Time was, the closest our prison system came to haute cuisine was the old 'chisel in a cake' brought in by inmates' mums.
That's changing. Nowadays contraband more commonly takes the form of heroin, firearms and mobile phones - and that's just the stuff smuggled in by prison guards on the take. There's also more sophisticated grub on offer, thanks to the stars of The Prison Restaurant (BBC One, Tuesday 10.30pm), a compelling look at how one facility hopes to rehabilitate a handful of its troubled youngsters through the healing power of overpriced food.
To the string-em-up brigade, giving cookery courses to dealers, muggers and a bloke who said he was inside "for stabbing" sums up how Britain lost an empire. But try telling that to Al Crisci, a gourmet geezer with the sideburns of George Best and the charm of Reggie Kray. His mission at The Clink was to see that "a hardened criminal comes in, and a professional chef leaves" - effectively the opposite of what happens to Gordon Ramsay when the cameras start rolling.
Perhaps the most telling point came from Crisci himself. He noted that guests still got intoxicated from non-alcoholic Champagne so long as you didn't tell them it had no booze in it - surely all the evidence his disillusioned wards needed for the power of positive thinking.
Most went the way of Dominic, a baby-faced bruiser who vowed at the start to emerge a "deformed character". Soon he was preparing trifles and saying: "This is my future." But he flunked out after repeated indiscretions, like stealing a can of Fanta and threatening to cut a fellow inmate's throat.
Lee, a charming and softly-spoken chap of 21, was sacked for tampering with the tills so each receipt branded a fellow inmate a "muppet". In a bad week for Lee, he also got four years for robbery. Kids, eh?
Jamie's Prison Dinners this was not. Crisci lustily admitted he'd sacked seven in a month from a staff of just 18. But while some simply refused to be helped, there were successes too. Prodigy Robbie bagged a £19,000-a-year restaurant job through his labours.
Who knows? We may even give lags the vote one day.
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That's changing. Nowadays contraband more commonly takes the form of heroin, firearms and mobile phones - and that's just the stuff smuggled in by prison guards on the take. There's also more sophisticated grub on offer, thanks to the stars of The Prison Restaurant (BBC One, Tuesday 10.30pm), a compelling look at how one facility hopes to rehabilitate a handful of its troubled youngsters through the healing power of overpriced food.
To the string-em-up brigade, giving cookery courses to dealers, muggers and a bloke who said he was inside "for stabbing" sums up how Britain lost an empire. But try telling that to Al Crisci, a gourmet geezer with the sideburns of George Best and the charm of Reggie Kray. His mission at The Clink was to see that "a hardened criminal comes in, and a professional chef leaves" - effectively the opposite of what happens to Gordon Ramsay when the cameras start rolling.
Perhaps the most telling point came from Crisci himself. He noted that guests still got intoxicated from non-alcoholic Champagne so long as you didn't tell them it had no booze in it - surely all the evidence his disillusioned wards needed for the power of positive thinking.
Most went the way of Dominic, a baby-faced bruiser who vowed at the start to emerge a "deformed character". Soon he was preparing trifles and saying: "This is my future." But he flunked out after repeated indiscretions, like stealing a can of Fanta and threatening to cut a fellow inmate's throat.
Lee, a charming and softly-spoken chap of 21, was sacked for tampering with the tills so each receipt branded a fellow inmate a "muppet". In a bad week for Lee, he also got four years for robbery. Kids, eh?
Jamie's Prison Dinners this was not. Crisci lustily admitted he'd sacked seven in a month from a staff of just 18. But while some simply refused to be helped, there were successes too. Prodigy Robbie bagged a £19,000-a-year restaurant job through his labours.
Who knows? We may even give lags the vote one day.
More from this column
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