January 13, 2025 • 36 mins
"It’s the economy, stupid." You may recognise the slogan which won Bill Clinton the presidency in 1992. It was the creation of James Carville, the brilliant campaign strategist who has gone on to become a key voice in American politics as a consultant, commentator and author. Now, James is here at The River Cafe to share memories of growing up in the Deep South, stories about his mother, and his new film, Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid.
And in a special crossover ahead of the inauguration, we are joined halfway by Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel of The News Agents podcast, to talk politics, presidents, and the importance of charm.
Ruthie's Table 4, made in partnership with Moncler.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
In August, after the Democratic National Convention, I was at
a breakfast meeting in Los Angeles when James Carville suddenly
joined our table. James is a legendary political analyst, a
spokesman for the Democratic Party, and a former campaign manager
to President Bill Clinton. The title of his new documentary
(00:26):
says it all winning is Everything stupid. James and I
might seem very different. After all, He's from Louisiana and
I'm from upstate New York. He cooks cumbo, I cook
Glagurian fish stew, but were also pretty much the same
passionate about people, passionate about food, passionate about politics. With
(00:47):
the inauguration approaching on January twentieth, there couldn't be a
better time to hear what James has to say, and
for this episode we have a special edition. Emily Maglis
and John Sopel, hosts of The news Agent's podcast, joined
us for what was a really interesting discussion.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Thank you, I'm just delighted to be here. Yeah, I
think you and I maybe born in the same homb
We certainly think a lot about a lot of things,
I think.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So we have a lot to talk about, but before
we do, you know the drill, right, So the recipe
that just was Ligurian fish stew. Laguria is on the coast,
it's apart between Genoa and Pisa. And this came from
our first cookbook. It's pretty simple. But I thought you
might like to read that, and you can read it
anywhere you want.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And let me preface it. But I said, I think
my favorite foods in the world, or these fish based
things like you know, gumbo, bully based for sure, Belengorian
fish stew for sure, any of these kinds of things
that really capture the sea. All of it is a
(01:56):
little bit of the same. I mean, it's a little
different cooking techniques. But let's go ahead. Let's get started here.
Want three red mullet filet scaled and clean. You got
of scale and clean and it's true. Five hundred grams
of monkfish or turbo filets one point five kilograms and mussels,
twelve langue steams like a little shrip scampy one and
(02:24):
fifty millimeters of white wine. One fresh chili seated and chopped,
one point two leaders of fish stock. Yeah, okay, that's
that's the key ingredients in all of these kind of
seafood things. Twelve small new potatoes, peeled and ball, one
lead of tomato sauce and one hundred and seventy five
(02:47):
millimeters olliveball. Put muscles in a large sauce fan with
olive ball, white wine and chili coven steam over high heat.
Shaken until all shells open. WINKU remove half the muscles
from their shells and grain juices into the fish stock. Okay,
I want to make an editorial combat here. This is
important because you're adding flavor to flavor. You already major
(03:08):
fish stock. Never throw away oyster liquor or bacon grease
because anytime you get into trouble, bacon grease is gonna
save you. Now, then we bring the fishtock to a
ball and the lango sines poach. Add the fish stock.
Now when you poaching this or you're reducing a little
bit too. Reduction is a big thing when you're doing
(03:30):
things because you want to the fish track more flavor
out of it. Add the fish stock and a tomato
sauce and bring to a ball. Add the mullet, monk
fish or turbo and scallons, stirring cooked potatoes, mussels and
langosteins to make christini. Toast the bread on both sides
in rubber garlic, Place on top of the soup and serve.
(03:55):
But it's simple, but we have fresh ingredients. You want
to enhance, not overwhelm the ingredients. So if you're going
into trouble to getting fresh fish, shall fish, you want
that flavor to come through and you want to I
think what's brillian about this recipe? It accentuates the flavors
more than anything else.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Of course, we all know you as the political strategists
for you know, you won the election for President Clinton.
Did you want to go into politics yourself?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Since I was a kid, I've always loved politics. I've
never really wanted to run for office. Why not? I
don't know. I always wanted to be the man, the
man for the man, Okay I was. I said, maybe
one day I'd like Noah governor and work for I
mean then I didn't have my first electoral village victory.
(04:48):
Tell's forty two.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Your first major campaign was Clinton?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Or what did you do well? Major being described as
like statewide races. I said, I was in Louisia, My
first statewide was a Senate race in Texas. We lost.
That was in nineteen eighty four. I did a Senate
race in Virginia nineteen eighty two and we lost. So
(05:15):
I was a loser. And there was a guy I
ran for governor of Pennsylvania. He lost three times before
the three times he went to holy Cross College, and
Matt Excuse called the three times I lost from holy Cross,
and he couldn't find anybody in wanting to run his campaign,
so they ended up calling me, and I didn't have
to they had to send the money for the plane ticket.
(05:36):
Well ultimately won. Then I won a race in Kentucky
and New Jersey and Georgia, and so I became noticed
by President Clinton. So I became his chief strategist. And
then this is for the first selection, first election nineteen
(05:56):
ninety two, nineteen ninety two, and then after that I
started doing foreign consulting.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Did you go with him to the convention? Did you
know him before the convention? Yeah, so you were part
of the strategy right for him, but to get the
domination right to nominate, yeah, yeah, which was quite incredible,
wasn't it, Because he came from from Arkansas. Nobody really
knew who this person was.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, he was so unbelievably talented, and then he was
when you just look at him. Man, I was with
him a week ago. He is people. When people say
he's smart, you don't have any idea. You think you
think you're smart, You have no idea your empathetic understanding
(06:44):
explaining things.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And what about the food. Let's go back to food.
So when you were with Clinton, he liked, he's a
food person, isn't he did he care about food or not?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So he was so intense. So one time we were
on a campaign plane and he would do the New
York Times Crossford puzzle and he literally would never take
his fence law. And so they bought him salad and
the coffee, and I asked had to wash him, put
(07:18):
the thousand hours dress in the coffee and the cream
on the salad. And he didn't know the difference.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
But you always knew you want to be a Democrat.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yes, I was always because all related to civil rights
and race. I just thought black people were getting a
terrible deal. And I probably grew up with some element
of white guilt. Okay, we didn't obsess on it, but
I knew that I had one life and they had
(07:52):
another life, and I just thought that was kind of unfair.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Let's start at the beginning. Where were you born?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So? I was actually born in Fort Betting, George, because
my daddy was an army during the war. I grew
up in Louisiana, which is called the River Parishes, which
is more black than the other parts of out of Louisiana.
And my grandmother was from New Orleans and my mother
was from of Alls, which is way north, and they
(08:18):
are very distinct differences in Louisiana cooking. It is not
one thing. It's like Italian cooking.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Your father's mother was from New Orleans and.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
My mother was from Boyles Parish, which is probably one
hundred and fifty miles from New Organs. It's very far north.
Both Catholics, both French dominated, but very different cuisine. If
you think of New Orleans as being kind of Parisian
and the rest being provincially it's a good shorthand it's
(08:54):
a little different day in New Orleans. They put tomato
in the gumbo, which is heresy to my much just
couldn't believe that. I mean little things like that when you.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Were growing up, did your grandmother live near you, so
you had these two.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, eat paternal grandmother lived a mile exactly one point
six miles me and I would stay with her all
the time. Why is that because she spoiled me?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Are you a grandfather?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm a grandfather. I have a.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Completely different relationship with our grandchildren.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Someone said, the reason that grandparents and grandchildren get along
so well they have a common enemy.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Always take the side of your grandkid, always absolutely, I said.
You know, I often say that people who come here
and talk about food, they talk sometimes more about their
grandparents cooking than their mother's cooking. They'll talk about their
grandmother's food more than their mother's, especially people who've emigrated
from other countries, they'll do that.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
How many we have brothers? Eight children? Eight? Eight? Yes, yes,
you have seven brothers and sisters. We do. We'd have
gumbo in the winter time on the sew, and she
she do this delicious a shrimp and corn soup and
the corn was fresh. And you know, we'd have that
sometimes in the summer months, but we all we came
(10:18):
home from school, we always had a pot on the sew.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Did she work?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Did she have a job, or she did she sold
in cycle. She did not, but we had too many
kids and eight children. So she sold encyclopedias and she
was quite.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Good at door to door type of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, well she would, she would prospect. So she taught
me like targeting customers and said, we want to see
two things, a bass boat in a bicycle, because that's
going to tell us that these people have children and
they have some income. And so that's how we target out.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You would target those target out house. What's the bass boat?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's like a fishing boat, but you have to have
some influence and be in the yard. It would be
like on a thing, a trailer. And so she would
go in and that was like twelve or thirteen years old,
and she didn't it was you know, this was a
couple was out of coach in the late fifties and sixties,
and she started talking to the lady at the house
(11:18):
and she'd say, your son, what's the capital of her? Miners?
My pitia? To god? Oh god, he said, God, damn genius,
you know, And then she'd gone she said, what's the
capital of Oregon? Salem? Oh? My god? How hockeld anybody
be that? Some mort And then she'd say, well, what's
the capital of Finland, I'd say, hell Sinki. And he
got this knowledge by having these encyclopedias. And so the
(11:43):
lady at the house and said, well, this sounds terrific,
and let me get my husband there. And so they
inevit to be bring the husband in, and he was
kind of polite. He said, well, miss called he. I
know you've got a great product here. But you know
when school, when we're just a little short, now one,
don't you come back maybe after the first year, we'll
take another look at it. You know something, Sara, I
find something about you that's interesting. You could afford a
(12:05):
bass boat for yourself, but you can't afford educational workarios
for your children. God was done. He was signing anything.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
That you and would every night you'd sit down to
have a dinner or would everybody kind of she.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Encouraged it, but you know, with kids that she was,
I think she thought of losing battle. She thought that
people should that meals were a communal thing. And you know,
she had dementia and the only thing that they she
would remember is my sister who was or and who
(12:42):
took care of her, would say, Mama, would Grandma say
at dinner time, and she would saying aposh, which is
approached that until Grandma said approach, you couldn't approach the table,
all right, And that was that was the last thing
that I wone remember a prush. She was a pretty
(13:05):
sophisticated cook. Actually there was. She made something called crawfish
bisc sort of recipes and that I'll single it out
for you, but it's one of these dishes that it's
really hard to make alone. So she would make it
with like three of my sisters. Okay, no one should
ever shell beans alone. That's a communal thing where you
(13:27):
get together on the table and everybody's talking, you know.
Or no one should feel shrimp by themselves. That it
should be done with a cold beer and newspaper and
you feeling the shrimp. And you said, and there's certain
things in home cooking or crawfish bisk because they had
to make a stuffing and then they would like it
was very complex undertaken, very good though, but you wouldn't.
(13:52):
It's really labor intention.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
You grew up in this household, seven brothers and sisters.
Your mother was cooking for you when she wasn't selling encyclopedias,
and your father was.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
He was a postmaster, and we had a country store,
a general store, so if you wanted a tenpenny nail,
a pair of boots, a dozen eggs, slice lunch meat
or something like that with the can. So we were
to kind of central point of a rural place, and
(14:26):
you know, old guys would come and they'd sit out
and drink beer. And of course it was no I
grew up. Everything was segregated except for us because we
didn't have anything. There were no public facilities. There was
one when I was a little boy. They had a
movie theater because the ballerina and the whites had to
(14:48):
sit in the balcony. Because it was so few, they
had to be segregated. But in most places the blacks
had to sit in the balcony and the whites got
to sit in the bottom of the theater. I was
it was so overwhelmingly black, we had to sit in
the in the balcony. And that was when I was
at public clothes, when I was five or six years old. Okay,
(15:11):
it was. It didn't last, but it was a uh.
And then what really made us international is we were
the location of the most sophisticated and best place for
the treatment of Hanson's disease, which you know of his leprosy.
So that really in public health service ran as so
(15:34):
medical people from all over the world would come to Carville.
So I had this window on the wall that you
would not get anywhere else in the Royal South. And
I think that very much shape I became very much
morning to be a citizen of the world, as much
as I wanted to be anything else. I came to
(15:55):
love the whole world. It sounds kind of like the
r but it's true.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And so that journey from going from being a citizen
of this small small town to being where you are
now concluded them. When you left home and then you
went to university, did you know then that politics was
what you.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And I wasn't. It went a very diligent, a good student,
and I did go to law school.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
And he went to the Marines.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Did you say, yeah, I got I got funked out,
honest expression on it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Where were you when Martin Luther Week?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I was in the Marine Corps. It was in April
nineteen six.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Question is where were you when Martin Luther King was killed?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I had a friend, sounds try to say, but the
black friend Okay, of course you were in the military.
You did. And he said, the news came off that
the king was killed. He said, man, I gotta I'm depressed.
I got to go back to the barracks. I said,
I'll cover for you or worry about it. No, forget it,
don't forget it. And in the day I got out
(17:05):
of the Marines, Bobby Kennedy was shot. So I mean
a new turmoil in the Vietnam War was or a disaster.
People think that they're living in the most turbulent times
you can imagine, Well, they are turbulent. It's terrible, But
(17:27):
I lived in turbulent time.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
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(17:50):
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(18:12):
come on in, come in.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Excuse me from not getting up, but I'm your biggest friend. Oh,
come on a terrible noise.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
For this episode, Emily mac List and John Sopel, host
of The Newsagent's podcast, joined our table.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Ruthie is like the greatest connector in the world, and
so we talked.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
About We've been to New Orleans, We've been to the Marines,
We've been through Clinton. We've been everywhere, haven't we been?
We were just we were just beginning to talk about
the movie.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's called Carville. Winning is everything stupid based on the economy? Stupid? Okay?
In my belief that political campaigns exist to do one thing,
and that's to win. If you don't win, you haven't
done anything. It's kind of useless.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Where can people see this? It's only films in CNN.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
It's on HBO X okay, it's we were live on
CNN twice. We've been to all of the big film fashions.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Your Success was the idea that it had to come
out after the election, so you you do it all.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Notice very interesting because we were trying to figure out
when do you release it, and then all of the
events that happened. He had to change the ending four
times because once Biden got out. I'd been He had
me on tape years before saying this guy can't run
for reelection.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
He's to Oh, people just say, are we worried about
his age? And I was one of the people who'd say,
I'd rather have that glass of water than Trump, and
you're talking about him being old. I'm just a citizen.
I didn't know the inside story. I wasn't the person,
but I thought anybody who said we're worried about Biden's
age was really a trumpest. I thought they wanted to
(20:00):
for Trump, and they just wouldn't say it until the debate.
You said, if he got out in twenty three in
the summer twenty three.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Would have one going away, the implication.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Being that it would not have been her. You think
there was somebody better.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Than Yes, I know. Well, I hate to give names
because somebody's going to say them, going to exclude them.
Andy Bushier, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gretchen Ritt, mur Or,
fl Warnock, JB. Pritskou, Jared Polish, all these people and
I've left some out. All these people are Miss Landry.
(20:38):
Miss Landrew might be as good as communicator as Bill Clinton.
In politics, the most underrated. I think attribute is drum roll,
please charm, charm count people. White people who can charm people,
(20:58):
they just do.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Isn't there a saying, you know, never play golf with
the president, because if you're a journalist and the president
asked you to play golf, he could come away and say,
you know what, he had a sense of humor. You
know what, he's kind of charming, you know and maybe
again as a citizen, we're talking about policies. Maybe or
Richard used to say that in his office. He said,
(21:20):
if somebody was lovable, they could get away with so much,
and if they weren't, they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, you have no people. Okay, so once you're president,
but there's some people that walk into a room, in
the room changes. Did Kamalo have that chol not overly? No,
that doesn't make you don't understand. Harris never ran for
office outside of California, Okay, so she never had to
(21:48):
walk into the lines. Yet it was a demo heavily
democratic state. So she did never to cultivate hustle audiences.
That are politicians able to do that? Could she have
won it? If Biden would have gotten out in the
summer of twenty twenty three, we would have won easily,
(22:10):
so could she have won? So Biden gets out on
July to twenty first, all right, the deal gray condition
starts on August seventeen, so she has to take his
campaign manager, his campaign staff, his campaign headquarters, and everything
(22:31):
the country. For whatever reason, I disagree with it. Wanted
something different than by She refused to be different. They
will ask her, what would you do different? She says,
I can't think of anything, so we would have definitely
wanted Joe Biden stands over this disaster like a colossus.
(22:52):
And I like him, Okay, And it's unfortunate because he's
had a really remarkable life life in political career, but
he's just going to be remembered for this for a
long time. And it's really a shame. We have not
had an inspirational candidate since twenty twelve. Most people in politics,
(23:16):
it's an emotional business. You see somebody, Hey I love
John Kennedy, Hey I love Bill Clinton, Hey I love Obama.
Hey I love Ronald Reagan. Hey I love Margaret Thatcher.
So whatever, Okay, it's very much not a rational business,
but an emotional business.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I was going to ask you about your domestic life
when you created a home with Mary. So did you
meet at the White House?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
No, there was a story about me. She worked for
Lee Atwater, who's she was the chief of staff at
the Public Nation Committee, and Lee said go out and
date this guy. Basically, go see what you can find out.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
About the spy.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, she was shut out as a spy.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Romantic.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, no, literally that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Did you have suspicions that she was spying on you?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, fourfol she's really nice looking, well dressed, and we
were spying. But an hour and a half and four
drinks later.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
That's a very cinematic thing, isn't it. Where you find
out the person that you think you love it that
it turns out that.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
She's very kind of open about it. She was spyed me.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, that's very romantic, I'd say. Yeah. So this was
when you were with Clinton in the White House. Where
is it?
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah? I started We started dating from January to first
nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So he won the election.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
In ninety two. She was head of all field operations,
the coordinator for the Bush campaign, and then in November
of nineteen ninety one, and she talked about movie and
I went to work for Clinton, so she was the
top Bush person. I was the top Clinton person, and
(25:08):
God help us we survive.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
The River Cafe Winter said Lunch is now running from
Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking on www. Rivercafe dot
co dot UK or give us a call. You've been
all over the United States and your work and your travels.
Do you think that the food of the South is
(25:38):
the only really regional food we have in America? If
you went to Vermont, you wouldn't find somebody living in
northern Vermont eating something different than southern Vermont, or western
Wisconsin from eastern Wisconsin, or even northern California from southern
But the South is so defined by where you are
and what you're eating.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Do you agree, Well, I think that's particularly true, and
I'll tell you why I think that because New Orleans
at one time the second largest ethnic group in New
Orleans are Italians. So a lot of like gumbo oak
crow was kind of African and order, and so we
had African influences. We had Italian influences, but obviously had
(26:19):
French influences. What we call the German Coast. There's a
lot of German names in Louisiana, people just yes and
and they have.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I've never been to Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
From the guy that I want you to meet is
Chef John Folks, who is like a culinary historian, and
he would love to cook for you, but he's very
much into its true Louisiana cooking is comes in a
lot of places in you it's a meld of different cultures. Jambalaya,
(26:58):
you know, jambone am ya ya. Yeah. So when you
listen to John explained the history in how these dishes
came about.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So we still have we determined why Southern cooking is
it because.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think it's more. I think Louisiana cooking is a
coastal Southern cooking is quite good.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
So if you went to Mississippi, would it be different
from the coast to Belieza not.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
The Mississippi coast would be fine. There's a lot of
really good rest but if you go to the interior,
much less once you go beyond occasion. But if you
go to Chelton, a Mobile or Savannah, the food is
quite good, okay, but it's very different. The coastal South
is very much different than the upland south Port cities
(27:48):
tend to have all of these influence and these melding
of cultures, and these people tend to adapt. There's no
two people that make the same gumbo. It's rue stock
and aaramatics and then it's anything you want to put
in it. One of the best gumbos Paul put them
used to make it called a seven steak gumbo, which
(28:11):
is the really cheapest part of beef cow. Which is
that really kind of well, throw it away, but the
bone marriage just delivers and delivers and delivers. But I mean,
you could do anything with it. You can put anything
you want it.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
But is there one ingredient that you have to have
in order to be a gumbo? It's like this, is
there something you us?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I would have shared a roue, but there's just exciting.
Your chef in New Orleans named Melissa Martin and she
has some colored mosquito show club and she really grew
up disappearing land and she makes a numbo without a
roue and it's quite good. It tastes but mostly it
(28:50):
following oil.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No butter. It's it's butter.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
When you could use the neutral of all you can
use butter, you can use canola, could do a folleyball.
You probably not a rule against it. My mother she
would you would stir it in a cast iron skillet
with a wooden spoon for twenty minutes and not. The
color is everything. And so if you you have a
dark room or you have a light room, and Paul Pudo,
(29:19):
and he's right. Paul said, you just get all really hot.
You have a flans plan and a whisk and you
just add the flower in. When it gets within ten
percent of the color, you wannt take the take the
heat off because the heat's going to give you in
a darker root is actually gonna chose a little bit
thinner gumbo, but a lighter room. And you know, people say,
(29:43):
if you do seafood, it should be I don't. I like.
I tend to go for a darker room. But it's
all in what you like. But basically it has what
we call trinity celery pepper's onions, celery pepper and what
is the pepper? Green pepper just great, but they call
it trinity because very Catholic culture. So the mirror POI
(30:06):
I think has different tagts. I think they have Most
cuisines have this basic aromatics in the stock.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Is everything well, you know, there's soups in Tuscany, like
we believe to always start with it with the sofriito
they call it. Yeah, And so you cook it down
till it becomes one herb of us. You cook the celery,
the onion, the garlic, the time, and you just cook
it down till it disappears. But it's one herb. I
always say, it's a bit like architecture. It's a foundation,
(30:38):
isn't it foundation.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
The build on. And the better chefs are building a
flavor based you know, they don't stalt all at one time.
They build it, then they don't put And the biggest
mistake people make about Louisiana cooking is they think it's spicy.
It is not. It is season. You get one thing
(31:03):
that dominates. That's not good food. I mean, you know,
I see these people putting hot pepper. Leah Chase was
a famous black restaurant sew in New Orleans and her
restaurant was a kind of focal point for civil rights.
Dookie Chase who chold him he'll run And she and
I got an honorary degree at Tulane, And she said,
(31:24):
you know, Obama came in my restaurant and he put
hot sauce in my gumbo, and it really said James
and aggravated me. He just sees took hot sauce and
put it in my gumbo. I said, well, you know,
it's chasing. You know, he's I couldn't get over that
he put hot sauce in my gumbo. Didn't tell him.
So I saw President Obama and I said, you know
(31:45):
it's President. I gotta tell you. It's Leah Chase. She's
still mad at to because she put in a gumbo.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I said that there are I think there are some
restaurants in Paris that don't put salt and pepper on
the table because they feel that they've seen and that
you know, and therefore, you know, it's like Matista doing
a painting and saying it needs a bit more red.
So I might just you know, sometimes you have a
piece of fish and it's covered in a burb block
sauce and it has a lot of you know, sauce
(32:13):
over it, and you have the spinach next to it
and this and that, and you don't taste the fish,
you know. But when you have something like this, or
you have the food that you were talking about, the
quality of the ingredient that doesn't need much. You know
it needs it needs to taste the ingredient and know
that you're and you can't get away with anything. If
you have a piece of fish that isn't very good,
(32:33):
they're going to know it right away. If you have
olive oil that isn't strong, you're going to know it
right Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's a place in Parish, Okay think and they do
the fish and they do it in like an oven,
and they bring it to you would live in and
use lemon olive ball and it's utterly delicious. I mean,
if you get it's really good fish. I mean if
you if you get a kind of bony fish, you're
not it's not going to work. But you know, like
(33:00):
my favorite fish from the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Tell me about the fish.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
The red snapper to me is the best when you
can get fresh red snapper. And there's a place in
the Orleans that that has a kind of charcoal oven
and it went and they do the whole fish and
I love that. Speckled trout. Triple tail is another really
(33:27):
good fish. Yeah. If everybody has a different words, somebody
called sea bass. Every every fish coaching or all has
sea bass. I don't know what the hell they all
have in common, sea.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Bass, black bass. Even here they call Brenzi and they
sometimes in France they call it bar and sometimes they
call it lou de mare for the sea bass. It's
different if it's in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Right, something tells me they might be different fish and
different things. And a lot of what I've come to learn,
I've done work with to lose on seafood promotion people,
and a fish sounds bad, but it's good. You got
to give it a good name. You just call it
sea bass, because well, everybody knows that mass is so
(34:13):
ill said, well, gee, that sea bass, So I'm going
to like that. I mean a lot of a lot
of seafood is nomenclature. How do you describe it? An
ice is an oyster and the muscles a muscle, and
we kind of know that, but uh, you know, a
different shrimp all over the world.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
If you had to think about your comfort food, the
food you would go to, not when you're hungry, not
when you want to impress somebody, but when you actually
need comfort, Is there a food that you would go to.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I am kind of a big fan of soups. Okay,
gumbo is I just love gombo. I've been I'm home
by but four times a week. It's not really a
comfort food, but the food that I really like and
not have yet to master's guspacho. But in the summertime,
(35:07):
you know, when you have when you you should be
able to again smell what you're eating. My comfort food
would definitely be gumbo, and but red beans and rice.
You know, beans and rice are very stable and blat
and cooking, and I'm Talian cooking.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I love.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Just what they call them Cataloni beans of the big
white beans. You give me that and a little garlic
and olive ball and a good piece of bread. How
can you beat that? What are a pot of beans
and a good bread and a good olive all you?
I call that simple and unsophisticated. I call it good.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I call it good too. Let's thank you, jas, thank
Speaker 1 (35:58):
You for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with
Montclair
You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
In August, after the Democratic National Convention, I was at
a breakfast meeting in Los Angeles when James Carville suddenly
joined our table. James is a legendary political analyst, a
spokesman for the Democratic Party, and a former campaign manager
to President Bill Clinton. The title of his new documentary
(00:26):
says it all winning is Everything stupid. James and I
might seem very different. After all, He's from Louisiana and
I'm from upstate New York. He cooks cumbo, I cook
Glagurian fish stew, but were also pretty much the same
passionate about people, passionate about food, passionate about politics. With
(00:47):
the inauguration approaching on January twentieth, there couldn't be a
better time to hear what James has to say, and
for this episode we have a special edition. Emily Maglis
and John Sopel, hosts of The news Agent's podcast, joined
us for what was a really interesting discussion.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Thank you, I'm just delighted to be here. Yeah, I
think you and I maybe born in the same homb
We certainly think a lot about a lot of things,
I think.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
So we have a lot to talk about, but before
we do, you know the drill, right, So the recipe
that just was Ligurian fish stew. Laguria is on the coast,
it's apart between Genoa and Pisa. And this came from
our first cookbook. It's pretty simple. But I thought you
might like to read that, and you can read it
anywhere you want.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And let me preface it. But I said, I think
my favorite foods in the world, or these fish based
things like you know, gumbo, bully based for sure, Belengorian
fish stew for sure, any of these kinds of things
that really capture the sea. All of it is a
(01:56):
little bit of the same. I mean, it's a little
different cooking techniques. But let's go ahead. Let's get started here.
Want three red mullet filet scaled and clean. You got
of scale and clean and it's true. Five hundred grams
of monkfish or turbo filets one point five kilograms and mussels,
twelve langue steams like a little shrip scampy one and
(02:24):
fifty millimeters of white wine. One fresh chili seated and chopped,
one point two leaders of fish stock. Yeah, okay, that's
that's the key ingredients in all of these kind of
seafood things. Twelve small new potatoes, peeled and ball, one
lead of tomato sauce and one hundred and seventy five
(02:47):
millimeters olliveball. Put muscles in a large sauce fan with
olive ball, white wine and chili coven steam over high heat.
Shaken until all shells open. WINKU remove half the muscles
from their shells and grain juices into the fish stock. Okay,
I want to make an editorial combat here. This is
important because you're adding flavor to flavor. You already major
(03:08):
fish stock. Never throw away oyster liquor or bacon grease
because anytime you get into trouble, bacon grease is gonna
save you. Now, then we bring the fishtock to a
ball and the lango sines poach. Add the fish stock.
Now when you poaching this or you're reducing a little
bit too. Reduction is a big thing when you're doing
(03:30):
things because you want to the fish track more flavor
out of it. Add the fish stock and a tomato
sauce and bring to a ball. Add the mullet, monk
fish or turbo and scallons, stirring cooked potatoes, mussels and
langosteins to make christini. Toast the bread on both sides
in rubber garlic, Place on top of the soup and serve.
(03:55):
But it's simple, but we have fresh ingredients. You want
to enhance, not overwhelm the ingredients. So if you're going
into trouble to getting fresh fish, shall fish, you want
that flavor to come through and you want to I
think what's brillian about this recipe? It accentuates the flavors
more than anything else.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Of course, we all know you as the political strategists
for you know, you won the election for President Clinton.
Did you want to go into politics yourself?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Since I was a kid, I've always loved politics. I've
never really wanted to run for office. Why not? I
don't know. I always wanted to be the man, the
man for the man, Okay I was. I said, maybe
one day I'd like Noah governor and work for I
mean then I didn't have my first electoral village victory.
(04:48):
Tell's forty two.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Your first major campaign was Clinton?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Or what did you do well? Major being described as
like statewide races. I said, I was in Louisia, My
first statewide was a Senate race in Texas. We lost.
That was in nineteen eighty four. I did a Senate
race in Virginia nineteen eighty two and we lost. So
(05:15):
I was a loser. And there was a guy I
ran for governor of Pennsylvania. He lost three times before
the three times he went to holy Cross College, and
Matt Excuse called the three times I lost from holy Cross,
and he couldn't find anybody in wanting to run his campaign,
so they ended up calling me, and I didn't have
to they had to send the money for the plane ticket.
(05:36):
Well ultimately won. Then I won a race in Kentucky
and New Jersey and Georgia, and so I became noticed
by President Clinton. So I became his chief strategist. And
then this is for the first selection, first election nineteen
(05:56):
ninety two, nineteen ninety two, and then after that I
started doing foreign consulting.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Did you go with him to the convention? Did you
know him before the convention? Yeah, so you were part
of the strategy right for him, but to get the
domination right to nominate, yeah, yeah, which was quite incredible,
wasn't it, Because he came from from Arkansas. Nobody really
knew who this person was.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Yeah, he was so unbelievably talented, and then he was
when you just look at him. Man, I was with
him a week ago. He is people. When people say
he's smart, you don't have any idea. You think you
think you're smart, You have no idea your empathetic understanding
(06:44):
explaining things.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
And what about the food. Let's go back to food.
So when you were with Clinton, he liked, he's a
food person, isn't he did he care about food or not?
Speaker 1 (06:58):
So he was so intense. So one time we were
on a campaign plane and he would do the New
York Times Crossford puzzle and he literally would never take
his fence law. And so they bought him salad and
the coffee, and I asked had to wash him, put
(07:18):
the thousand hours dress in the coffee and the cream
on the salad. And he didn't know the difference.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
But you always knew you want to be a Democrat.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yes, I was always because all related to civil rights
and race. I just thought black people were getting a
terrible deal. And I probably grew up with some element
of white guilt. Okay, we didn't obsess on it, but
I knew that I had one life and they had
(07:52):
another life, and I just thought that was kind of unfair.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Let's start at the beginning. Where were you born?
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So? I was actually born in Fort Betting, George, because
my daddy was an army during the war. I grew
up in Louisiana, which is called the River Parishes, which
is more black than the other parts of out of Louisiana.
And my grandmother was from New Orleans and my mother
was from of Alls, which is way north, and they
(08:18):
are very distinct differences in Louisiana cooking. It is not
one thing. It's like Italian cooking.
Speaker 2 (08:25):
Your father's mother was from New Orleans and.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
My mother was from Boyles Parish, which is probably one
hundred and fifty miles from New Organs. It's very far north.
Both Catholics, both French dominated, but very different cuisine. If
you think of New Orleans as being kind of Parisian
and the rest being provincially it's a good shorthand it's
(08:54):
a little different day in New Orleans. They put tomato
in the gumbo, which is heresy to my much just
couldn't believe that. I mean little things like that when you.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Were growing up, did your grandmother live near you, so
you had these two.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yes, eat paternal grandmother lived a mile exactly one point
six miles me and I would stay with her all
the time. Why is that because she spoiled me?
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Are you a grandfather?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I'm a grandfather. I have a.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Completely different relationship with our grandchildren.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Someone said, the reason that grandparents and grandchildren get along
so well they have a common enemy.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Always take the side of your grandkid, always absolutely, I said.
You know, I often say that people who come here
and talk about food, they talk sometimes more about their
grandparents cooking than their mother's cooking. They'll talk about their
grandmother's food more than their mother's, especially people who've emigrated
from other countries, they'll do that.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
How many we have brothers? Eight children? Eight? Eight? Yes, yes,
you have seven brothers and sisters. We do. We'd have
gumbo in the winter time on the sew, and she
she do this delicious a shrimp and corn soup and
the corn was fresh. And you know, we'd have that
sometimes in the summer months, but we all we came
(10:18):
home from school, we always had a pot on the sew.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Did she work?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Did she have a job, or she did she sold
in cycle. She did not, but we had too many
kids and eight children. So she sold encyclopedias and she
was quite.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Good at door to door type of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Yeah, well she would, she would prospect. So she taught
me like targeting customers and said, we want to see
two things, a bass boat in a bicycle, because that's
going to tell us that these people have children and
they have some income. And so that's how we target out.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
You would target those target out house. What's the bass boat?
Speaker 1 (10:57):
It's like a fishing boat, but you have to have
some influence and be in the yard. It would be
like on a thing, a trailer. And so she would
go in and that was like twelve or thirteen years old,
and she didn't it was you know, this was a
couple was out of coach in the late fifties and sixties,
and she started talking to the lady at the house
(11:18):
and she'd say, your son, what's the capital of her? Miners?
My pitia? To god? Oh god, he said, God, damn genius,
you know, And then she'd gone she said, what's the
capital of Oregon? Salem? Oh? My god? How hockeld anybody
be that? Some mort And then she'd say, well, what's
the capital of Finland, I'd say, hell Sinki. And he
got this knowledge by having these encyclopedias. And so the
(11:43):
lady at the house and said, well, this sounds terrific,
and let me get my husband there. And so they
inevit to be bring the husband in, and he was
kind of polite. He said, well, miss called he. I
know you've got a great product here. But you know
when school, when we're just a little short, now one,
don't you come back maybe after the first year, we'll
take another look at it. You know something, Sara, I
find something about you that's interesting. You could afford a
(12:05):
bass boat for yourself, but you can't afford educational workarios
for your children. God was done. He was signing anything.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
That you and would every night you'd sit down to
have a dinner or would everybody kind of she.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Encouraged it, but you know, with kids that she was,
I think she thought of losing battle. She thought that
people should that meals were a communal thing. And you know,
she had dementia and the only thing that they she
would remember is my sister who was or and who
(12:42):
took care of her, would say, Mama, would Grandma say
at dinner time, and she would saying aposh, which is
approached that until Grandma said approach, you couldn't approach the table,
all right, And that was that was the last thing
that I wone remember a prush. She was a pretty
(13:05):
sophisticated cook. Actually there was. She made something called crawfish
bisc sort of recipes and that I'll single it out
for you, but it's one of these dishes that it's
really hard to make alone. So she would make it
with like three of my sisters. Okay, no one should
ever shell beans alone. That's a communal thing where you
(13:27):
get together on the table and everybody's talking, you know.
Or no one should feel shrimp by themselves. That it
should be done with a cold beer and newspaper and
you feeling the shrimp. And you said, and there's certain
things in home cooking or crawfish bisk because they had
to make a stuffing and then they would like it
was very complex undertaken, very good though, but you wouldn't.
(13:52):
It's really labor intention.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
You grew up in this household, seven brothers and sisters.
Your mother was cooking for you when she wasn't selling encyclopedias,
and your father was.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
He was a postmaster, and we had a country store,
a general store, so if you wanted a tenpenny nail,
a pair of boots, a dozen eggs, slice lunch meat
or something like that with the can. So we were
to kind of central point of a rural place, and
(14:26):
you know, old guys would come and they'd sit out
and drink beer. And of course it was no I
grew up. Everything was segregated except for us because we
didn't have anything. There were no public facilities. There was
one when I was a little boy. They had a
movie theater because the ballerina and the whites had to
(14:48):
sit in the balcony. Because it was so few, they
had to be segregated. But in most places the blacks
had to sit in the balcony and the whites got
to sit in the bottom of the theater. I was
it was so overwhelmingly black, we had to sit in
the in the balcony. And that was when I was
at public clothes, when I was five or six years old. Okay,
(15:11):
it was. It didn't last, but it was a uh.
And then what really made us international is we were
the location of the most sophisticated and best place for
the treatment of Hanson's disease, which you know of his leprosy.
So that really in public health service ran as so
(15:34):
medical people from all over the world would come to Carville.
So I had this window on the wall that you
would not get anywhere else in the Royal South. And
I think that very much shape I became very much
morning to be a citizen of the world, as much
as I wanted to be anything else. I came to
(15:55):
love the whole world. It sounds kind of like the
r but it's true.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And so that journey from going from being a citizen
of this small small town to being where you are
now concluded them. When you left home and then you
went to university, did you know then that politics was
what you.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
And I wasn't. It went a very diligent, a good student,
and I did go to law school.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
And he went to the Marines.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Did you say, yeah, I got I got funked out,
honest expression on it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Where were you when Martin Luther Week?
Speaker 1 (16:36):
I was in the Marine Corps. It was in April
nineteen six.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Question is where were you when Martin Luther King was killed?
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I had a friend, sounds try to say, but the
black friend Okay, of course you were in the military.
You did. And he said, the news came off that
the king was killed. He said, man, I gotta I'm depressed.
I got to go back to the barracks. I said,
I'll cover for you or worry about it. No, forget it,
don't forget it. And in the day I got out
(17:05):
of the Marines, Bobby Kennedy was shot. So I mean
a new turmoil in the Vietnam War was or a disaster.
People think that they're living in the most turbulent times
you can imagine, Well, they are turbulent. It's terrible, But
(17:27):
I lived in turbulent time.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
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(17:50):
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shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk to place your order. Now, Hello,
(18:12):
come on in, come in.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Excuse me from not getting up, but I'm your biggest friend. Oh,
come on a terrible noise.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
For this episode, Emily mac List and John Sopel, host
of The Newsagent's podcast, joined our table.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Ruthie is like the greatest connector in the world, and
so we talked.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
About We've been to New Orleans, We've been to the Marines,
We've been through Clinton. We've been everywhere, haven't we been?
We were just we were just beginning to talk about
the movie.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
It's called Carville. Winning is everything stupid based on the economy? Stupid? Okay?
In my belief that political campaigns exist to do one thing,
and that's to win. If you don't win, you haven't
done anything. It's kind of useless.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Where can people see this? It's only films in CNN.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
It's on HBO X okay, it's we were live on
CNN twice. We've been to all of the big film fashions.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Your Success was the idea that it had to come
out after the election, so you you do it all.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Notice very interesting because we were trying to figure out
when do you release it, and then all of the
events that happened. He had to change the ending four
times because once Biden got out. I'd been He had
me on tape years before saying this guy can't run
for reelection.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
He's to Oh, people just say, are we worried about
his age? And I was one of the people who'd say,
I'd rather have that glass of water than Trump, and
you're talking about him being old. I'm just a citizen.
I didn't know the inside story. I wasn't the person,
but I thought anybody who said we're worried about Biden's
age was really a trumpest. I thought they wanted to
(20:00):
for Trump, and they just wouldn't say it until the debate.
You said, if he got out in twenty three in
the summer twenty three.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Would have one going away, the implication.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Being that it would not have been her. You think
there was somebody better.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
Than Yes, I know. Well, I hate to give names
because somebody's going to say them, going to exclude them.
Andy Bushier, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gretchen Ritt, mur Or,
fl Warnock, JB. Pritskou, Jared Polish, all these people and
I've left some out. All these people are Miss Landry.
(20:38):
Miss Landrew might be as good as communicator as Bill Clinton.
In politics, the most underrated. I think attribute is drum roll,
please charm, charm count people. White people who can charm people,
(20:58):
they just do.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Isn't there a saying, you know, never play golf with
the president, because if you're a journalist and the president
asked you to play golf, he could come away and say,
you know what, he had a sense of humor. You
know what, he's kind of charming, you know and maybe
again as a citizen, we're talking about policies. Maybe or
Richard used to say that in his office. He said,
(21:20):
if somebody was lovable, they could get away with so much,
and if they weren't, they couldn't.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, you have no people. Okay, so once you're president,
but there's some people that walk into a room, in
the room changes. Did Kamalo have that chol not overly? No,
that doesn't make you don't understand. Harris never ran for
office outside of California, Okay, so she never had to
(21:48):
walk into the lines. Yet it was a demo heavily
democratic state. So she did never to cultivate hustle audiences.
That are politicians able to do that? Could she have
won it? If Biden would have gotten out in the
summer of twenty twenty three, we would have won easily,
(22:10):
so could she have won? So Biden gets out on
July to twenty first, all right, the deal gray condition
starts on August seventeen, so she has to take his
campaign manager, his campaign staff, his campaign headquarters, and everything
(22:31):
the country. For whatever reason, I disagree with it. Wanted
something different than by She refused to be different. They
will ask her, what would you do different? She says,
I can't think of anything, so we would have definitely
wanted Joe Biden stands over this disaster like a colossus.
(22:52):
And I like him, Okay, And it's unfortunate because he's
had a really remarkable life life in political career, but
he's just going to be remembered for this for a
long time. And it's really a shame. We have not
had an inspirational candidate since twenty twelve. Most people in politics,
(23:16):
it's an emotional business. You see somebody, Hey I love
John Kennedy, Hey I love Bill Clinton, Hey I love Obama.
Hey I love Ronald Reagan. Hey I love Margaret Thatcher.
So whatever, Okay, it's very much not a rational business,
but an emotional business.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
I was going to ask you about your domestic life
when you created a home with Mary. So did you
meet at the White House?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
No, there was a story about me. She worked for
Lee Atwater, who's she was the chief of staff at
the Public Nation Committee, and Lee said go out and
date this guy. Basically, go see what you can find out.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
About the spy.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, she was shut out as a spy.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Romantic.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, no, literally that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Did you have suspicions that she was spying on you?
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Well, fourfol she's really nice looking, well dressed, and we
were spying. But an hour and a half and four
drinks later.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
That's a very cinematic thing, isn't it. Where you find
out the person that you think you love it that
it turns out that.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
She's very kind of open about it. She was spyed me.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Yeah, that's very romantic, I'd say. Yeah. So this was
when you were with Clinton in the White House. Where
is it?
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah? I started We started dating from January to first
nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So he won the election.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
In ninety two. She was head of all field operations,
the coordinator for the Bush campaign, and then in November
of nineteen ninety one, and she talked about movie and
I went to work for Clinton, so she was the
top Bush person. I was the top Clinton person, and
(25:08):
God help us we survive.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
The River Cafe Winter said Lunch is now running from
Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking on www. Rivercafe dot
co dot UK or give us a call. You've been
all over the United States and your work and your travels.
Do you think that the food of the South is
(25:38):
the only really regional food we have in America? If
you went to Vermont, you wouldn't find somebody living in
northern Vermont eating something different than southern Vermont, or western
Wisconsin from eastern Wisconsin, or even northern California from southern
But the South is so defined by where you are
and what you're eating.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
Do you agree, Well, I think that's particularly true, and
I'll tell you why I think that because New Orleans
at one time the second largest ethnic group in New
Orleans are Italians. So a lot of like gumbo oak
crow was kind of African and order, and so we
had African influences. We had Italian influences, but obviously had
(26:19):
French influences. What we call the German Coast. There's a
lot of German names in Louisiana, people just yes and
and they have.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
I've never been to Louisiana.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
From the guy that I want you to meet is
Chef John Folks, who is like a culinary historian, and
he would love to cook for you, but he's very
much into its true Louisiana cooking is comes in a
lot of places in you it's a meld of different cultures. Jambalaya,
(26:58):
you know, jambone am ya ya. Yeah. So when you
listen to John explained the history in how these dishes
came about.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
So we still have we determined why Southern cooking is
it because.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
I think it's more. I think Louisiana cooking is a
coastal Southern cooking is quite good.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
So if you went to Mississippi, would it be different
from the coast to Belieza not.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
The Mississippi coast would be fine. There's a lot of
really good rest but if you go to the interior,
much less once you go beyond occasion. But if you
go to Chelton, a Mobile or Savannah, the food is
quite good, okay, but it's very different. The coastal South
is very much different than the upland south Port cities
(27:48):
tend to have all of these influence and these melding
of cultures, and these people tend to adapt. There's no
two people that make the same gumbo. It's rue stock
and aaramatics and then it's anything you want to put
in it. One of the best gumbos Paul put them
used to make it called a seven steak gumbo, which
(28:11):
is the really cheapest part of beef cow. Which is
that really kind of well, throw it away, but the
bone marriage just delivers and delivers and delivers. But I mean,
you could do anything with it. You can put anything
you want it.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
But is there one ingredient that you have to have
in order to be a gumbo? It's like this, is
there something you us?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I would have shared a roue, but there's just exciting.
Your chef in New Orleans named Melissa Martin and she
has some colored mosquito show club and she really grew
up disappearing land and she makes a numbo without a
roue and it's quite good. It tastes but mostly it
(28:50):
following oil.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No butter. It's it's butter.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
When you could use the neutral of all you can
use butter, you can use canola, could do a folleyball.
You probably not a rule against it. My mother she
would you would stir it in a cast iron skillet
with a wooden spoon for twenty minutes and not. The
color is everything. And so if you you have a
dark room or you have a light room, and Paul Pudo,
(29:19):
and he's right. Paul said, you just get all really hot.
You have a flans plan and a whisk and you
just add the flower in. When it gets within ten
percent of the color, you wannt take the take the
heat off because the heat's going to give you in
a darker root is actually gonna chose a little bit
thinner gumbo, but a lighter room. And you know, people say,
(29:43):
if you do seafood, it should be I don't. I like.
I tend to go for a darker room. But it's
all in what you like. But basically it has what
we call trinity celery pepper's onions, celery pepper and what
is the pepper? Green pepper just great, but they call
it trinity because very Catholic culture. So the mirror POI
(30:06):
I think has different tagts. I think they have Most
cuisines have this basic aromatics in the stock.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Is everything well, you know, there's soups in Tuscany, like
we believe to always start with it with the sofriito
they call it. Yeah, And so you cook it down
till it becomes one herb of us. You cook the celery,
the onion, the garlic, the time, and you just cook
it down till it disappears. But it's one herb. I
always say, it's a bit like architecture. It's a foundation,
(30:38):
isn't it foundation.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
The build on. And the better chefs are building a
flavor based you know, they don't stalt all at one time.
They build it, then they don't put And the biggest
mistake people make about Louisiana cooking is they think it's spicy.
It is not. It is season. You get one thing
(31:03):
that dominates. That's not good food. I mean, you know,
I see these people putting hot pepper. Leah Chase was
a famous black restaurant sew in New Orleans and her
restaurant was a kind of focal point for civil rights.
Dookie Chase who chold him he'll run And she and
I got an honorary degree at Tulane, And she said,
(31:24):
you know, Obama came in my restaurant and he put
hot sauce in my gumbo, and it really said James
and aggravated me. He just sees took hot sauce and
put it in my gumbo. I said, well, you know,
it's chasing. You know, he's I couldn't get over that
he put hot sauce in my gumbo. Didn't tell him.
So I saw President Obama and I said, you know
(31:45):
it's President. I gotta tell you. It's Leah Chase. She's
still mad at to because she put in a gumbo.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I said that there are I think there are some
restaurants in Paris that don't put salt and pepper on
the table because they feel that they've seen and that
you know, and therefore, you know, it's like Matista doing
a painting and saying it needs a bit more red.
So I might just you know, sometimes you have a
piece of fish and it's covered in a burb block
sauce and it has a lot of you know, sauce
(32:13):
over it, and you have the spinach next to it
and this and that, and you don't taste the fish,
you know. But when you have something like this, or
you have the food that you were talking about, the
quality of the ingredient that doesn't need much. You know
it needs it needs to taste the ingredient and know
that you're and you can't get away with anything. If
you have a piece of fish that isn't very good,
(32:33):
they're going to know it right away. If you have
olive oil that isn't strong, you're going to know it
right Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
It's a place in Parish, Okay think and they do
the fish and they do it in like an oven,
and they bring it to you would live in and
use lemon olive ball and it's utterly delicious. I mean,
if you get it's really good fish. I mean if
you if you get a kind of bony fish, you're
not it's not going to work. But you know, like
(33:00):
my favorite fish from the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Tell me about the fish.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
The red snapper to me is the best when you
can get fresh red snapper. And there's a place in
the Orleans that that has a kind of charcoal oven
and it went and they do the whole fish and
I love that. Speckled trout. Triple tail is another really
(33:27):
good fish. Yeah. If everybody has a different words, somebody
called sea bass. Every every fish coaching or all has
sea bass. I don't know what the hell they all
have in common, sea.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Bass, black bass. Even here they call Brenzi and they
sometimes in France they call it bar and sometimes they
call it lou de mare for the sea bass. It's
different if it's in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
Right, something tells me they might be different fish and
different things. And a lot of what I've come to learn,
I've done work with to lose on seafood promotion people,
and a fish sounds bad, but it's good. You got
to give it a good name. You just call it
sea bass, because well, everybody knows that mass is so
(34:13):
ill said, well, gee, that sea bass, So I'm going
to like that. I mean a lot of a lot
of seafood is nomenclature. How do you describe it? An
ice is an oyster and the muscles a muscle, and
we kind of know that, but uh, you know, a
different shrimp all over the world.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
If you had to think about your comfort food, the
food you would go to, not when you're hungry, not
when you want to impress somebody, but when you actually
need comfort, Is there a food that you would go to.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
I am kind of a big fan of soups. Okay,
gumbo is I just love gombo. I've been I'm home
by but four times a week. It's not really a
comfort food, but the food that I really like and
not have yet to master's guspacho. But in the summertime,
(35:07):
you know, when you have when you you should be
able to again smell what you're eating. My comfort food
would definitely be gumbo, and but red beans and rice.
You know, beans and rice are very stable and blat
and cooking, and I'm Talian cooking.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
I love.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
Just what they call them Cataloni beans of the big
white beans. You give me that and a little garlic
and olive ball and a good piece of bread. How
can you beat that? What are a pot of beans
and a good bread and a good olive all you?
I call that simple and unsophisticated. I call it good.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
I call it good too. Let's thank you, jas, thank
Speaker 1 (35:58):
You for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with
Montclair
Host
Ruth Rogers
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