Jamie Oliver finds his ministry

Jamie Oliver is at it again.

Not content with trying to change the food served up in schools across the country, he's now attempting to teach the nation to cook.

Not only that, the former Naked Chef, is also attempting to set a cooking revolution in motion with his new programme Jamie's Ministry Of Food.

Jamie's now almost a year into the campaign. He admits there have been some "massive high and lows", but he's still going strong.

"I've been working all day today, but I'm feeling fresh as a daisy, mate," he says, in his unmistakable Essex accent.

Closely linked to his previous School Dinners series, Jamie's first port of call on starting his Ministry Of Food was the home of Julie Critchlow in Rotherham.

Julie was the ringleader of the revolt against Jamie's school dinners in the South Yorkshire town, and was famously captured by the press passing fish and chips, pies, crisps and sugary snacks through the railings of her children's school, disgusted by the "low-fat rubbish" Jamie was serving up instead of the canteen's traditional fare.

Jamie, of course, responded negatively to her actions in interviews, going so far as to call her 'an old scrubber' when he appeared as a guest on Top Gear.

It didn't go down well with Julie.

"We were going to do the series in Southend, because that's near where I was born, or Rotherham because of Julie," explains 33-year-old Jamie, who hails from Essex village Clavering.

"I started by going up to see her, so I guess the first thing I did to get things going was to work out whether Julie was going to give me a hiding or not," he says, having now fully kissed and made up with the lady dubbed Burger Mum by the red tops.

"I was a bit nervous, to be honest. She was famed as being my arch-enemy, but now we're close friends, and she's been very helpful to me in Rotherham and I thank her for that.

"It was because of her I knew Rotherham was the right place to base Ministry Of Food. The people I met up there were honest and fun, and didn't care about TV crews and things like that."

Jamie has taken his influence for the series from the Ministry Of Food, which was in place during and after the two world wars, charged with implementing rationing and initiatives to get everyone cooking.

Leading on from School Dinners, where he encountered children who never ate home-cooked meals and lived solely on processed food and takeaways, he wants us all to start cooking for ourselves.

"There are three generations of people in this country that are very much the same," he says.

"In times like this, with the credit crunch we keep hearing about, the ability to flex and duck and dive with budgets isn't there, because people can't cook.

"Therefore all they can do is buy different processed food that's cheap. And if something is cheap, it's normally for a good reason.

"Britain's also one of the richest countries in the world, but we have the third most-obese population. The NHS is in a hole as a result. We visit hospitals in some of the episodes, and doctors there told me around 68% of all admissions are in some way related to diet.

"I think it's a bad attitude to just sit there and watch everything fall apart."

After arriving in Rotherham, Jamie visits a number of people who have expressed an interest in learning to cook, and asks them if they'd be interested in kick-starting his new movement, Pass It On.

The premise is ambitious, yet very simple. Jamie teaches a class of 12 people how to cook spaghetti and meatballs, and after they've mastered it, they in turn teach the dish to a small group of their friends, family or workmates in a similar position.

Say what you want about Jamie Oliver - and many in the media do, lambasting him for everything from his lexicon to criticising his 'dictatorial' methods during School Dinners - he clearly cares about what he's doing, and seems driven by a desire to do something that can make a difference.

"Pass It On is the bit that freaks people out a bit," he continues.

"It depends what sort of a person you are really, whether you're someone who likes measurable, tangible things, or whether you're someone that believes people should stand up and counted, and can be part of something that can go on and on and be bigger than all of us.

"I guess in short, I'm trying to turn teaching your mates how to cook into pop culture. That's what I'm after, really."

Before he can get going with that, however, he has to come to terms with his findings.

In the first episode of the four-part run, Jamie meets Natasha, a young mum who's never cooked for her children, instead feeding them on kebabs and chips each night, spending all her benefit money on takeaways and a fridge full of chocolate biscuits.

"Natasha's desperately trying to be a great mum, and she can be; she was never given the tools to nourish her family properly. We aren't teaching our kids to cook in school anymore," says the father-of-two.

"You can get an A in Home Economics GCSE now without cooking anything, and that has got to change," he adds, before detailing government plans and past statements about bringing back cooking lessons in school.

No one can say he's not done his research.

"It's a huge problem all over the country, and I don't want people to think this is just a Rotherham problem," he adds.

"It's also classless. I've got young single mums in my class, as well as an 86-year-old retired gent, professionals, working couples, you name it.

"And just because there's a camera crew there, doesn't mean it's just television. There are kids involved, it has to be more meaningful than that. I think the series is a good snapshot of Britain today, and we must learn from the whole thing."

With a wife and two children of his own - and press reports of a third on the way - not to mention numerous restaurants and businesses, including Fifteen, the project he established to help disadvantaged youths learn a trade, Jamie has to spread his time carefully.

Ministry Of Food follows Fowl Dinners, which ran earlier in the year and the School Dinners campaign has now been running for almost a year.

When's he going to take a break?

"It's been mental hasn't it," he says, laughing.

"I don't know about time off. I will do at some point, yeah.

"I just keep getting ideas, and then opening my mouth and committing to things. I think everyone wants to gag me.

"To be honest, I would love to do less campaigning TV, but I find myself these days getting boisterous and upset about things I read in the papers and see on TV, so I try to do something about it.

"Hopefully this programme will make people feel like they can help out too.

"If we all did a bit, we'd be sorted."

JAMIE OLVIER FACTS

Jamie was born in Clavering, Essex, in May 1975.

He started cooking at his dad's country pub, The Cricketers, when he was just eight years old.

Jamie went to the prestigious Westminster catering college when he was 16, then landed a job with Antonio Carluccio.

He got his big break after appearing in a documentary about the esteemed River Cafe in London. Soon after, he was given his own BBC series, The Naked Chef, and wrote the accompanying bestselling book of the same name.

Jamie married childhood sweetheart Jools in 2000. They have two children, Poppy Honey and Daisy Boo.