a lens.”
Realising they were “stuck with this kid”, producers needed a solution. So they decided to shoot the series like a documentary. Executive producer Pat Llewellyn would ask Jamie questions just off camera, which saved Jamie having to stare down the barrel of the lens.
The different approach worked and, coupled with his rock’n’roll style of cooking, Jamie tore down the walls of stale cooking television and built his own empire.
“You’d see a lot of chef whites, it was a lot of studio stuff, and obviously The Naked Chef was not in chef whites, not in a studio,” Jamie recalls. “I was using my music from my record collection.
“We just tried to do something a little more of-the-moment and authentic. Although I didn’t know anything about TV, I think my intention was quite honest.”
His latest TV series, Jamie: Fast & Simple – based on recipes from his cookbook Simply Jamie – distils 25 years in the industry into straightforward, no-fuss methods of cooking.
“Hopefully, in the program, what you’ll see is just a whole bunch of stuff that makes you think, ‘I can do that,’” Jamie says. “I never want you to watch it and think, ‘Oh, god, isn’t he flash?’ I want you to think, ‘I can do that better than him.’”
The father-of-five is always vocal about food education and changing menus in schools, and the way children eat in general.
“Can we do better? Yes,” he says matter-of-factly.
“If you want kids to be more Australian, teach them how to cook. If you want them to be healthier and live longer, teach them how to cook.”
Earlier this year, Jamie returned to the MasterChef Australia kitchen as a guest judge, vowing to make former judge Jock Zonfrillo – who passed away in April 2023 – proud.
Will he return next season?
“I’m not on [next season],” Jamie says, “but I’m always game. Never say never. I love the show so much.”
Another show he won’t be doing is I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!.
“I haven’t got that time to give up [to be on the series], however, I would pay the production company to get my wife Jools do it,” he says.
“She’s such an amazing person and everyone would see why I married her. I’m hoping they keep asking her and the kids and I can pop over to Australia for the last two weeks and have some fun.”
Jamie: Fast & Simple airs Fridays, 7.30pm on 10
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