With his Food Revolution sidelined in US schedules, the chef makes a return to his culinary roots in Jamie's Great Britain

He fell short in the admittedly herculean task of converting 300 million Americans to healthy eating, so perhaps it's no surprise that Jamie Oliver's next project is both more modest and safely within his culinary comfort zone: a celebration of traditional British pub-style food.

The announcement of the TV chef's next outing – a six-part Channel 4 series and accompanying book – comes just three weeks after the latest series of his Food Revolution programme was moved to a different time slot after poor US ratings.

More humiliating still was that the ABC network replaced it with reruns of the US equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing.

Now, having dressed as a root vegetable to persuade sceptical US children that their dietary options extend beyond pizza, Oliver has decided to return to his roots with Jamie's Great Britain, focusing on recipes such as steak and kidney pudding and fish and chips, as well as the overseas dishes Britons love.

Oliver's return follows a sequence of foreign-based shows, including his US efforts and tours around Europe for the Jamie Does … series. "It has been a long time coming, but sometimes it takes a few decades of looking at other countries to realise how wonderful your own really is," he said as he promoted a book accompanying the series.

The first series of Food Revolution – set in a West Virginia town identified as America's fattest – disarmed the understandable hostility of locals told by an unknown, chirpy Englishman that they were killing their children with starch and grease. The programme even bagged an Emmy for best reality show but lost momentum, and viewers, when it relocated to Los Angeles for a second outing.

For the 35-year-old chef – who cares deeply about his US and UK school meal projects – such setbacks are cushioned by enormous domestic popularity and a fortune estimated to be above £100m.

Between series of Food Revolution, Oliver filmed his popular 30-Minute Meals programmes for Channel 4, aimed at tempting time-pressed Britons back into the kitchen. This it seemingly did, in vast numbers: the accompanying book became the UK's fastest selling nonfiction title of all time, spending six months heading the sales charts.

Jamie's Great Britain will contain nods towards Oliver's first culinary experience, at his parents' Essex pub. As well as giving the chef's perhaps inevitable "twist" on traditional recipes, Jamie's Great Britain also promises to tell the stories behind the dishes.

Dominique Walker of Channel 4 said: "In this new series we see him travelling across Britain to discover the fascinating stories of how our own food, the dishes we think of as traditionally British, are actually a product of the rich melting pot of cultures that have made our country what it is today."

• This article was amended on 26 May 2011. Owing to an editing change, this article originally said that series two of Food Revolution had been dropped from US schedules. This has been corrected.

 

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