Jack Monroe #79 Big mistake. Big. HUGE.

[People-huv-tae-know]

Yes! Recently all the dishes she’s done I’ve never even heard of, but obviously have eyes so know they’re wayward. But with all these fancy names it’s as if she’s actively trying to prove that you can be forced into poverty by the government and it’s your own laziness preventing you from eating like you too are a member of the Groucho?

I feel she does nothing to actually challenge poverty. It's as if her attitude is to accept it, embrace it and make genuinely poor people feel unworthy of decent food. She helps to perpetuate the shame and stigma associated with poverty by making disgusting slop and yellow sticker mush. There doesn't seem to be the outrage that Marcus Rashford had, he said enough poverty and has set about doing amazing things. Whereas Jack seems to be wearing a tory mantle under her poverty mac. She really does see ordinary people as beneath her.

 

[Morrisey]

Nope. You’d still want texture...

What's not to love about the texture of instant mash emulsified with blended sweetcorn? And that turkey leg is going to have a lovely chew factor, perfect served with a pineapple raita.

 

[Pocahontas]

The way she writes recipes is abysmal.
‘Scum.’ Scum - why would you write this in a recipe that you want to entice people with? Also - ‘wait a beat, or more accurately, two minutes.’ Just say two minutes, you fool!
‘Some people are a bit aghast at me using stock cubes in curries’ - what a bleeping shoddy sentence. I hate your writing, Jack - you have no business in this ... business.
@PoorPatrol - loved your post. I have two boys who are either side of 10. They eat me out of house and home but are still as thin as racing snakes. I don’t know what she’s playing at with her small portions of tit for a growing boy. She has no respect for the people hanging on her poorly-constructed sentences. Yes, you, Jack! Be gone!

 

[BashmentLady]

Also using stock or broth isn't maverick? It's standard no?

 

[Laura VanderBooben]

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I really wish her and CleaninwithMario would get together and do a cooking collaboration. Both self absorbed, egomaniacs and neither of them can cook . It would be a boujee, bespoke and glorious hot mess. Aren't Dhansak curries meant to be mild and sweet, not sour and bitter lemon. so basically she just made a bog standard curry with sour notes

 

[Tabitha D]

I feel she does nothing to actually challenge poverty. It's as if her attitude is to accept it, embrace it and make genuinely poor people feel unworthy of decent food. She helps to perpetuate the shame and stigma associated with poverty by making disgusting slop and yellow sticker mush. There doesn't seem to be the outrage that Marcus Rashford had, he said enough poverty and has set about doing amazing things. Whereas Jack seems to be wearing a tory mantle under her poverty mac. She really does see ordinary people as beneath her.

I kind of get the feeling she’s doing competitive poverty here. It’s as if she’s saying to any poor soul who spent £25 or £30 on their weekly shop that they’re *not doing it right*, they should be spending less, like Jack. God forbid that anyone who is genuinely struggling with money might still want to provide simple tasty and nutritious food for their family, and not resort to the nasty pig-scrapings sausages like our Jack.
And what if that poor soul didn’t manage to nab the yellow sticker bargains that Jack is always crowing about?
It’s a pretty tasteless exercise (in both senses).

 

[emmer_moans]

If I budgeted for 20 quid in a shop, I’d get:

Basic potatoes
Lots of carrots as they are quite bulky
Some frozen sweet corn and peas
Broccoli and /or cauliflower
Chicken
Sausages (own brand finest/taste the difference etc, because higher pork content)
Some frozen fruit (I prefer frozen berries and pineapple rather than oranges etc)
Bread
Pasta
Chopped tomatoes
Flour
Jam
Butter
Beans

Plus some snacks.


I normally have a good stock of herbs, spices and condiments, baking supplies etc. I think the key is to keep ingredients simple - especially where potatoes and veg are concerned you can have multiple meals with those. Jack seems to mix a lot of random ingredients in a pot and stirs, but cost wise that adds up. Sometimes “meat and two veg plus potatoes and gravy” is a filling nutritious meal and actually quite cheap. So many puddings can be so cheap too - I make apple crumble once a week. Basic sponge cakes also fairly cheap if you ready have flours and sugars in stock. Heck, I’m still working though the 16kg bag of flour I panic bought at the start of lockdown (I know, I know. I won’t do that again this time!). I’ve made cheap pizzas, bread rolls, cinnamon whirls etc for a fraction of the price of buying from the bakery section. The baking is more of a necessity for me though as allergic to nuts I can rarely find baked items that are suitable. People on a very tight budget in poverty would surely much rather have potato, chicken and veg, plus a slice of homemade sponge cake than some strange bastardisation of a cultural dish that used 20 ingredients in one hit?!

 

[Alansbigplate]

I really wish her and CleaninwithMario would get together and do a cooking collaboration. Both self absorbed, egomaniacs and neither of them can cook . It would be a boujee, bespoke and glorious hot mess. Aren't Dhansak curries meant to be mild and sweet, not sour and bitter lemon. so basically she just made a bog standard curry with sour notes

I watched aghast at his stovies stories earlier

 

[Scarletfever]

HOW much time is she devoting to this £20 bull crap?

She's supposed to be writing a bleeping book?

Trips to Asda/ aldi are taking up hours of her time, let alone typing up recipes, cooking and photographing slop, running polls on twitter, general incessant tweeting, long dinosaur naps, searching muddy puddles for designer gear, and early nights shivering in the eaves. Now she's apparently writing a bleeping blog about her maverick meal planning abilities and I think someone said she is going to craft draught excluders?

Where the duck is the book!?!

 

[BeautifulTrauma]

Does anyone else think Jack costing recipes with "sausages 2 - 10p (Asda Smartprice 20 for £1”) is totally devious and an attempted stealth boast gone wrong?

You can't buy two sausages on their own for 10p so it's factually incorrect and yet another talking her way around the truth. The whole costings are utter shite.

 

[LavaFlake]

Does anyone else think Jack costing recipes with "sausages 2 - 10p (Asda Smartprice 20 for £1”) is totally devious and an attempted stealth boast gone wrong?

You can't buy two sausages on their own for 10p so it's factually incorrect and yet another talking her way around the truth. The whole costings are utter shite.

Totally agree. And I think she may have had a go at people doing just this when the Marcus Rashford COVID free dinners controversy happened? Although not 100% on this and hard to recall when she deletes everything

 

[Tabitha D]

I really wish her and CleaninwithMario would get together and do a cooking collaboration. Both self absorbed, egomaniacs and neither of them can cook . It would be a boujee, bespoke and glorious hot mess. Aren't Dhansak curries meant to be mild and sweet, not sour and bitter lemon. so basically she just made a bog standard curry with sour notes

Dhansak happens to be my all time favourite curry - made properly, it is aromatic, a bit tangy and a bit sweet, contains several different types of dhal and a multitude of spices (including fenugreek, black cardamom, coriander seed etc). The recipe is pretty complex.
Jack has just bunged in some garam masala and curry powder, and thinks that because it’s got lentils in that makes it a dhansak. (And no, lemon juice is not a substitute for tamarind).
As Jack herself would say, it’s like jollof rice all over again.

 

[lilamay]

An insight into actual reality from this squiggle. Final reductions are often done pretty late - not everyone can get out to the supermarket at that time.

 

[Scarletfever]

Does anyone else think Jack costing recipes with "sausages 2 - 10p (Asda Smartprice 20 for £1”) is totally devious and an attempted stealth boast gone wrong?

You can't buy two sausages on their own for 10p so it's factually incorrect and yet another talking her way around the truth. The whole costings are utter shite.

It's all crap. Also, the things she made this evening included nothing from her ten pound shop apart from the pineapple and slimy veg, and the meal would have been improved immeasurably had she just left them out.

I see chopped tomatoes have made a comeback ... sure I thought you just needed tomato puree and stock, or is that just for the plebs who hang on your every tweet?

 

[Tabitha D]

Totally agree. And I think she may have had a go at people doing just this when the Marcus Rashford COVID free dinners controversy happened? Although not 100% on this and hard to recall when she deletes everything

That’s right - she did. I remember that too.

 

[People-huv-tae-know]

Also with the yellow sticker foods, its unpredictable as to what is going to be left for end of day sales. No one can rely or meal plan on yellow sticker foods. It really does help no one. It's not that nutritious either especially the dead veg.

 

[Alansbigplate]

Totally agree. And I think she may have had a go at people doing just this when the Marcus Rashford COVID free dinners controversy happened? Although not 100% on this and hard to recall when she deletes everything

In which Jack is Mr Blobby & Marcus Rashford is Will Carling:

 

[lalalanded]

Does anyone else think Jack costing recipes with "sausages 2 - 10p (Asda Smartprice 20 for £1”) is totally devious and an attempted stealth boast gone wrong?

You can't buy two sausages on their own for 10p so it's factually incorrect and yet another talking her way around the truth. The whole costings are utter shite.

All of her costing is off tbh. So off, in fact, that is actually completely useless to people on a very tight budget. What's the point of costing a bit of grated cheese when you have to actually buy the entire block? She can't even get that right. I won't go on her site anymore but it would be much easier if she did a 'This is what £20 can get you and what you can do with it' rather than 'this portion is 24p even though you have to buy £7 worth to be able to make it'.

 

[Flivver]

I’m just imagining the impact of the compost curry on their digestion. That veg would be slimy with the shredded cabbage positively sulphurous.

 

[Houseoflearneddoctors]

Just edited my online shopping so we can have bum and bollock sausages and instant wallpaper paste for dinner next week, all chased down with shots of pineapple raita.

*dog bile raita