Tasty food revolution spreads the good news

You've heard of the "horse whisperer," but what about the "cook whisperer?" That's how Mick Trueman, a miner in Rotherham, a town in England, describes chef Jamie Oliver.

Oliver came to town to teach people like Trueman how to cook. Before meeting the chef, Trueman says, "I'd never even turned my stove on." Now he's got 10 tasty recipes under his belt, and has passed them on to other people. It has "changed my life completely," he says in Oliver's latest book, "Jamie's Food Revolution" (2009 Hyperion). "I'm having a great time."

You may remember that Oliver, who is British, rose to fame as "The Naked Chef" of TV and book fame - a moniker that referred to the simplicity of his recipes, not to his state of dress (or undress). Over the years, his focus has gone from food to food activism, without ever losing sight of that humble building block: the recipe. He founded a chain of restaurants that train at-risk young people in the trade. He began a campaign, "Feed Me Better," to improve school lunches in England. Most recently, he targeted two communities - Rotherham, Yorkshire, and Huntington, W.Va., - as places to teach people how to cook.

"I believe that good home cooking is one of the most essential, fundamental skills that every single person on this planet should have in order to look after themselves, their families and their friends," he writes. His "food revolution," he says, is "all about people learning how to make a recipe."

The folks in his book don't LOOK like "revolutionaries." There's Matthew Borrington, a bricklayer, who now can whip up a comforting stew, thanks to Oliver. There's Natasha Whiteman, a single mom who says she used to be "rubbish" in the kitchen but who, in her dreams, "had a picture in my head of my family, happy around a table, eating real food." There are hairstylists, a doorman, an elderly widower and a farmer. And there's Trueman, holding a plate of the chicken chow mein he made himself and "having a great time."

It's time to step up to the (hot) plate and start making real food. And once you master a recipe, Oliver urges you to pass it on and teach others. This is how grass-roots movements begin, on their way to becoming full-blown revolutions.

• Marialisa Calta is the author of "Barbarians at the Plate: Taming and Feeding the American Family" (2005 Perigee). More at marialisacalta.com.