Last year Jamie Oliver was seen on television grinning with pleasure as a class of tiny Italian children accurately named every vegetable he held up to them. He later grimly despaired of finding a class of English children who could do the same. The parlous state of our food culture has been Oliver’s abiding concern for years and his latest and best cookery book, Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook (Michael Joseph/Penguin, £26), is a part of his mission to improve the standards of British cooking for people of any age. The book would be a good present for a novice — or for a mother in need of some original ideas for family meals. It deals with everything from kitchen hygiene to making pasta at home. There are lots of good vegetable recipes including delicious Dinner Lady Carrots. Profits from the book go to his Fifteen Foundation which trains disadvantaged young people for work in the food industry.
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