Jamie’s School Dinners

Now whilst I applaud his efforts to improve the diets of school children and am finding the programme very interesting (apart from the family bits, why does he do this? Jools clearly doesn’t enjoy it) there is one thing he was wrong about. OF COURSE THOSE KIDS DIDN’T RECOGNISE ASPARAGUS, THEY LIVE IN PETERLEE FOR FLIPS SAKE! As someone who grew up in the north-east on a relatively balanced diet with a grandfather who grew most of his own vegetables, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have had a clue what asparagus was when I was 6 either, although I would have got leeks and rhubarb unlike several of the kids on the programme. Echoing the mam on the show who said she’d never bought avocados in her life, I recently found out that my mother has never bought aubergines as “she doesn’t know what to do with them.” Seriously, it’s a different world…