Jamie Oliver is the British chef who hit it big with The Naked Chef.
Since the show took off, he's become not only massively popular, but incredibly polarizing.
He's a love-him or hate-him figure, and he's managed to stir up as much controversy as
inspiration.
Let's look at what goes on behind all the hype — and all the hate.
First book
When The Guardian released their figures for the most popular book titles of 2017, Jamie
Oliver claimed the top spot with his cookbook 5 Ingredients — Quick & Easy Food.
For as prolific a cookbook-writer as he is, you probably wouldn't guess he had never read
a full book until 2013.
He told The Telegraph that until he picked up Suzanne Collins' hit Catching Fire, his
dyslexia — and boredom — had kept him from ever finishing a book.
He didn't explain, however, why he started with the second book in the series.
Dyslexia
When Oliver talked to the Radio Times in 2017, he had just released his 20th cookbook and
was sitting on top of a fortune.
He credits his dyslexia for giving him the perspective he needed to build that fortune.
Oliver explained,
"If I'm in a meeting I just see problems differently and I obsess about things differently.
Because I'm dyslexic, sometimes, when it requires a load of stuff to be done, I just do it."
He also says he believes it's incredibly important to treat people diagnosed with dyslexia in
such a way that they recognize it not as a disability, but as a gift they were fortunate
to receive.
"Well, there's different types of intelligence and everyone has their ability to be brilliant."
Human meat
You expect any chef to get some odd requests every once in a while, and celebrity chefs
get them on a massive scale.
According to The Times, Oliver once had to turn down a television producer who pitched
the idea of a show where he cooked human flesh.
He claimed it was just a bit too much for him, before adding that he already knew what
human flesh tastes like.
His review?
"Pork.
It tastes exactly like pork."
Inquiring minds think he has a little more explaining to do on this one.
Hangover helpers
Oliver has a ton of ideas when it comes to party drinks, so it's not surprising he has
some advice on how to deal with the after-effects.
He talked to Red magazine about some of his favorite hangover cures, recommending a massive
plateful of Huevos rancheros, or a basmati rice-based dish with haddock and eggs, or
a full English breakfast.
Need some faster relief?
He says to go for a pint of Guinness or a spoonful of cumin, and swears that will sort
out any hangover straight away.
Punishing the kids
In 2014, there was some serious social media backlash after he shared his recipe for punishing
his children.
He told the BBC Good Food Show,
"I give them chillies for punishment.
[Beating kids is] not very fashionable and you are not allowed to do it and if you are
a celebrity chef like me it does not look good in the paper."
According to PepperScale, Scotch bonnets, his punishment of choice, can be as much as
140 times hotter than a jalapeno.
Oliver explained that after his 12-year-old daughter had gotten, quote, "quite disrespectful,"
he gave her an apple that had been rubbed with a Scotch bonnet.
A writer for The Telegraph took particular issue not only with the tools, but with Oliver's
admission that he waited until well after the incident happened to teach her a lesson.
Sugar hypocrite
Oliver has shouted pretty loudly about his condemnation of sugary drinks, and in 2016
he celebrated when his sugar tax made it into the government's budget.
"And I've took the liberty of putting in just the five years of elementary school sugar,
just from milk."
But according to The Telegraph, the public was quick to point out he was being more than
a little hypocritical.
The new sugar tax was going to be a tiered tax based on how much sugar a food contained,
but a large percentage of the recipes on Oliver's own site contain astronomical amounts of sugar.
Twitter was unimpressed, and users went on to find dishes containing more sugar than
the fizzy drinks he was campaigning so vocally against.
Upsetting nations
Not all of Oliver's recipes have been home runs.
In 2014, he shared his recipe for a traditional West African rice dish.
No one in West Africa was impressed, and according to BBC, droves of people took to social media
to condemn the non-traditional recipe.
Oliver defended the dish, saying it was labeled as his "twist" on the dish, not the real thing.
He was back at it in 2016, when he managed to offend all of Spain with his "twist" on
paella.
This time, his biggest offense was including chorizo, which is in no way traditional and
people were… pretty mad.
One commenter called Oliver a "terrorist," and another suggested,
"Why don't you make some chicken nuggets out of your own fingers?"
"It's been an absolute mess."
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