You've got to admit that the boy's done good - half a dozen television series, five best-selling books and a successful restaurant. Not to mention an MBE, a happy family life and a lucrative supermarket advertising contract.
Not many 29-year-olds can claim, as Jamie Oliver now can, to have changed government policy and set off a bidding war among the major parties in the run-up to an election.
At a press conference to mark the handing to Downing Street of a petition with more than 270,000 signatures, Oliver was asked repeatedly whether the Government's pledge today to channel an extra £280 million into school meals would be enough. Would 50p per meal, instead of the current average of 37p, really make a difference?
His answers showed that however passionate Oliver can get about an issue, he is at heart a pragmatist, a man who doesn't waste too much time wondering about how things might have been.
Referring to the time he spent transforming school food in the London borough of Greenwich for the television series Jamie's School Dinners, he said: "Having been a dinner lady - and I never thought I'd have that on my CV - having worked for a council, I know that pence really do make a difference."
Jamie Oliver was born in May 1975 and brought up in a pub-restaurant in the Essex village of Clavering. He started peeling vegetables and helping out in the kitchen from the age of seven or eight and by 15, with his academic career headed nowhere, he had already decided to be a chef.
After leaving school, he signed up with the Westminster Catering College, before a stint in France to learn his trade before coming back to London to work as the head pastry chef for Antonio Carluccio at the Neal Street Restaurant.
There followed three and a half years at the River Cafe, the Hammersmith restaurant run by Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers. "What an amazing experience that was," he later wrote. "Those two ladies taught me all about the time and effort that goes into creating the freshest, most honest, totally delicious food."
It was at the River Cafe in 1996 that Oliver's talent in front of the camera was first noticed when he stole half the scenes in a documentary filmed at the restaurant. Pat Llewellyn, a television producer, saw the programme and decided that a telegenic young man with a ready wit and passion for food might be able to make a mark.
The first series of The Naked Chef - the title referred to the pared-down nature of the food rather than Oliver's clothing - was shot in 1998 and made Oliver a star. A second series was shot a year later, both series accompanied by best-selling cookbooks. A third series, Happy Days with the Naked Chef, followed in 2001 after his marriage to his long-time girlfriend, Jools.
The series relied not just on Oliver's clear talent for putting the right flavours together to produce simple modern dishes, but on his genius for communication. He would smatter his commentaries with estuarine Essex slang such as 'pukka' and 'wicked' before tootling off on his scooter to his local butcher or fishmonger to buy the best ingredients for that night's dinner party.
In 2002, Oliver came back as as slightly less cheeky chappie, adding a choice selection of swearwords to his vocabulary in Jamie's Kitchen, the television series for which he hired 15 unemployed youngsters as his apprentices at Fifteen, a new restaurant venture in the East End.
After a shaky start, that series was a triumph and Oliver's reinvention as a campaigning chef with a keen sense of social justice was complete. Series two soon followed, along with an MBE in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours.
Meanwhile, Oliver's reputation abroad has spread. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have sold millions of copies around the world. As the Naked Chef, he is one of the top celebrity chefs in the United States.
But it was not until his latest series, Jamie's School Dinners, that Oliver was able to exploit fully his talent for communication. The idea was simple enough: Oliver, who has two young girls, was to try to transform school meals in one Greenwich comprehensive, teach the dinner ladies to cook fresh food instead of reconstituted "scrotum-burger shite", then try to roll the idea out across the borough.
As with the East End restaurant, it was a big challenge. The pupils, used to their burgers, chips and Turkey Twizzlers, refused to accept fresh meat, pasta and greens. Gradually, however, they did so and their teachers soon noticed an improvement in their behaviour and levels of concentration.
Parents watching the programme started to question why the same could not be done in their childrens' schools and a smart online campaign gave them all the material they needed to start the ball rolling.
Jane Clarke, the Times nutritionist who advised Oliver for that series, said today she was not surprised by the success of his campaign. "He, like many parents, is just passionate that this has got to change," she said. "Through his personality, skill and motivation, he has driven home that message."
