Rob Horgan
PUKKA TV chef Jamie Oliver has received a barrage of abuse for his take on paella.
The Essex-man was hounded on Twitter after uploading a photo of the classic rice dish featuring chorizo (a cardinal sin in Spain).
One Twitter user even drew comparison between Oliver’s dish and renowned botched fresco artwork Ecce Homo.
Proud of his work, the star of 30 Minute Meals tweeted ‘Good Spanish food doesn’t get much better than paella. My version combines chicken thighs and chorizo’, before the backlash began.
As well as comparisons to botched artwork, other Twitter users satirically tweeted fish and chips recipes using aubergines, duck, beef and ravioli.
Others were more sinister, likening Oliver to a ‘food terrorist’ and telling him to ‘stick to chicken nuggets’.
Less venomous commenters said that while the inclusion of chorizo meant the recipe could not be described as paella, it still qualified as ‘rice and stuff’.
Oliver is yet to respond to the tirade of criticism.
First off – paella like all the most popular ‘Spanish’ recipes is actually another recipe brought to Spain by the Arabs of the Mahgreb.
More racial profiling. What’s the point? No-one has to eat old Jamie’s grub, but he will love the publicity, as Borja learned to love “Ecce Homo.” And it’s “pukka” not pucker, by the way, (that’s what lemons do to a mouth)
Foodies, like museum visitors, often need their experiences ‘framed’ by others to know if they should like what is before them because they my lack confidence to make taste and aesthetic decisions based on sensory qualities they encounter. It is socially safer to use ‘should like’ criteria.
Jamie Oliver is one of the good guys. He knows that chorizo – like many things – are just flavors which to combine to many, many dishes in many places however it works. The criterion is flavor itself, not prejudgement and notions of wannabe chefs and food police.
chas, we can also see the difference from the two types of the original pizza’s which are still being served in Naples. On one of my rare holiday’s I actually visited the original bakery that created the Margarita in Naples and must admit found the Margarita now lacking in taste due to the variety of pizza’s found today. I also visited “Little Italy” N.Y. the pizza place where Sinatra was a frequent visitor and has not changed much, wooden cubicle seating area’s are still there and the interior almost remaining the same with his photo’s placed around the walls. Mind you that was on my last visit years ago which show’s I do have a liking for a pizza.