Pass It On
Jamie Oliver is a chef with a big appetite for change. 'It's Great Britain! It's 2008!' he despairs, 'I've been to Soweto and I've seen AIDS orphans eating better than this.' His new series, Jamie's Ministry of Food, showcases his determination to transform this situation.
There has already been remarkable transformation. The once 'naked chef' has radically impacted the lives of several people, including a woman who ate more than 70 packets of crisps a week; the miner, who deemed cooking to be 'women's work'; and the mum who fed her family takeaways so frequently that her young daughter thought kebabs grew in the ground. Lest we underestimate the power and significance of food, learning to cook has transformed the lives of these people, giving them not only new skills but also new confidence and changed relationships.
Stunning as that might be, Jamie's Ministry of Food would simply be class-based voyeurism as entertainment were that where the programme stopped. But these fledgling cooks are the frontline in a movement for change; a movement that seeks to enthuse the 250,000 people of Rotherham and, in turn, the nation, with the difference good home cooking makes. The vision is that those from the margins, themselves experiencing the most dramatic change, will in turn change the culture.
Yet, the vision only works as people determine to pass on what they have learnt. Jamie, keeping his eye on the thousands that lie behind his frontline group of cooks, is not only teaching them how to cook, but also consciously seeking to empower and equip them as teachers. There is more than an echo here of the great commission to 'go and make disciples' (Matthew 28:19), passing on what has been received. In a direct challenge to the selfish nature of contemporary culture the question remains, Is what you have tasted enough not only to want it for yourself, but for others as well? Yet, as Jamie Oliver has observed, 'some people recruited as agents of change only seem interested in changing themselves.'
Jamie's Ministry of Food highlights the social, political and relational significance of food: change your eating habits and much else will change as well. How much more significant, then, the change when we encounter the gospel when it is passed on to us (1 Corinthians 15:3). Yet is our change in taste enough that we invite others to join us at both the table and the stove, or do we choose to savour the flavours of salvation alone?
Ben Care
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