Jamie Oliver Employs 'Offence Advisers' To Stop Cultural Appropriation Accusations
Topics: Food and Drink, Jamie Oliver
Cameron Frew
Featured Image Credit: Alamy
Topics: Food and Drink, Jamie Oliver
Jamie Oliver has revealed he employs 'offence advisers' following past allegations of cultural appropriation.
Most notably in 2018, the celebrity chef caused controversy with his microwavable 'punchy jerk rice' product, made from brown rice and red kidney beans with aubergine and bell peppers in a coconut 'jerk-style' sauce.
The likes of MP Dawn Butler and Levi Roots questioned whether Oliver 'knows what Jamaican jerk actually is', while the chef defended his recipe, saying he named the rice 'only to show where my inspiration came from'.
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In a new interview with The Sunday Times Culture magazine, Oliver revealed he employs 'teams of cultural appropriation specialists', who vet his recipes to alarm him of any potential accusations of cultural appropriation.
'Your immediate reaction is to be defensive and say, 'For the love of God, really?' And then you go, 'Well, we don’t want to offend anyone',' he said, conceding that his 'Empire Roast Chicken' wouldn't be acceptable now despite being a 'bloody good recipe'.
In his earlier defence of his 'punchy jerk rice', Oliver wrote, 'I've worked with flavours and spices from all over the world my whole career, learning and drawing inspiration from different countries and cultures to give a fresh twist to the food we eat every day.'
In 2014, he was also criticised for his Jollof rice recipe. The West African dish is traditionally made with tomatoes and spices, but Oliver opted for 'on the vine' cherry tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and scotch bonnet, as well as advising the use of coriander, parsley and lemon, ingredients which aren't typically associated with the recipe.
'We have to ask ourselves who actually benefits from Jamie Oliver's 'appreciation' of Jollof rice. This doesn't necessarily translate into value for Africans. For so long, different African cultures have been appropriated without any direct benefit to Africans themselves, and people are particularly sensitive to this,' one blogger earlier wrote.
Allegations of cultural appropriation in cooking have affected other chefs: in 2017, Nigella Lawson was criticised for using cream in her carbonara recipe; and in 2019, Gordon Ramsay was accused of having a 'fake Chinese' restaurant in London.
Raymond Blanc, the chef patron at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, told the magazine he'd speak to people from the country from which a dish originates before creating his own take. 'It is for us professionals to do that in a manner that is not offensive,' he said, also believing accusations of cultural appropriation to occasionally lend themselves to 'cultural enrichment'.
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