Jamie Oliver Hires Cultural Appropriation Experts To Keep Cookbooks Respectful

Jamie Oliver, famed celebrity chef, has revealed that he hires “teams of cultural appropriation specialists” to look over his cookbook recipes before they’re published. 

In an interview with the Sunday Times Culture magazine, the 46-year-old harkened back to an “empire roast chicken” recipe in his 2011 cookbook Jamie’s Great Britain, which he said would not be appropriate now. 

When revealing he had since hired a specialist team to vet his recipes for any cultural appropriation, Oliver said: “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.

According to CNN, the chicken recipe comprised coriander, turmeric, garam masala, and cumin.

Oliver had demonstrated it on a Channel 4 series, saying the dish celebrated UK’s “Indian love affair” with a “full-on collision between beautiful British roast dinners and gutsy Asian spices.” 

During the show, he had remarked on the “trade routes” that introduced Indian spices to British dishes, before saying that the dish was “empire food” and that home cooks could use their hands to eat it. He then raised a toast “to the empire.” 

Now, the tone-deaf recipe has been renamed as “spiced roast chicken” on Oliver’s website, with the chef admitting that his television demonstration could be seen as incentive, as per the NZ Herald. 

This isn’t the first time the chef has been dragged into controversy over a recipe. In the past, he came under fire for naming one of his microwavable dishes “punchy jerk rice” when it did not carry the original ingredients of the Jamaican marinade. 

[via CNN and the NZ Herald, cover image via Mr Pics / Shutterstock.com]