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Jamie Oliver On Flying at 51, Real Fast Food & School Dinners artwork

Jamie Oliver On Flying at 51, Real Fast Food & School Dinners

The Romesh Ranganathan Show

September 13, 2026

What really happened with Jamie Oliver's school dinners? In this Monday episode of The Romesh Ranganathan Show, Romesh is joined by one of the UK’s best-known chefs, Jamie Oliver.

Speakers Romesh Ranganathan, Jamie Oliver, Shanthi, Andy Richter

TopicsComedySociety & Culture

Romesh Ranganathan (0:00)

Jamie, what is this?

Jamie Oliver (0:01)

I brought you your, you know you've got your very own recipe, it's your vegan lasagna.

Romesh Ranganathan (0:06)

Oh my god!

SPEAKER_3 (0:07)

Yeah.

Jamie Oliver (0:08)

So come on, man! Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be doing this while we're going, but...

Romesh Ranganathan (0:13)

That's so kind of you.

Jamie Oliver (0:14)

Yeah, I mean, it's...

Romesh Ranganathan (0:16)

This lasagna made me... Well, I don't know.

Jamie Oliver (0:20)

It made me emotional. Yeah, yeah, well, that was the...

Romesh Ranganathan (0:23)

Yeah, I should finish the sentence, made me, shouldn't I? It made me vom.

Jamie Oliver (0:29)

Yeah, because I kind of thought...

I was saying to your team, like, this recipe, normally, when I'm dreaming a recipe, typically, I can get at least 85% there from a dream, right? I can see it, I can imagine it, I can taste it, I can smell it, honestly, truly. And so normally on the first cook up, I get 90% roughly.

Romesh Ranganathan (0:47)

Okay.

Jamie Oliver (0:48)

And then I finesse it, right? This one is probably... Of all the recipes of 7,000 in 25 years of writing, this is actually the toughest one.

Romesh Ranganathan (0:58)

The biggest ball, like?

Jamie Oliver (0:59)

Yep, just because I'd needed to keep going back to try and get that intensity of flavour back and the texture and stuff like that.

It's a good dish now. And yeah, so I did one for you for today, but more importantly, I've made three that are in the fridge for you to put in the freezer. And of course, because it's vegan, there ain't much perishable. So don't worry about the meat hanging about.

Shanthi (1:20)

You can leave it out.

Romesh Ranganathan (1:21)

Well, the good thing about this is then you can leave it out for about seven, eight years.

Shanthi (1:23)

Yeah.

Romesh Ranganathan (1:24)

And it will still be absolutely fine.

Jamie Oliver (1:26)

This is the upside.

Romesh Ranganathan (1:26)

It's mainly the main ingredient is prayer.

Jamie Oliver (1:28)

Yeah. But a lot of love.

Shanthi (1:31)

Yeah. That's so kind of you.

Jamie Oliver (1:33)

I'll put it down, but I don't want you to feel the pressure to eat it.

Shanthi (1:35)

No, I don't feel any pressure.

Romesh Ranganathan (1:37)

Do you want me to serve you a portion? Yeah, please. I'd love that.

Jamie Oliver (1:40)

So yeah, anyway.

Romesh Ranganathan (1:42)

So I'm very good, thank you. We got the... Are you having some?

I've eaten already.

Jamie Oliver (1:46)

I just had a big steak.

Shanthi (1:49)

It's unbelievable. Yeah, sorry.

Romesh Ranganathan (1:52)

I'm going to have some, but we have to... I'm going to try some straight away, but we get a lot of complaints when we eat on this podcast.

Jamie Oliver (1:58)

I guess you can edit though, can't you?

Romesh Ranganathan (1:59)

We can do, but it's still...

People find it really upsetting. Put the music on.

Jamie Oliver (2:06)

Hi, I'm Jamie Oliver, and I'm going to be on The Romesh Show.

Romesh Ranganathan (2:25)

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SPEAKER_3 (3:32)

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