Jamie Oliver On Flying at 51, Real Fast Food & School Dinners

24:48So could you tell the difference as they sort of go out? Yeah, totally. Because they put the time in. But it's like, I think like some art directors sort of see the bigger picture, but obviously people that work as pilots can see what pilots are not doing. And same for chefs and surgeons on hospital programs. But yeah.

25:08Romesh Ranganathan:Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception, and it won't impact your future fertility. That's Freedom the Bee. Use as directed. Do they manage to capture like the, for you, do they manage to capture the powder kit, like the pressure of like in a kit?

25:46Romesh Ranganathan:Is that real? In the bear and things that I'm absolutely boiling point. I think some of them, yes. And I think obviously sometimes things get dramatized. But the thing about kitchens is depending on the nuance of where you are, they really can be, they're very how can I say they're very electric places they can be wild they can be the wild west they can be very fastidious and well managed they can also be very precise and very quiet it all depends on the conductor the head chef right and their personality technology's helped to quieten kitchens down human rights has made them behave a little bit better you know like things that happened when I was there's been a cultural change then in terms of I think generally I think like when when I started in cooking at say 18 like some of the norms socially like the hours normally were 80 to 100 hours so like try saying that to a young chef now that's happy with 42 hours yeah you know so um that's like i mean so so from a human rights point of view um that's better but from a working learning progression point of view you're basically learning at half speed because you're doing half the hours so you could look at it good or bad depending on how you want to look at it um but um yeah the things you could get away with um sexism sort of like what like the whipping and sort of like the stories you hear like they are often true and and then your job as a chef is to not work in those places sorry was the whipping figurative was that no literal what yeah it's sort of done for fun partly um well like everyone else knows you you used to do it on Asian but we did Asian you you get your you get your tea towel you whip it up so it's sharp you can not even dip it in water so it's even got more density and then you learn to like and that would be done potentially for fun but or it could be done to sort of like to tell you off is it a bit of like a hazing thing is it like you're welcome it was just it was just a like getting wrapped with a spoon or or a spatula or you know i mean that happened to you did that happen oh yeah loads i mean yeah plenty um i used to finish like when you're young and in the kitchen like i used to because i was cooking professionally from 12 you know 10 probably if that's it's professional means getting paid and 10 i was in commercial kitchens and you you know you you know in the early days like they kind of there's they have to kind of initiations and stuff like that so from being put in chest freezers for sort of 10 15 minutes i think they forgot that the seals are actually airtight so it's like i'm suffocating and it's freezing uh that's happened quite a few times but the um no i i I think it's generally done with, not with evil.

28:19It's normally done with laughter in their eyes. You could debate whether it's both. But certainly my experiences were normally with lots of laughter. But you'd finish a shift and you'd have, I think, up to 200 clothes pegs on your back, you know. And, you know, this is always just this, like, typically chefs are very funny, because a lot of their jobs are very repetitive.

28:44Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah. like it's it looks glamorous but like you know one case of cleaning mushrooms is one thing but 10 is another so you have to pass the time with some pretty basic talking gig you got to make something out of nothing right um that you're kind of drumming yourself up for a live show every day which is service which is sort of two three hours potentially and that's like a giant game of like tetris on steroids and and then you've got like often like a workforce that um wear their heart on their sleeve and they come from all sorts of backgrounds and there's booze and alcohol and all sorts of so i'm it sounds like i'm exaggerating but it's it's it's probably like a lot of industries um uh but um i've been blessed i've chosen to work with largely very very good people and and um but it's you knew it was the industry so yeah there's not not much would surprise me um i've seen quite a lot and um but also i think it's an amazing industry and and good leaders good head chefs run kind hearted tight ships and good people want to be kept so you tend to not whip them these days um but um have you ever been in a place where you've gone fuck this i'm not i'm not doing it no because normally some of the behavior that frightens people it's a bit like um some and i'm not i'm not saying this is okay by the way um but a lot of what offends the general public is very normal to me it's just like the it's like rain oh yeah it's rain you know it's like you don't that's just normal because like like and i'm sure there's other trades where at certain points certain dynamics happened and that's just part of drumming up for that so that can offend a lot of people and there's obviously a line where it's too much and it's called bullying So we don't definitely, we don't want to be taking any part of that, but, um, building up for service has, you know, on a busy day, short staff, someone's called in sick and you've got, you know, some tricky, uh, scenarios in balancing too many people turning up at one time, you know, you've got to like charge up for that.

30:43Um, but at the same time, um, yeah, I think, uh, I've been very, very lucky. I've been in some hard kitchens, uh, but it's always been worth it because there it's always about doing something special on the plate so you see it's always a balance like if it's just loads of grief and the product's rubbish then that ain't worth it but if the grief is because of perfection and the aspiration for perfection but at the same time this conversation can go off because it will go into bullying and there is a line like anything in life but um and i'm not in that world and i haven't been in that world and i've never allowed myself to be in that world and because there's always a job in the next restaurant because everyone's underemployed like you can move yeah and um but i still believe in the industry it's very hard time at the moment well i was going to

31:31Romesh Ranganathan:ask you because like restaurants running a restaurant is tough being in a kitchen is tough all of that you are uh fortunate and and all we're not just fortunate you're because your talent and your charisma and all of the the other skills you bring to it you've got other things that you've been doing you know we just talked about your book sales the tv shows and all that you could very happily leave that all completely alone right what what what do you think makes you continue to want to be in that side of it um well i guess like probably most people you wonder what on earth what am i what am i supposed to do right in life you know um i feel like i've been very lucky and and part of that luck is working hard part of that luck is being in the right place at the right time And part of that luck is just like trying to keep learning and importantly listening.

32:21And then like very unusually to sort of make maybe my life or yours more complicated is really if we're really good at our jobs, we listen to the public and really they are the boss. So your direct boss isn't really your boss. The public is your boss and they always get to vote with their feet. yeah and um yeah i think um so i've i've i'm the kind of campaigny jamie that that you've seen over the years it's not that's not really me you know i was never that kid i never grew up with that i

32:48Romesh Ranganathan:never had that inkling in my body so where did campaigny jamie come from then well when i set up 15 which was just being young wild deeply passionate and and quite capable i i at 24 i set up my first restaurant and i just decided it was going to be a charity and i just decided that we going to take kids from really rough backgrounds and prison. And I wanted to, and I just happened to have, from being completely skint the year before, a million quid in the bank where I could do it. And clearly I was a fucking idiot. But that's 24 years old, right? Yeah, but being an idiot is... My poor dad was like, what are you doing?

33:23But being an idiot is helpful, right? Do you know what I mean? Being naive is really interesting. Yeah. And so I think that's why older people must, I mean, and I mean this in the plight of this way, you've got to look at the young people because that because there is obviously um there is being an idiot or stupid or but there's also kind of like unadulterated passion and um want or aspiration you know like that that's when it's that's when it's exciting is the best thing i've ever done yeah ever yeah and and i saw it bring out the best people in of all levels uh team uh It's brought out the best in everyone because it was the purest.

34:04There was no conflict of interest. I didn't have a wage like the whole restaurant. It was madness, which creates an energy. It was the ultimate tale of rehabilitation, like the concept. Like, can you take – my dad was worried about it because he said, you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear conceptually. And I disagreed as his young son. And it was a bit of a thing. And it took me to send one of my graduates to work for him for a summer for him to go. Like, OK. And then like for me, like to have those kids that had had trouble with the law, spent time in prison. And then the concept, I mean, to see the consistencies around that.

34:48And there were many, whether it was drugs, crime, aunties, uncles, lack of father figures, positive role models, you know, or a mixture of all of them to see, to create a safe place where there's second and third chances and then see the silk purse be made literally from the sow's ear. And so what does that mean in my context? It means that I've got about a quarter of my students are better than me at cooking. Like that's, that's true. Right. I've got like three that have got Michelin stars, right? And run very, I can't do that, you know? And there's nothing, you know, to take someone that was in gang culture, drug culture and used to, and body image and violence was a tool to see those same hands produce the most beautiful tortellini capolacci, like caramelli, you know, like that just as a kind of metaphor visually, like it's just it's just it like taught me a lot and yeah and then from that because ultimately that story of jamie's kitchen in 15 was like second chances from that came school dinners

36:00Romesh Ranganathan:yeah and so so did you get an appetite for it from the way that 15 went yeah because like that because the only thing i had in common with them is being shit at school yeah and struggling at school like i was i was a white middle class kid but i came from a working class family grew up as a middle-class kid in a pub in Essex yeah in a lovely little village where apparently nothing went wrong yeah right so the only thing I had to relate to them was school but that was enough right but also like uh that was it was the biggest education and then then the public because they reacted to that so strongly took me to school dinners actually my dad did again he's I think I'd quoted in a couple of newspaper articles about school dinners being not very good and dad just said like action speak louder than words get on with it then so then i thought oh shit about so then because i'd started up a production company i had the stupid ability to film it and then go into the school and spend 18 months in greenwich and and and then that then as you kind of do your research you realize that the scenario you know the fact that there was robust um standards for dog food which if you broke them would send you to jail and there were none for kids food yeah you Five and a half million kids, 190 days of the year, breakfast and lunch, Wild West, no standards.

37:17And it's also what's hilarious, because I kind of laugh about it now, but the grief I get for turkey twizzlers, right?

37:22Romesh Ranganathan:A lot of people, you know, still pissed about it, man. But here's the truth of it, right? If you look at actually what I did, and I'm not, I couldn't, like, I did what I did and I had good reason to. If you've got half a brain, you do the same. But I never took away them. What I did was create the first standards in British history that meant if you wanted to sell a meat product, it had to have at least 65 % meat in it. And turkey twizzlers went, fuck that. Exactly. They were asked to. They were asked to. There were lawyers everywhere. They were trying to sue. But it wasn't just them. It was like a myriad of products.

37:56And it was basically saying, don't mug off the schools. Don't mug off the parents. Don't mug off the kids. The hilarious, you know, the thing that's hilarious about it is the kids think that I took their turkey twizzlers away. They just reformulated them with some meat in it like a year and a half later. But if I had been a drug dealer and we'd gone like, you know, we're 65 % pure guys instead of 10, they'd be like,

38:17Romesh Ranganathan:you're a high five. But basically, because I made their food have more meat in it, they're like, you bastard. There's not enough shit in this. That's exactly it. Because those two things alone, 15, what you've just said, right, is amazing. Okay. The legacy of 15 and those people coming from those backgrounds and going on to do amazing stuff. And then to take on school dinners, you know, we all watched the shows. It looked like a nightmare for you. Do you know what I mean? And like getting all of that across, you are trying to do something that is so well-intentioned and people, it was just, you got so much pushback.

39:00Romesh Ranganathan:It was unbelievable. Did that, do you feel, do you feel a sense of pride in the fact that, Because now, things that kids eat having an effect on their academics and their level of concentration and all of that, that feels like common sense now. When you were saying it, it felt like you got so much opposition. What was it like to go through that? It was the hardest 18 months. And I'm not exaggerating. It was quite dark. And what does that mean? It meant what dark means is that I, especially in food, in the world of food, if you're into it, like you just magnetize towards amazing, like like minded people, producers, farmers, like it's just gold, gold, gold.

39:44Everything's just beautiful. And that's that's why we do what we do. Right. Because it ain't an easy job. but um but going to to Greenwich into those 56 schools like most of them didn't want me there so every day had a heaviness of like and I and although my job was to be strong and to sort of like tell stories and to like smash through and to sort of like pick it and kind of yeah that's not honestly truly that's not really me like I've got an element of confidence when I'm talking about what I know I'm talking about but but I I still and people never I still feel quite shy in lots of ways and and so it wasn't going into greenwich it wasn't a pleasure but probably half half the head teachers because that's where the power comes from really like that power that goes down through the the teachers and empowers them to have a culture of teaching in that school around the syllabus like half of them were brilliant and extraordinary and half weren't so no one ever really wanted to talk about that and i couldn't talk about that but basically that just meant that there was no no computer says no no no no no no and there'd be there'd be reasons that weren't true what sort of reasons were they giving you okay so you've got a school for instance that was designed to feed 700 people and fast forward like 30 years and you've got 1600 people uh you have to feed them breakfast and lunch every single day like 70 of the kids are on free school lunches which means they're probably not going to go home to a hot meal there's no standards for the fucking food so they're not getting that they're nutritionally sort of they're not optimal um so all of this is going to affect them visually nutritionally but also productivity and their exam results right so i'm trying to fix all of that um so i'm going right okay the the the architecture of this place cannot handle any ideas that i've got so we need satellite kitchen so we'll prep them here and at 11 45 we'll do that that that there and we'll have sat and it's like no there's be too much mess like yeah but i'm trying to fix your problems like no no well you got that shed there and if i do this and that i can get that in there i can do 400 people from there and we've got that offer and the kids have loved it they've developed the menu it's delicious no no It's too much mess.

41:45And you go to another school that has less resource and the head teacher will go, brilliant, I'll get the kids on detention to pick up the mess. And I'm like, brilliant, he sounds like my dad. But like, you know, even getting kids in detention to pick up litter, you know, like there'll probably be something that says you can't do that now. Get them doing it, I say, brilliant. I mean, it's just like happy days. Like if you go to Japan, like every child contributes to the functionality of that school. And that includes every class contributes to the school dinners every single day. And if you saw what they ate and the balance of what they ate and the productivity of all children in Japan for a like for like, 10 year old to 10 year old, cohort by cohort, it's incomparable.

42:30So culturally, it's obviously just different. But yeah, that was that was hard. And I thought the parents would be on side. And it was really weird. And I thought the grandparents particularly would be on side because they'd remember the old days. but it was largely not no one wanted me there at all and i remember a day i think it was the sun did a review of the documentary and it was a good one um and i think it deserved to be a good one because it was a good show and the day it went in black and white in the newspaper everything changed all the naysayers of 18 months dissipated and even the people that would all of a sudden i wasn't the posh wanker that was just like, because I put spaghetti bolognese on the menu.

43:09They call me a posh wanker. Yeah, you coming in here with your posh food, you know, you know, I'll be like spaghetti bolognese and chili con carne. What's the matter? It's like, just because it's not like, you know, like reformulated hands and sort of like space invaders and like Twizzlers and stuff.

43:27Romesh Ranganathan:Like, like, I'm, when you say it now, that sounds insane, doesn't it? But like, that's, but do you feel, you must feel vindicated now? You must have been vindicated then, but now. Yeah, I feel vindicated. I think vindicated, much has been achieved. And better school lunches are much more common. Excellent is much more common. We do the Jamie Lover School Food Awards every year to shine a light on what good looks like, and it's extraordinary. But probably, in reality, 40 % of the 24 ,000 schools in Britain are not up to the old standards, let alone the new ones that we're about to put in place in the next week.

44:01So Britain has, basically, we're not very good at running operations in the uk you might not have noticed but like it's a bit fucked isn't it um so we're not uh like it's a shame really because the taxpayers money does go into schools and it's an amazing institution and although i struggled in school like i do see it the value of god like the opportunity of school and and how it it needs to bend and mold to suit whatever yeah the job of school is to make kids fit for whatever is out there now i mean what's going to happen the next five years with ai and jobs and this and the other i mean i'm sure everyone's thinking about it so feeding kids right i mean if you think about it breakfast lunch 190 days a year that's half a kid's nutrition for their whole life responsible by the state so i guess i mean i'll probably be doing it until i die yeah um i'd like to think that we can i mean There's still no national procurement of produce off of farmers, British farmers.

45:01I'm sure AI has got a better chance of fixing it than humans. We've just proved in 20 years since School Dinner documentary that we don't even know who's complying with the old standards in 20 years. So I think what was the expression? You can't run a piss up in a brewery. We've definitely proved that. We've done better and I'm grateful for that. But I don't feel like I've delivered. Nowhere near. I haven't delivered the parents the promise that I promised that I could try and deliver. It's not my job. No, I mean, you're not taking sole responsibility for that. No, but I mean, I'd happily take it if they gave it, but it's not my job.

45:39Romesh Ranganathan:And you want to halve childhood obesity by 2030. It's an interesting one. If you think, like, to halve childhood obesity now by 2030 is just going back to the normal health statistics of millennia. Right, right, right, right. So it's not, I mean, everyone says it's hard. No, we're talking about millennium. yeah you know so for most of us we remember that and it's not that far away so you must but I mean look you must feel a bit 15 school dinners you must feel there must be a sense of pride yeah I love it I love it it's like amazing it's amazing and like I know you said it's really hard and all of that and it must have been I can't even imagine what it was like to go through that level of you know the backlash and everybody was coming for you and all of that and it wasn't like you were you know it wasn't you were not trying to harm kids You were trying to do the opposite of like really help.

46:29Romesh Ranganathan:I can't even imagine what that must have been like to go through. But now you must be thinking that's a cool thing. When you come to the end of your career, whenever you decide to stop, that's a cool thing to look back on as like a difference made, right? Yeah, I think so. Like I feel like I've got more to offer. And I think just like where we started the conversation off with like 51, I think like, you know, probably like ultimately one of the questions I ask myself every day is like, how can I be useful? whether it's to my wife or to my work how can I be useful but I think I say can I yeah can I anything can I be useful please and she often answers with silence go to work yeah go out yeah so I think like it changes so I'd like to be more useful and I think like when you're a bit of I feel like I'm getting to be a bit more of an old dog when you've seen it smelt it felt it and you can smell lies.

47:27And I did a similar job in America. And I'm sure we have forms of it in Britain, but I haven't found it yet. But there's, you know, when you're doing civic food like that, in America there's money and envelopes and stuff going missing. Do you know what I mean? There's loads of controversy. So it's like people forget that the food industry is still the biggest on the planet. It's the biggest employer on the planet. Bigger than banking, bigger than arms, bigger than anything it's like so food i'm quite well positioned in a i mean a mad industry yeah but it's a big industry so from feeding people on airplanes 36 000 feet up to hospitals to schools to you know 20 minute meals which is what i'm doing now i mean i didn't just come up with 20 minute meals that's basically what the public in britain now are prepared to spend cooking When I started...

48:21Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah, so let's talk about it. So this is the new book, 20 Minute Meals. And that's inspired by the fact that we're cooking less at home. Is that what the reason is? When The Naked Chef started, it was 46 minutes average family spent cooking. Right? Now, before COVID, it was 21 minutes. Right. And now, post-COVID, Britain has never cooked less than now. So as much as you're generously trying to pat me on the back, I don't think 25 years of hard service is like... And people cook less than ever. Well done, mate. You've really put them off. Yeah, I'd like, yeah. And you just keep reducing the time.

49:00Romesh Ranganathan:I'm looking forward. Hopefully this podcast carries on. So Jamie, one minute meals. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the latest survey done, 25 % of the population have said that they prefer to have their meals in like a kind of capsule form. so so not even chewing yeah so and so it's really it's really interesting the amount of science coming in now about the um multi-faceted power of sitting for lunch and having a lunch yeah for 10 or 15 20 minutes and dinner right so nearly 50 percent of brits don't sit at a table for dinner it'll be here there and everywhere or on the go yeah um so the power of the table from a neuroscience and a biological point of view is amazing.

49:47So the ability to metabolize food better, like anti-inflammatory, you know. So we're seeing this research come in, which links in with the blue zones. They're the places on earth where people live the longest, most productive lives. Right.

49:59Romesh Ranganathan:So what are they doing in the blue zones? Well, many, many things, but one of them that is a consistency is they come together and they have like proper lunches and dinners and they're not eating on the go. They're not eating at the desk, which is very much part of British culture and American culture now. Europe, they've got it better than they do it better, don't they? Well, if you think about it, like 45 minutes, you know, 20 miles across the channel in France, it's not religious or any kind of ethnic kind of reason. Like culturally, French people stop for lunch anywhere. Bus drivers, you know, airport workers, like they stop for lunch.

50:38So, and actually you can read that in their national statistics of health. you can see like that they're kind of consuming more sat fats here, which normally would have like more heart disease, but they're not showing that. So they call it the French paradox, right? It's just like, hmm. So we know that it's more than just one thing. So at a time when we're learning that convening and spending time together and the concept of anti-inflammatory being very powerful across all diseases, we've never cooked less and we've never been sort of not at a table more. So do you know what I mean? that kind of as we get knowledge i think it's like weird it's like knowledge like your average person now has so much general knowledge on food and what it looks like from different cultures around the world from sort of tiktok and social media and it's like but then they're cooking less

51:24Romesh Ranganathan:than ever it doesn't quite know and also like a lot of the things that you're seeing a lot of the things that were being suggested are the things that used to be done do you know what i mean you're talking about you're talking about people used to do all that i remember like when I was growing up we used to sit around and have dinner do you know what I mean and like that's difficult but um so what sort of stuff let's have let's have a proper what sort of stuff is in this I mean generally plan b is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan it specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation plan b is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash.

52:04Romesh Ranganathan:No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception, and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. So when we did our research, 20 minutes was the magic number. So that dictated the book. And then I sit in a room with stickies and I look at the most common bought things in Britain. So what I'm trying to do is write recipes for things that you've already bought in most people don't change their shop they only change their shop five percent every week right so basically basket data is the only truth in the whole industry everything else is lies lies give or take right so if i can write a book that is a time frequency that you want right keep the washing up to a minimal right and and then don't have to not over 10 ingredients which is not too many.

52:56Yeah. And then try and dictate the chapters by things that most, what most people buy most of the time.

53:02Romesh Ranganathan:So you've gotten sectioned by, by kind of ingredient groups, have you or something? Well, have a look at the front. I mean, what I've tried to do is sort of break it down into sort of chit chat that makes you feel empowered to have a, have a go. So you've got the contents there. So you've got 20 minutes, fun ways with chicken, go to pasta and gnocchi, next level eggs, veggie heroes, meeting minutes, it's peppered with lots of lovely photos of you. You are looking, you're looking the fittest you've ever, when I say fit, I mean fuckable. I think you look the most fuckable you've ever looked. And I've always thought you look pretty hot.

53:42Romesh Ranganathan:Do you not feel that? Well, I'm trying my best. Yeah. And you know, from every angle. But I think when you're starting to fall apart, you've got to like try hard, don't you? I don't know, I'm just letting it all go. just throw me in the ocean eventually. And so this, and when you're putting a book together like this. Before I start writing a recipe, I'm looking at giving them sort of the things that I know they want, Anglo, French, Italian things, and then trying to like hang things that they don't, you know, what's the next hot thing? Like what, you know, if they're starting to flog, you know, years ago it was miso, but miso is an amazing ingredient that can be anglos.

54:20You can use it and just do your roast carrots with it. And it's like, whoa, what just happened there? it's a very powerful ingredient and especially for your people like vegans appreciate miso because it's got umami and stuff like that and then you know gochujang is the latest kind of coriander thing that you get again but it's a fermented product that's got some oomph so like part of the job is giving them what they want and then the other part of the job is giving them what they don't know they want yet yeah

54:44Romesh Ranganathan:and how good do you have to be at cooking to do that we make sure that we take quite simple people and test them you know so I never got an emo did you? no No, we test four times inside the office and then we send it out to strangers. And then we have like all the kind of comments come back in and I do the master edit. And I can choose or not choose to take in thoughts or comments. And I have to decipher why that might have been. And of course, the idea of a perfect recipe is because your oven's different. Everyone's got a different oven. You know, the thickness of your pan is different. So, you know, you have to not just use time and temperature as a guide, but also like visual cues, like, you know, until golden and crisp and blipping at the side.

55:36So I think very much as a sort of like a dyslexic as well, I've always been like, because words have been tricky with me. I've tried to sort of use step-by-step pictures and design and descriptive words to sort of help you. my best friend when I was a kid was Lego just Lego like just saved me like do you know what I mean like when stuff was not great at school like I'd go back at the end of the day and I'd sit down in a weird position and my legs would all sort of splay out another big bucket of Lego and that idea that you could follow you could end up with like you know like the X-Wing fighter or something like that and then you make it and then you destroy it and you make up your own version

56:13Romesh Ranganathan:for me I'd always try and make a friend I would have been your friend thanks where were you where were you in the 80s on my own yes just sat next to this where were you living at that time I was in Crawley I was in Crawley so you've always been in Crawley yeah yeah and why would you leave well it's one of the worst five places to live in the UK is that true according to most polls yeah I'm sure it's not it's when you go down the high street are you going to get a load of grief for that? Well, I did get into trouble actually because I did my Netflix special at the Hawth and I said, I was doing a bit, it wasn't a bit, I mean it's sort of based in truth, I just said, I can't believe that Crawley's not making a big deal out of this.

57:02Romesh Ranganathan:I'm like doing a Netflix special here. I said, the Hawth looks like a disused leisure centre. I said, like they've not had a camera crew before. It's mad that they're not making a big deal of it. Anyway, the Netflix special comes out, I don't think anything of it. about six months later I'm taking my Lisa me and the kids are going to watch a show I go up to just get a drink and I go can I have one of these please and he went disused leisure centre I was like oh god Lisa we can't go back but at least he can say I was only joking yeah I did say it didn't go well what's your favourite thing to make when you really can't be arsed will you always cook yeah always yeah yeah because the thing is if you can cook it's just like riding a bike or dancing or it's it's like why would you go and get a takeaway like in the book i did like like actually doing a perfect pizza is like a whole deep thing but like if you have you seen the price of very well-known franchised pizza makers these it's like a fortune yeah like and it's like shit flour it's crap ingredients you I mean they probably don't even need a fridge they're so like ambiently okay it's like you can take them up like an assault course and it'll still turn up looking like it should it's like how is that possible so like you know we've got like a quick like one pan pizza that you can rattle out at a tenth of the price right and I think that's the spirit I think like learning to cook being at my job is to sort of translate it into a language that might give me a chance of inspiring you sure but then the real gift is that you might do it to we're not fighting for seven days a week we're fighting for two or three but that's like two or three grand a year you can save like over the course of a year if you look at two of those pizzas a week and you do your maths over a year it's a holiday yeah it's a holiday well it depends on what expensive your holiday is but it's like you're getting into the 1500 1600 quid but if you start looking at three coffees from like a typical you know franchise coffee place that ain't that ain't too bad either so i just i just think that when you can cook and you've got that confidence apart from it being more delicious more nutritious but you can save a lot of money but really the empowering things it gives you choices so whether you're rich or poor you've got choices and as i as i've traveled around the world and i went to all the blue zones apart from one like people that didn't have much money ate really really well and they had that table and i'm i know it sounds romantic but it's true and i believe it and i think it's a gift yeah like the next job i do next week is like money saving meals right so yes it's got more expensive no shit sherlock because things got more expensive but like you you can cook good food for fractional the the only proviso is you have to actually cook right like typically when you got a pound 50 a portion yeah like i did one pound wonders right yeah it's not a casual we know that people will be trying to catch us out catch him out oh it's one pound three pence it's like we have like a newsroom of people like honestly like a newsroom like we have to resource better we take the average cost of all the ingredients across four major supermarkets up until a month before broadcast just to be able to say you can yeah and because i couldn't do it for a quid last year it was feed your family for a fiver right right so you've got an extra 25p right and then so but but the truth is you can cook very well very very cheaply even in this climate but you do have to cook and and and that is where the truth is it's there's a bit of effort um so like literally the next week will be all money saving bills and we do that in january because everyone's skint in january and um smash the old credit card a little bit so it it normally goes down really well and to be fair the public are really grateful that they've got some choices yeah um but yeah it's uh but i keep saying i'm trying to be useful yeah no it's great man it's great um speaking of uh useful we've got a question for my mother now.

1:01:00Romesh Ranganathan:I don't know what this is. Love her. It could be offensive. Let's find out. No, she won't. She'd be lovely. Hi, Jamie. Bless you. Still remember the day in Southampton Pier? I told it Southampton Pier all because I had so many cocktails. Buttered. Got drunk. Romesh and me loved the vegan lasagna you made for us. It was absolutely beautiful. I just want to know when was the last time you let your hair down love to see you again to learn some of your recipes have a blessed day take care bye love you it was really good really good I would say she was talking quite a long time for that question when do you let your hair down I mean that feels like you could punch in and punch out on that yeah but in her head she was contextualising her question Yeah, no, I loved it.

1:01:56Romesh Ranganathan:I loved it. When's the last time you let your hair down?

1:02:02Oh, probably a real let hair down was about a year and a half ago. And Buddy does pretty serious rugby. And the Bishop's Talk for Rugby Club have like these kind of fates, these sort of like sleepovers. And it's a good bunch of parents, to be fair. And I turned up like half an hour late because I was working. and the dads had already decided that that wasn't acceptable. So for the whole night, they just kept topping up my drink. And I just got really... Because I'm at the stage now where I like to have a few bevoires, but I know my ceiling and I know the repercussions of not playing the game right because I've got to get up early the next day.

1:02:44These boys were not having that. They were like... They literally... They just... They got me so drunk. yeah and um but i'd in typical oliver form i had pre-presumed like barbecue like i'd done all my mise en place i'd got steaks and pork chops and pickles and like i got things into like like russian doll style bowls and i had like everything wrapped up and ready to go because that's what we do and shoots but then i know no we're going out for dinner so we went out for dinner it's all in the back of the car i got me completely blind drunk and then like two in the morning it's just like Oliver's restaurant finally opened up in a tent that could have gone up in flames like that

1:03:25Romesh Ranganathan:and there's just a load of can you imagine it was going on the piss you're absolutely starving late at night and you're with Jamie Oliver I mean what's a result that's the dream I've got a car full of stuff I've prepared holy shit what a session partner you are it was very funny what was really um i don't know how to look at it maybe like a sign of the times all good dads good crack and and but they were not like i won't get in the way with nothing as i was cooking and i kind of and i just kept telling everyone i just love pickles i just love pickles with pickles and everything and it's like i just and i'm at the time i'm cooking by the way drunk blind drunk perfect steaks coming out.

1:04:13It's just in you, man. There's clearly a bit of the brain that's still wired for the bark crust and the resting. And I had the board and the carving knife. And then I looked around me and all the dads were misbehaving. They were fighting. It was a nice wrestle fighting, you know, quite erotic. And sort of like cuts on their heads. And there's one just asleep. And there's one just giggling about nothing. One geezer, I still don't know who he was. I was telling how much I love pickles. In the next tent were all the children of those men, and they were all perfectly behaved, all normal. Just going, next.

1:04:50Dads. It was almost like we got let out on a leash. Yeah. Good times. Yeah, sounds great. Good times, but the food was still there. I'll give you one last bit of the story. I was out early in the morning. You feel so drunk. I was outside getting some fresh air, and um the um one of the managers of the rugby club was didn't look happy at all and he came back i said what are you all right he goes ah some wankers parked his car right in front of there and put the thing i said oh that was me i was sort of going in my car trying to get stuff out like i'm so sorry yeah he goes and someone else shat right outside my tent i said no that wasn't me that wasn't me but a proper human shite right outside his tent and uh we still don't know

1:05:37Romesh Ranganathan:who that was but to be fair you were churning out a lot of protein yeah to be expected um now you are you recently talking about changes you've made you you you turn 50 you've got your pilot's license yes congratulations thank you very much it was an emotional thing what um what made you do it and how was it uh well my wife bought me a discovery flight about five years ago it's on the way to dropping the kids off from school i was a bit nervous to go in i just thought because it said members only and i thought probably that's a present i probably won't use and then one day i just thought i'll go in there and ask yeah i went in there and i just said look it ain't gonna be valid but my missus bought me this thing like three years ago and it was a discovery flight and he spent yeah that's fine yeah i can see it yeah do you want to go up i went um uh and then And someone said, oh, I just had a cancellation.

1:06:24I'll take you now. And I went, um... And I literally phoned up Jules and said, do you remember that thing you got me? They're saying they'll take me up now. And she goes, well, I don't want you to die. And I'm like... And I said, well, I think... I would assume that's always the case. I asked permission to go. And anyway, I went up and I just loved it. And it just opened up something inside me that, you know, I'm like, whoa. So I've done it for a year and a half and 10 exams. Yeah. And one of the coolest, funnest, most adventurous, mind-blowing things I've ever done. Really just a beautiful, beautiful freedom.

1:07:01And it's not what you think. And the people have been amazing, old and young. Just like it's a sort of odd thing to do. A tiny proportion of people on the planet have ever been able to do it. And the minute that they go, okay, so you're going to go and do solo now. And you're like, what? If you just contextualize it, right? So when you learn to drive, at what point halfway through your training do they get off and say, right, I'm going to go and have a cup of tea for an hour. If you pop off to Harlow and go around the roundabouts, and if you get back in one piece, we'll crack on with the next bit of the, are you good for that?

1:07:36But it's like an old thing from the war, right? So it's very much like a very military style of training. and you have to have no matter who you are in your whatever flavor of person you are the moment that door goes cooking chink and your trainer walks off you you can throw the towel in yeah right so it's very much like having a conversation a deep conversation with yourself but the exhilaration the excitement and to to master the landing and to be out and navigate. But it's like, it's blown my mind. And like, you know, I've always been like the kind of kid that loved tree houses. And we did, I had a properly old school childhood of like streams and lakes and rivers and swallows and Amazons.

1:08:28It really was like that BMXs and friends and little fires and picnics. And, you know, Jimmy, my best mate, who was always into animals and had a mini farm, Jimmy from Jimmy. Like he has a farm now. He has the second biggest polar bear sanctuary on the planet and has lions and tigers. And like, you know, that was him at four when I met him. And like for me, the cooking is exactly the same. And then now I'm like, I had a moment on my test when I flew over Jimmy's farm. Not planned, by the way. I just kind of looked out and then it was just sort of like, yeah, it's just an amazing thing to do. And then going over water.

1:09:06I went to a stag night the other day. and you know just to be like they all spent five and a half hours getting there to the Isle of Wight and I'm like 50 minutes rent a plane it's just brilliant that is it's brilliant that's good and the geezer the geezer at Sandown is like he is the most interesting sort of like version of a kind of something out of a film he called me the C word about so many times a posh Essex C word about a million times and he's like you just look like that who is that C word oh fucking C word Jamie Oliver do you know has anyone ever said you look just like that and it was it's like it's like mad but everywhere you go there's these really unique characters

1:09:51Romesh Ranganathan:when you so you go in you do your discovery flight amazing and then you start flying you start learning for yourself was that and it was literally just because you enjoyed it there's no other reason you didn't have like an ambition or I'm going to do and obviously like going to the Isle of Wight that sounds good I don't know if it was just me as a person or me as Jamie Oliver. Like Jamie Oliver's an interesting one to be stuck to because like just simple things like going down the pub, yeah, it's possible, but not on a Friday night or a Saturday night because it's just going to get there unless I've got security.

1:10:22So there's sort of basic things that you love or grew up with that you maybe can't have anymore. So like part of my slightly neurodiverse brain is like multitasking and then my personality has always had a kind of casualness to it, even my cooking. like do you want to be Michelin style I could if I wanted to but I don't want to I'm kind of down with this is my vibe you know and so but then when it came to this the only way you know good airmanship is fastidious and it's more sort of like of the Japanese sushi chef it's like I'm really enjoying seeing a different side of me and surprising myself that I can be that if I want to be that and so this is why I love doing it because I feel like I've used a different part of my brain and challenged myself conversely my kids and my family don't believe that they say that's all bullshit none of them none of them you've never seen a family so far away from me taking them up so um it's like they're like no he's still a complete wanker there's no way so um but look it's i but i also think at 51 it's like you know i wish i'd done it when i was 20 i just saw an 18 year old girl pass a week after me.

1:11:31And you just think, wow. And then we have quite a lot of young girls come through the airfield. They do a lot of scholarships to get more women into the industry because there's not enough. And that was just like, because I know how hard I tried. And you think, wow. And of course, there's lots of things you can do with it, right?

1:11:49Romesh Ranganathan:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So is that part of the, you know, you talked about... It was never part of the plan. It's a total curveball. But, you know, you sort of talk about you're trying to stand up your fitness, you're reflecting on your work-life balance I guess you know is is and you sort of the words you use well I'm being a bit more selfish right yeah was this part is this part of that like I really just want to do this thing so I'm going to do this thing I think it's really okay I mean like I'll always put like my wife and kids first but like I think it's really important to if you're going to love other people you've got to love yourself and I think that's a really deep conversation but and it comes in different shapes and forms and like i i have been doing versions of 80 to 100 hour weeks the days for too long yeah and you know and like you know four five and a half hours of sleep and i like no no no no no so i think like i think it's and i'm not saying i'll get it all right i mean i think there is selfish is it's an interesting word isn't it because it's primarily negative yeah people he's got people see it as a negative thing but i think you have to if i'm supposed to look after my family and my teams correctly then one of the gifts i can give is try and look after myself properly and i can't expect everyone to do that for me i have to do it for myself so i think whether that's you know i'm going out tonight to a little theater show to see a friend who is an actor do his thing like that's my way of saying i love you i respect you your craft is hard but also i'm going to just absorb myself not into a screen but see theater like you know it's a little gift to myself you know what i mean and i think whether it's going out with the lads i don't go out the lads loads but like enough it's important i went out on a boy's little trip last year and there were like eight lads and we took a couple of days i honestly like from a sort of 40, 50 year old men's point of view, every man cried on that trip at a little moment.

1:13:48There was like stuff that they weren't talking to anyone about and some pretty serious stuff as well around mental health and that, that. And it was like, like we all agreed, like no matter what, no matter what our jobs are, no matter what, if there's ever a three o 'clock in the morning call straight in a car, we're there. Like it's not that important. And it's just like, it was like a bit of a moment. So it's like, you know, it's, I feel like I'm from the silly and the light and the friendly to sort of like quite important and you know what you know there's like a pyramid isn't it of who's important in your life but actually everyone's important but you just need to sort of get try and dice and splice it

1:14:25Romesh Ranganathan:the right way and also the other thing is is by sort of doing those things that kind of recharge you a little bit it does make you better for your family if you're doing these things that you really love or whatever yeah and I think also So like at this stage at 50, like it's lovely to have people say nice things about you. But like, you know, when you still think, well, I'm a bit shit at that or like, you know, there's a bit of creaking going on. So I think like it's quite nice to sort of find find pleasure in some new things. And, you know, whether that's have some different conversations, not the same old conversation, you know, is.

1:15:05yeah i think i'm look so far romesh one year in to my 50s i i i think it's some of the happiest i've ever been honestly and and um and i've never loved my wife more than now and um i'm so proud of my kids and then like my team at work i'm so grateful for like i've got i've i've had some real ups and downs in work some extraordinary and some really tough things and i think like like I kind of don't want the next 10 years to be quite as feisty as the last 10 so I can blame as many people as I want but it's got like numb nuts here it's got to just make a few more better decisions and like navigate stuff no I mean it's good it's like loving the kids loving your wife

1:15:50Romesh Ranganathan:loving the team at work I hope that happens to me at 50 okay we're gonna play we're gonna play a little game with you this is called misquoted right so I'm gonna say some things oh shit Some of them you said, some of them you didn't. Some of them are kind of like something you said, but we slightly adjusted it. All right, here's your first one. Whatever size lemon you get in life, you go with it.

1:16:14I mean, it could be true.

1:16:16Romesh Ranganathan:I mean, I think whatever size lemon you get in life, you should go with it. Yeah, you said that in... You should say that in making a mouthy lemon cake with Gennaro. So there you go. You're a big fan of lemons, right? Of course, we ask the hard-hitting questions. Well, I know. On the Romesh Ranganay Fincher. In Amalfi, they're quite big. And they have a Chedro lemon that's that big. Like, it's huge. It's like the size of a head. But just whatever lemon you get. Yeah. Your team said I wasn't allowed to ask you that lemon question. Really? I don't give a fuck. Yeah. I'm joking. Because it's very controversial.

1:16:48Romesh Ranganathan:All right. Here's your next one. Well done. You won for one. Did you or did you not say this? I'm basically the pestle and mortar of the food world. I'm crushing it. Never. I'd never say that. because I try not to say stuff like that. Did I say that? No, you didn't. How embarrassing, mate, if you'd have said that after the way you led it to that, that would have been bad. But no, you didn't say it. Here's the real quote. I've got a really amazing job in that I live on your shelf in your kitchen. Yeah. Guardian 2019, in case you want to look that up. What's your favourite kitchen item? Another hard-hitting one.

1:17:23Romesh Ranganathan:Pestle and mortar. Pestle and mortar? Yeah. Oh, there you go. Okay, great. Pestle and mortar. Pestle and mortar. Pessel and... Well, Mortar and Pessel. Yeah. However you want to say it. And we respect all cultures, whichever order you want to say. Okay, here's your next one. You're two for two. If I had a boy, I'd like to call him Elvis. Oh, that could be true. But Jules would edit the name to Buddy. Yeah. Well, this is before Buddy was born, you said this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The full quote is, what's wrong with Elvis Oliver? You'd want to shag him and you'd want to be his mate. That's true. that's what you said it's true though isn't it imagine that now I'm going out with Elvis tonight mum you never guess who I'm going out with Elvis Oliver

1:18:11Romesh Ranganathan:okay who's your next one now I'm 50 I refuse to vacuum no didn't say that no you didn't say that you said I'm avoiding negative people mood hoovers yes and getting better at saying no yes saying no is difficult isn't it have you have you actually got any better at it getting better yeah yeah but we we spoke about this i think in in the world that we work in we know deep down that the average normally lasts two or three years if you're lucky so we've done in dog years we're like 100 years old aren't we into this game so um yeah i think you kind of always have to say yes because you think you're not going to get another offer but um uh saying no i'm doing more of that recently no it is it is good but it is hard when you do do it just always feels a bit awkward after this isn't it but at least it doesn't have any problem with it um okay here's you here's your last one i want my kids to struggle as much as possible in a safe and controlled way if it's too easy it's really vanilla that sounds so like me you did say that yeah yeah um is this like you want them to have a bit of fire in their bellies is that basically what it is i think it's my attempt of uh not making it look like i've let them grow up in a very very safe comfortable environment yeah um so you know uh but yeah i think um um we want them to grow up in a safe comfortable environment but at the same time we want them to struggle uh 100 but the interesting thing is like the my kids do school six days a week and like you know their school days like eight until six so where I would normally have like a paper round and go and do a bit of work in the wash up and sort of have a weekend job it's like so all my sort of analogies of what I think struggle looks like yeah it's not the same it's you know no they do their homework because they want to do well at school I was just I was just a bit of an idiot and uh you know and so they're my kids have um I've had the opposite I've had the thing where they work too hard and I'm going to do you want to just chill out a little bit it's not as important like you don't need to get this stressed about it yeah i mean i think what i meant was like yeah it's i think the struggles in life definitely define you as a person and uh obviously it's it's there's a gray area right so you don't want to go you ideally don't go too far but um but yeah i think you find out who you are when you've had to really...

1:20:44Romesh Ranganathan:When you've been up against it a bit. Well look, Jamie, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. We've got one final question for you. We like to try and end the podcast with an exclusive or something ideally that would go viral really. We're trying to push revenues. It's all about pushing. It's about chats. It's about connecting with people but it's mainly about getting those Instagram views up. No, in all seriousness, it could be like the best piece of advice you've ever had, something you've never said publicly, some aspiration you've never expressed before, anything like that. Is there anything that springs to mind?

1:21:23I can tell you one thing that I've never told anyone before.

1:21:27Romesh Ranganathan:While you're telling this, can I have a bit more advice for the sun now? Yeah, sorry. On the last day of school, I didn't tell anyone, really. Didn't tell anyone, but I had prepared for it for about two or three months. And I'd set aside hundreds of eggs to go off over like months. And I had made like kilos of essentially a porridge with all the most hideous off ingredients and a whole load of green food coloring and made them into wraps like bombs. Do you ever remember the film Bugsy Malone, the kids one? Yeah. It was like that. Splurge guns. And I took it in a suitcase to school and I hid it.

1:22:09and I never said that I did it but I just happened to be involved in distributing it and basically the last day of school was this giant sort of Bugsy Malone style like like there were kids going around with like luminous green off stuff everywhere there were kids crying like one of the dudes that got kicked out of school came up on his motorbike um like on the last day of school even though getting kicked out and like everyone just surrounded him and the bike was green and like he got doused and like and the teachers came out on mass and basically got half of the year that were all involved in this but I had never told anyone that it was me that organized the whole thing eggs minging eggs everywhere like and I was sitting on top of like the cricket pavilion just watching it all play out and giggling like a gremlin and I never I got, because the bike got done over, like he called the police, so the police were involved, and I just wandered off back to the school bus, got on the school bus, most of my year was still at school, getting detentions, even though there was a last day of school, and I'm really sorry it was me.

1:23:22But that was the trick. Don't tell anyone. That is amazing.

1:23:26Romesh Ranganathan:What a story. Please, can you give it up for Jamie Oliver, everybody? Thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode. Before you go, if you've enjoyed this episode and you've not subscribed, that's a bold decision. Crazy behaviour. Follow and subscribe to The Romesh Ranganathan Show wherever you listen. It helps me, really, like really helps me. It helps the team and it costs you absolutely nothing. We drop episodes every Monday and Thursday. Mondays I'm joined by great guests. Thursdays my mum Shanti joins me to answer your questions and family dilemmas. I'll see you Thursday with mum who, let's face it, is who you're actually here for.

1:24:03Romesh Ranganathan:If you've got a problem you want to solve or a story you want to share, send it to podcast at rhangabee.com, voice not or text us on 07731 623 355. We can't promise good advice, but you might end up on the show. See you soon. Oh, shut up, Romesh.