I could spend six months here and get absolutely fuck all achieved, or, with a little bit of
Northern love, a little bit of Northern magic, Rotherham could show the rest of the country
how to bring a community together.
Come on then you lovely lot!
How are ya?
It's the day of Jamie's first class in his effort to transform how a whole town eats.
You all right?
I haven't met some of you.
How you doing man?
Dan?
((Yeah)).
Thank you for coming mate.
Good on ya.
Who should we start with?
I'm Claire I'm 22, and I eat ten packets of crisp per night and a big Galaxy bar while
my children have takeaway, 'cos I can't cook and I never have cooked.
Hi I'm Natasha I'm 22, I'm from Goldthorpe, I've got two children, one 5 one 2, I'm an
absolute crap cook and a takeaway freak and I just need a change.
I need a change for me, I need a change for me children.
Alongside Claire and Natasha are six other aspiring cooks who have also answered Jamie's
ad in the paper.
To get an idea of what they can do, Jamie's planned a little test.
I'm gonna bring some ingredients up and I want you to cook.
I know a lot of you haven't cooked meat before, but I want you to touch and cook a bit of
meat and a bit of fish.
Who's really scared of meat and fish?
((Me)) Haha, I saw your reaction straight away.
I don't like touching meat that haven't been cooked.
Who knows what that is?
Tuna.
I had it once at a barbecue, it's tuna.
You are brilliant, right!
((It was in a steak)) Right, you're cooking tuna.
Cook one piece of that tuna the way you think you should cook it.
I will never do this again I just wanna see where you're at.
Well that ain't fair 'cos I don't know how to work a cooker.
Am I doing it on that one?
D'you know what, do what you like where you like.
I'm gonna sit here and watch, and I'm not doing this to stitch you up, I think it's
important that we're all like levelling up a bit yeah?
It's like a little detox.
Crack on tiger.
Ooh!
Do I have to pick it up?
((I think it's your...))
No do you?
Pick it up, with your fingers?
I stab it as well so it cooks in the middle.
Yeah.
In the catering trade we call that murdering.
This is not to laugh at you, this is not to laugh at you.
I think this is working.
How does that look?
Lovely.
How do you think it looks?
Fuckin' horrible.
You know what?
I actually think you've done a good job, I really do, I really do.
Next morning before he returns to London, Jamie pops by to see Natasha who's at her
boyfriend's caff ((All right girl?)).
He can't bear Kiya never having tasted her mum's cooking.
I got a recipe for you.
It's the easiest, easiest recipe in the world ((Go on)).
You got a cup?
You reckon you could do one of these, right?
Fill that up with plain flour, put it in a bowl.
Fill that up with milk, put it in a bowl.
Get one egg, put it in a bowl.
Whisk it up - pancake batter.
So tonight you'll have kebab, tomorrow night you'll have a pancake, and the day after you'll
have another kebab.
Ok?
We're gonna try and get these kebabs out of your life.
Is that it?
That's easy, easy!
Come on tiger this is your debut.
No go on, go on!
Just pour...
((It's like a phobia I've got, I proper feel nervous, it's horrible!)).
Crack that egg in there then, one egg.
Carefully pour that flour in there till it's sort of roughly at the top.
Got any milk, me old mate?
Give it a whisk up ((Swampy)).
Just whisk away tiger.
Take your ladle.
There's a little bit of oil in there, put it in the middle of the pan right, get your
thing under it right under, give it a little shake.
Don't expect me to flip this.
No what I want you to do is ((Oh god)), sorry mate I'm putting me hands around your missus
((Ha I don't mind!)), right then just...
Stop, stop clapping!
This was alright babe, for a rubbish cook that is good!
If you cook that for me at the weekend when I'm having pancake session with my kids, I
wouldn't blink, that is just as good as what I would do for myself ((Really)), yeah that's
brilliant.
Can sack him now we don't need him.
I'm sacked already?
Bloody hell ((I can do it!)).
You Northern girls, you've sacked me I've only been here five minutes.
See you later!
Back at home Natasha tries cooking for her son Robbie for the very first time.
With no Jamie to help.
It's not working!
That one is.
Robbie's never tried lemon in his life, none of me children have.
I don't think I have!
But I think I've just burnt this... oh I haven't look at that, whoo!
Haha!
I get so chuffed I get a right adrenaline rush, you know when it's done?
Let's have a look.
Is it nice?
Eyyy, let mammy have some.
Ooh!
Does feel real good.
That's why I want to do it.
That's why I want to learn to cook.
If it's going to take one-on-one teaching, Jamie has realised he can never do it alone.
He wants to use his class of eight to lead his revolution, and he thinks he knows how.
My vision is that if I teach these eight people, and they teach two, and they teach two, y'know
is this not how rumours start?
If you hook 'em, and I think five to ten recipes is more than enough to hook 'em, they're on
their own journey.
Y'know if you got mates teaching mates instead of mums teaching children, y'know, I think
we've got a modern day possible solution.
So what I'm saying is if I can teach my little group of terrible groups to cook, and they
can teach others, then I think we got a system we got a movement, we got something that can
completely change the face of eating, shopping, living, health, in Rotherham.
Through my little group of eight people.
I've just gotta make it work.
If every person in his class teaches ten recipes to two friends, then in fifteen steps, 260,000
people will have learnt to cook.
That's the theory anyway...
Jamie's heading back to Rotherham.
Once famous for coal and steel, he wants it to lead his new culinary crusade.
He goes to test the idea on Julie Critchlow, the Rotherham mum who slagged of school dinners
and doesn't mince her words.
((Hello darling)).
You just felt you'd make me sweat a bit didn't you, you're late for dinner ((I was giving
you a bit more time!)).
Have I got to sit beside him?
Yeah, come on.
Thank you darling.
What have you done, your mum's just cooked you that lovely dinner and you've just christened
it with about ten kilos of ketchup!
He has tomato sauce on everything.
Gordon Bennett!
What's that steak like is it soft?
It is absolutely delicious it is really really good.
So I been up in Rotherham, I got eight people that I'm cooking with, and the idea is that
I meet 'em and teach 'em ten recipes, y'know different types of recipes, and get those
two people to teach two people.
And d'you think that would work?
((Do you think it'd work?))
No ((Oh)).
I don't basically no because ((Why not)), because they'll not do it.
Well they will while you're there, sucking up to ya, "Of course we will Jamie yeah and
I'll teach so-and-so to cook."
But you know once you've gone?
"Ah, sod it."
That's probably what they'll think.
Well there's my big master plan been teared to pieces by the Critchlows.
Spoilt your big plan again haven't it?
Julie's big problem is who will pay for the ingredients as they teach their friends?
You see what you've got to remember as well, you're teaching them to cook but they haven't
alls got the money.
If they're living on benefits and they're living on a budget ((Yep)), how're they gonna
buy all the ingredients, who's gonna buy it for them to teach...
((They will)).
But how to, if they're living on a budget and everything?
Well...
I don't know, maybe I'm in cloud cuckoo but everyone on benefits that I've met...
You see you're alright because you've, not being rude but you've got loads of money haven't
ya?
You've got loads of money ((A fair bit yeah)).
People like us, our husband's gotta work, we gotta work, you pay your bills.
Some weeks you haven't got nowt left.
Really.
I do live in another world sometimes, don't it?
Yeah.
You live in a bubble.
To begin the revolution he'll need to turn his eight pupils into teachers.
For his first lesson he splits 'em into pairs ((Hello gorgeous!)).
Natasha and Jeff will be the pioneers.
And here's the deal - I'm gonna come round to either of yours' houses, right, over the
course of the next couple of months, and I'm gonna teach you ten recipes right.
And the deal, and the new bit is, is that you have to go and promise me, before I do
it to you, to go and teach another two people.
And those people have to go and promise to teach another two people.
((I'll find somebody)) Right, d'you think you'd be able to do that?
((Oh that'd be no problem)).
He's devised ten recipe groups that each of them will be able to teach their friends.
This week it's the first - meatballs, with mince, breadcrumbs, egg, onion, and herbs.
Right - do you have a frying pan?
Oh my lord.
You got an 8-burner hob and you got that little...
ok, we can do this.
He always bloody wants me.
This is how we constantly are.
((So you have this all the time don't you with the little one?))
I find it really hard I don't know if you can tell, but I start getting stressed.
((You can't concentrate)) No.
This is almost impossible.
Five-year-old Kiya's favourite food is doner kebab with chips.
This will be her very first home-cooked dinner.
How do you think it's going?
((Alright)) Yeah?
You gonna try your mum's meatballs?
Yeah, you gonna try 'em?
Lovely.
Who's sitting there?
((Mummy)).
((Looks beautiful)) Doesn't it look a bit more "perfect"?
Yeah, as a family...
Yeah go on mum, you done it!
How does that taste?
((Lovely)) Does it?
Come on then.
Did she say lovely?
((Yeah)) Go on girl!
Come on!