Jack Monroe #42

[Pocahontas]

Beans

Ndjua sausage and jif lemon base notes with top notes of mayonnaise. Like summer in a bowl.

 

[MellowD]

I think we can't really know what went on with her parents and her family. And just because they are middle class/respectable doesn't mean things were good. My mum, who I suspect is a narc, makes me very wary of accepting help from my parents because it comes with strings. I will do everything I can to avoid ever being in the circumstances where I have to stay in my parents house again. If poverty was more attractive to Jack than staying with her parents, I suspect its because there is more going on there than we can know.

Regarding short term poverty. I had a few years where I was struggling to make my career. I'd used my savings on a masters degree to get me into a specific industry and the next four years was going from one short term, poorly paid job to another. Each job was in another part of the country and my finances slowly dwindled. I ended up with depression and anxiety as I felt myself a failure, I berated myself for not being good enough to get decent jobs, and I had no support network to fall back on because of the moving (and above family problems).

Eventually I found another career route and I got out of that industry and I'm now in a better situation. However, I get rather terrified of being in that situation again - so I can understand the fear and trauma that even a short time on benefits can induce. However, I wouldn't call myself 'working class' due to four years of (and in one case less than) minimum wage work. I also wouldn't count myself as poor because I can only afford to live in shared houses. I also wouldn't think it my place to advise people who live their entire lives in that situation because I had (comparatively) 5 minutes of struggle. In that respect, Jack can come off as a middle-class saviour.

Her parents are absolutely lovely, they were also foster carers and regardless of how Jack's relationship was with them at the time, she did not have to put her child through what she sa

To be fair I sound a lot posher than my background would suggest (given that I think I’m common as muck). As does my mum. People would probably be able to place my accent if they met me but there are people in my area who talk through their nose like they are a character from chewing the fat. Accents can vary dramatically even in a few miles.

My gran grew up in a very working class family and she was always very well spoken

I honestly would not be able to tell how posh someone was from their accent

Unless it’s Prince William

Ps. I’m not criticising anyone with a different accent to mine. Just saying that people can sound posh when they aren’t and less posh when they actually are. I wouldn’t judge Jacks class from how she speaks.

I agree with you. However when someone bangs on about how Working Class they are, and that they have been discriminated against due to that, yet they have had a very middle class upbringing and speak with an accent to match, they are clearly lying about the discrimination. Not to mention hugely insulting to those that actually have.

 

[Harrybosch]

My Grandma did actually pass away during lockdown, We as a family couldnt sit with her in hospital while she was there or be with her when she passed, she was on her own which I will feel guilty about for forever and I couldnt go to her funeral.

So fuck off with this tweet Jack, I wouldnt mind so much if she actually said it because she genuinely cared and was bothered, but she doesn't, she just wanted a jazzy soundbite and a chance to get her name in the paper again so yeah fuck right off Jack.

I'm so sorry to read this. I have a friend in a similar situation. It's heartbreaking.

However, Jackie, as per usual, totally misses the point. When people weren't allowed to go to funerals, there was a very valid reason for this, i.e. we were in the middle of a pandemic. We now need to navigate our way out of this. I don't rate how the government has handled this crisis in the slightest, and I personally think opening the pubs is idiotic, but this package to stimulate the restaurant industry has nothing to do with people not being able to attend funerals in April and May.

 

[Alansbigplate]

Rik mayall for me RIP

 

[peperomia]

So much content today! Getting those sweet sweet Putin Pounds <3

 

[NorthernSoul]

In this essay I will, WTF, she’s on Trump now

Of course she does she’s a Pharmacist, don’t you know

 

[BishopBrennan]

Well, this was a fine week to be without internet. 3 threads . Thankfully I'm back online and off work. Grunka time.

 

[Nottonightbabe]

Now that makes me really angry. Mr Falkor was a late surprise for his parents, he's 7 years younger than his next nearest sibling, so from the age of about 11, after next sibling had gone to university, his parents would frequently say things like, 'If it wasn't for him we'd be off travelling now.' He still lives with the after-effects of that today and he's in his 50s now.

I used to get that a lot. My mum and dad were planning on travelling after my sisters had left home. They are 15 and 16 years older than me. And then I came along. Add that in with the fact that my dad pinned his hopes on finally getting the son he wanted and then out popped another girl, I definitely felt like a disappointment at times when I was younger

 

[Begborrowsteal]

Two insults I remember from school; the laughing cow & being likened to Michelle McManus in size kids are cunts, are they.

 

[Harrybosch]

I think you and I would get on on the real world, detective.

And oh my god - yes about the Xbox slang and language I wouldn’t mind so much, he’s growing up, nearly a teen like yours and let’s be honest, once they start secondary school and go on the bus, and hear stuff in the playground, all innocence around swear words disappears like that!

Just have to protect my 8-year-old (and my cat)

BFFs

 

[MellowD]

I have never seen David Walliams as 'untouchable'. I'm curious as to why she thinks he is.

She doesn't. He was already being cancelled and called a "racist" and on Twitter at least, a "paedophile". Like with Hopkins, she goes after easy targets. Even Jamie Oliver has always had certain people hating on him, all the "fat tongued wanker" comments People who are already getting it big time. She absolutely arse kisses most other people. Unless they question one of her outrageous bullshits of course.

 

[Jay-cloth Cow]

God, this attitude of hers is so pathetic. I am sorry that you were unemployed, and I know it has scarred you a lot more than most people but that does not make you the oracle on budget food.
She says here "I hardly think a celebrity chef would be the expert on poverty and nutrition." Erm, they kind of would though? Jamie Oliver isn't just a celebrity chef, he's a trained chef with years of experience. He knows about nutrition and he knows about price/availability of ingredients.

She is so fixated on the fact that because she's had to live on a tight budget, she is the expert but the point is that an actual expert could obviously do it better.

When I go to the doctor, I want to see someone who has trained and got the knowledge required to help me recover, not someone who had the same illness as me??

Spoiler: Kitten

I don't believe for one second she's taken the kitten to the vet. She's going to latch on to the splints idea now someone else has said it. I don't know why she's not taking it, perhaps she's scared of what they'll say. Point is, the kitten needs to be seen. Stop being selfish Jack.

Also what gets me is the 'I've been doing this for months'. I'm sure by that time, JO had been cooking for YEARS and therefore would have a lot more knowledge and insight than she did? God she is just so entitled.

 

[Ellabella]

@MancBee I, for one, think you are fucking amazing. Having the courage to speak up about what you went through is something I've never been able to, probably never will.

 

[chocolate choux]

Okay! I was just reading Guardian Australia online, and an article about peanut butter led me down the "hmmm, could I make peanut butter?" (quickly replaced by, no, I can't be bothered actually.)

I clicked next on Felicity Cloake's how to make the perfect peanut butter and found Ms Monroe's recipe.

So far, so ordinary. It is the Guardian circa 2015.

But then I saw the photos, and I really want you to see them, too

Hot on the heels of my peanut butter expose, I make my first ever thread title suggestion:

Peanut butter, peanut butter, Jack Monroe is an absolute...

ETA: this has it all; there's even rinsing!

That’s baby poo. You cannot tell me otherwise

 

[J4n0Z]

I feel you, my big nosed compadres. I too have a honking snout.

I also have big lips, of the kind folk now pay for (lucky me, eh) and this earned me the nickname Jabba the Hut at school.

So yes, kids can be foul.

 

[Fraggle]

Jack, we are saying this as a plea to your caring side...

Can you please take your poor kitten to the Vets? The Kitten might be in discomfort which needs addressing plus needing physiotherapy. Your pets need you, so why can’t you get the little one sorted & give poor 50 cent some love as he’s been abandoned & that’s why he’s doing a dirty protest everywhere.

 

[Readingismyhobby]

I watched the encounter with Edwina Curry yesterday, I was surprised by the difference in the way JM spoke, very different from the quaking character of the DKL shows.
Also, the fact that she thinks passing 4 GCSE’s means she didn’t go to grammar school. IMO she has an edit function in her brain that changes facts into a version she wants.
She choose the “poverty”, as lots of people have said she could have received help from her family or her sons father. But she didn’t (god knows why)!.
Everything she says is skewed to suit the version of herself she is currently peddling.
I’m going to stop now before I end up in a bad mood because of her.
Take the kitten to the vet (in the singular, not the royal we).

 

[JoyceDivision]

Also - further to her hating coriander, the Dal she made on DKL has got a huge handful in, and she’s eating it happily

 

[acca00]

Re: the accent. There is nothing wrong whether someone speaks RP or with a regional accent, whether it's cut-glass or not. Nobody cares nowadays.

The fact is that Jack is a fraud. She pretends to be something she isn't.

She comes from a comfortable, solidly middle-class background. Ballet lessons, Range Rover, grammar school. Multiple properties in the family. But she pretends to be working class and from poverty.

 

[heretoreaditall2019]

She's still on about the butter/chorizo pellets she made and somehow manages to make it about class:
View attachment 176223

Her saying this is just tone deaf & offensive as per usual. She’s a moron. You can be well off and of WC origin - you still retain that lived experience, identity, values but it does however mean that those people shouldn’t be front and centre of movements to improve the plight of the poor in this country because their reference points are outdated, they can be allies but the real work requires a PANEL of contributors covering the breadth and diversity of experiences (someone mentioned the extortionate food prices in non mainland UK, which is fascinating and not something we ever really hear much about is it!). Is this really that fucking hard to grasp? Or is it just hard to give up your cash cow?

She is purposefully reductive (now on page 33) about this as if anyone is implying you can’t be WC and have nice things. No one is saying that, they’re saying she’s not WC because of her family’s buy to let property empire and comfortable origins. But heaven forbid she has to acknowledge that publicly!

One of my grandma’s fabled urban legends was that she once saw a man down a pint of vinegar for a bet

I’m not sure of the veracity of that particular story, though.

I once saw a European mum & daughter in Stratford westfields drinking juice FROM CONCENTRATE. In France I know fresh orange juice comes in bottles like our dilutable stuff so I can see how they made the mistake, but the daughter was necking it so thought best not to interrupt

When I was 12 an older girl said I looked like "the fat nun from Sister Act", and when I was evidently horrified she was like "ohhhhh I just mean 'cos you're always smiling". Yeah, sure, thanks.

Anyway, 21 years on and it's one of the many insults adding bulk to the knapsack of slurs. I genuinely believe that as a conventionally attractive woman Jack has never really had the opportunity to grow a sufficiently thick skin.

(Thin skin through lack of exposure is a condition I would kill for, tbh)

I’m loving hearing all these descriptions and imagining my fraus!! I am too scared to add my own for fear of Jack’s CSI computer