Jamie Oliver Pan-Fried My Child*

Before Jamie Oliver’s Ministry Of Food started I would have bet dollars to donuts that there would be precious little that could get me to agree with chip saleswoman par-extraordinaire Julie Critchlow.

For those whose minds have turned to mush due to excessive consumption of Turkey Twizzlers, Critchlow was the woman branded as the “worst mum in the UK” (um, hello?) for cramming junk food through the school gates after Oliver’s healthy menu deprived the kids of any lard-based enjoyment.

And yet, despite our wildly differing takes on childhood nutrition (I’d rather not bludgeon my child’s heart to a standstill with lard; Critchlow, less so) it seems that she has provided the richest critique yet of Jamie’s ‘Pass It On’ scheme: it’s bollocks. I couldn’t agree more.

For anyone yet to experience the show, Pass It On is essentially Oliver’s latest efforts to a) convert the world to healthier foods and b) expunge the guilt he feels for driving a school bus full of children into the world’s largest deep-fat fryer during a Jackass-style stunt. I’m only hypothesising on that latter issue but, come on, there has to be some deep-seated emotional trauma behind all of this do-gooding.

Oliver’s scheme is bollocks for several reasons. Primarily because it relies on people who can’t cook, to teach people who don’t really want to cook, how to cook. In the show Jamie teaches a group of Rotherhamites how to cook some basic meals.

In turn they then pass the recipes on to two people. Those people in turn pass the recipes on to two more people and so on, until eventually the world is converted into some healthy cooking cult. Oliver explained that it works in much the same way as the spread of a sexually-transmitted disease. But presumably with more herbs.

The key problem with Pass It On is that unless you manage to teach the initial people very well, and they turn out to be excellent teachers, then pretty soon your recipe for chicken, parma ham and asparagus goes awry quite quickly. From having a ‘dash’ of oil, to the whole thing swimming in enough olive oil to maroon a medium-sized donkey.

It’s like Chinese Whispers with food, and you can only guess that somewhere in a Rotherham flat someone is valiantly trying to bake a pie full of linoleum, wondering if Oliver meant for their to be quite so much acrid smoke.

Fortunately, during the show Critchlow (who just from seeing her on telly, you know smells of Rothmans and anger) is on hand to flex her considerable nay-saying muscles and at this point in the series it looks as if Oliver would indeed have more success flogging gonorrhoea door-to-door than trying to inspire people to cook.

Naturally, a dramatic twist will occur in about two episode’s time where, to some tub-thumping indie anthem (I’m going to go all out and guess Coldplay’s Viva La Vida), some clever editing will make it look like Oliver is ascending to heaven whilst his clutch of disciples rend their garments and weep tears of pure homemade chicken stock.

Because, naturally, the side issue in all of this is why Oliver thinks another crusade show is such a good idea. Yes, we’ve got unprecedented levels of childhood obesity, chronic levels of heart disease and KFC turned a profit last year, but why not just ditch the politics and cook stuff?

Mealy-mouthed cynics would suggest it’s simply because it makes good telly. And good telly shifts books. Frankly, I don’t care about all that, simply for trying to do something good Oliver deserves to hang out with Jesus and play halo frisbee all day long, but one thing that does rather puncture the whole concept is that the book of the series’ recommended retail price is £25 - the sort of price point that tends to put people off buying a book, learning the recipes and getting healthier.

That’s why I propose a solution: such is his love for the common man and his desire to Pass It On that Jamie Oliver will provide free copies of his Ministry Of Food cookbook for anyone living on benefits, or anyone who can provide a wage slip showing that they earn under the national average wage.

How about it, Jamie? You’d get your message out to millions of people who might otherwise not get to learn about passing it on, so do you feel like putting your money where your mouth is?

*He didn’t, that was a lie.