Jamie's American Road Trip Jamie's American Road Trip interview

Date Published:

25/08/2009

Jamie Oliver chats exclusively to 4Food ahead of his new series, Jamie's American Road Trip

What’s the new series about?

I wanted to make the ultimate American food-angled series. And we were just not interested in clichés or predictable stuff, you know junk food and fat people - I wanted to really get under the skin of what is America, how diverse its food is, is any of it any good. We certainly got that. A lot of it was shocking and amazing and at times a little scary.

The series covers immigration, recession, positive role models in East LA gangland, being in Louisiana just after Hurricane Gustav had hit, being in Georgia just after Obama got in, soul food, slave food, Arizona and the Navajo Indians, the original Native Americans, and their cuisine.

It’s just mind-blowing really - and then there’s the scale of this place!

Do you think there’s a difference in attitudes to food in the US and the UK?

I think in England the attitude towards food is getting really, really good. There's still that massive divide between foodies - people who can cook and that can be resourceful - and the ones that have grown up with fast food joints and pre-made food.

There's definitely that in America too, but much more so. America has been taken over by brands and convenience.

That’s great in many ways, but it’s taken away and stripped it of everything that it was in so many other ways. What I had to do in this series, and what I would say to anyone that goes to America, is get off the highways where there's convenience every mile.

And the minute you start going off the beaten track there’s these gems, these bits of gold and you start to see how people live and what they're cooking and there’s some amazing stuff going on.

There's some great stuff out there, but you've just got to be not lazy, you've got to get about.

You were certainly in America at an interesting time - has the trip changed your attitude to the US?

This trip totally changed my attitude towards America and Americans. As per usual with me - timing and luck - it was a great year to be in America. I never thought a year ago that I would have met President Obama and his wife - I never thought that they would even be elected.

We were in Georgia literally weeks after he got in power. It’s the birthplace of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, so it was an amazing place to be at an amazing time.

Obviously my passion is food, but really food’s just an excuse to sit round the table and meet people on really casual terms. I do think that this last 18 months in America has been a once in a lifetime opportunity for Americans to reflect on what’s good about what they’ve got, what they might have and maybe what they’ve lost in the past. So it was amazing timing.

What’s at the heart of American food?

American food is a melting pot. With immigrants comes food - someone who loves food will take it wherever they end up.

American food is basically a metaphor for the whole world: you could be eating the most authentic dan dan noodles from Korea; you could be eating amazing pasta from third generation Italians; and ultimately the biggest American food icon, the burger, is from Germany.

What you get in America is some of the original 'fusion food', where you get French and Spanish and English and African influences - that's the cornerstone of Cajun and Creole cooking.

Read Jamie's thoughts on cooking for Obama

Watch the full video interview with Jamie

The new six-part series, Jamie’s American Road Trip, starts 1st September, on Channel 4.

For recipes, clips from the series, behind-the-scenes pictures and a video interview with Jamie go to Jamie’s American Road Trip

Browse all of Jamie’s show recipes