Jamie Oliver 9.0, the chef famed for bringing an end to teenage pregnancies by lacing school dinners with high-strength hormones that delayed puberty until the age of 32, last month launched his latest venture, a campaign to bring back ‘real’ food. His recently opened restaurant “Jim S'caff” has promised to reintroduce the public to the culinary tastes and textures of the year 2008. Having closely followed the current trend in ‘real’ food, including the rise and fall of nu-toast, I couldn’t ignore this latest development.
Taking our seats at a formica-effect table I'm impressed by Oliver's dedication to historical accuracy in his recreation of the British ‘Caff’ of legend, right down to the sticky and stained laminated menus. A fantastically realistic-looking waitress greets us by spitting on the tabletop and blowing menthol cigarette smoke in our faces.
The staff have been marvellously well trained to recreate the Pinteresque atmosphere of desolation for which 'the Caff' was so famed. A hoard of ‘Brikkies’ sit in a corner, talking in their time-honoured language, Polish, and ritually leering at any female humanoids that wall past.
I opt for the 'Spakettee Oops', described as a delicate fusion of high-protein complex carbohydrate with notes of Vitamin B12 and Riboflavin. They arrive in a polystyrene box complete with plastic fork, apparently the favoured culinary instrument of the 21st century.
It is accompanied by a milk-drink, flavoured through the process of ‘tea-bagging’ and described as the age-old beverage of the homosexuals. A timer is placed on our table giving us a traditional six minutes to eat before we are moved on to the ‘TV room’. I manage three mouthfuls.
With this amount of mastication its a wonder anyone used to have time for all those long-winded practices such as knitting or domestic violence. Perhaps if our ancestors hadn't wasted so much time digesting we wouldn't have been stuck it the thermo-nuclear age for such an embarrassingly long time!
The next day my jaw ached, my tongue was numb and I've not spent that much time on the autoshitter since I mis took my daily fibre replacement pill for my hourly uppers. Nutrition, like reproduction, should be left to the experts.