January 18, 2022 • 21 mins
Social entrepreneur and family cook Roo Rogers had no ordinary childhood, but then his mother, Ruthie Rogers, was no ordinary mother.
In episode 18 of Ruthie's Table 4, Ruthie talks with her son about his memories of growing up in Paris, visiting food markets and the quest to find the perfect restaurant.
Together they discuss Roo’s memories of working summers in the River Cafe and what he has learnt there. Together, Ruthie and Roo recall their culinary travels around the world cooking at home and the politics of food equality.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie's Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Okay, all right, let's
go today. Okay, Today, as we sit here in the
(00:24):
River Cafe on a busy Monday lunch, I'm joined by
someone I know rather well, my son Rue Rogers. You
were born in Paris, and so would you say your
earliest memories are of living in Paris. I think my
earliest memories are eating food in Paris, and my earliest
(00:47):
memories are of walking into restaurants, and uh, I remember
going into Benoir and sort of having stories about how
the Pompadu Center was designed there. From the earliest stages,
I think I learned quite quickly only a passion and
love for food, but that you booked the restaurant first,
and you found the restaurant first, and then you figured
out who you were going to invite and what you
were going to talk about. And so I always sort
(01:10):
of felt as though growing up that like it really
was an exploration, not a convenience or a necessity, but
an exploration. And so do you think more of your
members of Paris of eating out rather than home cooking.
I think I still think to this day that like
really great French markets, you know, and I actually probably
remember better walking through the French market, uh, you know,
(01:33):
on Boulevard a Spy with you and Dad, And I
remember Richard dad buying a chicken, a roast chicken, and
they put it in those sort of silver foil bags
and there were no knives and forks, and he would
just literally kept his hand in there and we were
just the three of us were just we were just
eating chunks of chicken as you pulled it off, and
it was the most delicious thing. And then when we
(01:54):
need a dessert, you bought some raspberries and we just
took the rospberays out of the cotton. That was like
back then, and it was beautiful, and I remember it
very well. Do you still go to markets and and
shop and eat that way? Everyone asked me how I
know how to cook? And I don't think I know
how to cook. I know how to shop, and I
think it's two totally different things. If you love food,
(02:15):
you have to love the ingredients, and you never go
out shopping for what you want to make. You let
the shopping define what you're going to make. And that
was the biggest lesson I ever got growing up about
food was it's all about the quality of the ingredients.
I think having a plate of amazingly right tomatoes is
(02:35):
as hard to cook as a real ship, because you
have to know whether those tomatoes are going to be good,
and you have to know how to let those flavors
come out. And so it's not about the complexity of
the recipe. It's about understanding ingredients. Yeah. Also that is
very to do with seasonal food. You say hello to
a vegetable that has just arrived, and at the same
time you're saying goodbye. You know too. I remember in Paris,
(02:58):
remarked too, when Ellen's came in. We always knew that
they were going to come, and then you know, Fennel
would go. Do you remember. I remember living in London
and how you would come back from Paris if I
hadn't been able to join you on your visit with
tons of food from the market. I mean asparagus. I
remember white asparagus coming to London. I don't think we've
(03:19):
ever seen it in the UK, Like you couldn't get
white express, you'd come back with white spargus or chef
that was just seasonal and just being completed. But I
just have this image of you coming back on a
plane back then, right, No, no trains, no boats, like
you would fly back with bags fill but you brought
back just from the market. It's not very popular on
(03:39):
the plane with smelly cheese Rose. And you know, the
story about Rose Gray was that she once reserved a
seat for you know, pumpkin and put it in the
club and she sat in economy. You know. Actually, as
I'm just mentioning Rose, do you have memories of Rose
cooking with Rose? Yeah, well I worked at the River
Cafe when I was I think seven teen and eighteen. Ah,
(04:01):
And so working for your mother and her partner and
her best friend is an interesting experience for your first job,
somewhat terrifying and fast learning. And what's interesting was, you know,
Rose was very exacting and very demanding in what we
had to do and how we made it and how
we delivered it, but very very charming as well, and
(04:22):
and so wanted you to live up to being the
best server, best eater you could be. She was curious
about food. And if Rose was an influence, going back
to to Richard taking the chicken out of of the
bag with his fingers in the market. Do you think
Richard was an influence in your food life your father? Yeah.
I mean I think in a way, we all love
(04:46):
food because Richard was a great eater. And I do
really think that being a great eater is a really
fundamental skill. It can be very frustrating, great because everything
is being analyzed all the time, but it is a
very beautiful thing because you're constantly searching for that new
taste and that new experience and anything else is is
(05:09):
not exciting for that. I mean, I remember the Michelin
Guide with yellow post it notes and written notes, and
I mean like obsession and then like going into bookstores
and saying, we found this restaurant, but we haven't been
do you recommend it? Like the amount of diligence we
did just to have lunch because Dad wanted a great
(05:29):
meal and you wanted to make that possible, but you
you know, and we did it. And so I think
a lot of that absor you know, curiosity and food
cooking and food quality comes from Dad's real keenness and
passion for eating. Actually, it's interesting you said that, because
I do remember that we used to he had this theory.
I don't know where it came from that. If you
wanted to find a good restaurant, you always asked a
(05:51):
bookstore that there was a people who loved books would
probably know where to eat. Do you remember when Richard
went skiing with Bow my brother, and they bought asparagus
and they had to figure out how to cook it right?
And Dad looked at it from an engineering architectural point
of view, and he decided that the top of the
(06:11):
sparagus would narrow and the bottom of the asparagus were wider.
So he cut them up into pieces because the bottom,
the wider pieces, would need more time in the water
than the top pieces. Right and sort of right, you know,
that's how you steam asparagus standing up, That's right. So
that was that Dad took a very sort of like
(06:31):
you know, pragmatic point of view on cooking. This is
probably a question like I only can ask you on
the series, but tell me about cooking with your brothers,
cooking with them, are you trying to preserve our relationship?
You could tell me, because yeah, Ben, Zad and Ape
(06:52):
are all amazing cooks and very very different. Ben is
very precise and very responsible in terms of the planet
and what he's cooking and how much of it he's cooking,
but it always tastes perfect. My only like my standing
(07:13):
image probably of like not just this person, but my
entire lifetime of food was going to stay at Zad's
house and him hanging over a duck with a hair
dryer and drying duck for Christmas. An Abe is an
explorer and you never quite know what he's going to eat.
I do not like surf and tough and meat and
(07:35):
fish together seemed wrong to me. But when I go
to Abe's house, not only am I going to have
scallops with blood sausage, but it's going to be delicious. Um.
So he is always the king of surprise. And so
my brothers are all very different in the way that
they cook for all wonderful experience as well. What about
(07:59):
the American influence, because you you know, I'm American and
every summer, I think your first flight to the United
States is when you were four, So you know what
were those summers, like, what did you eat? What? What
was the American influence as a child, and then we
can talk about later about as an adult. Well, I
think that in general there were four things that I
(08:22):
can remember that we really loved eating in America. It
went hotpstraw me sandwich corner and a cob steak and lobster,
and I think there were muscles that we used to
pick up the beach. But unfortunately the global warming, those
muscles have gone smaller and that's not possible. But we
used to love those things again because there's such strong taste,
Like the lobster would come out of the sea and
(08:43):
you would just boil it and you would eat it.
And the steak, I mean, was just we didn't have
anything like it. Um. And then you know, going to
the Carnegie Deli and having a hot straw me sandwich
with strong mustard was delicious. Um. I think that, you know,
the real American influence was not in food though. I
think the real influence was in new mom and bringing
over the idea that food could be used in a
(09:06):
sort of to make you feel at home, right that like,
if food comes to the table, you will instinctually want
to serve it to other people, even if it's not
your house, Ruthie, you will want to help and serve others.
And there's notion that foods could come with such incredible
generosity and warmth was something that definitely came from your inference.
(09:27):
And what I think makes the River Cafe and what
you do so extraordinay is that you only say yes
and yes. It's such a nice word. It's a beautiful word,
even when you might not be able to carry through it. Yes,
it's still a nice place to start. It's a beautiful answer.
So rude, he went to university in New York, You
(09:48):
went to Colombia. What was it like being a student
in terms of food? Well, I think the most important
thing I learned as a student at university was the
value of a slice of pizza, because we lived on pizza,
and it's delicious. New York pizza is delicious. It's a
very different thing. It can be a snack, can me.
Meal has to be eating the right way. The first
(10:08):
time I ate a slice of pizza, I didn't fold
it and I kept it angled down and it dripped
grease all over my clothes. So I remember very much
so culturally having to get used to the notion of
fast food, but also good food. And I would cook
for people all the time, and I love that. And again,
I learned about New York ingredients, and I learned about
where to buy what and it was you know, it
(10:30):
was really exciting. Do you remember what you would cook
for those jenners with your friends? Um? So the thing
that I the way I made friends as a child
was that we would have parties and then when everybody
got a little bit too drunk, I would make pasta
with tomato sauce. Right. And so that was a very
useful thing that I learned very early on was that
it was very good to have something that you can
make quickly and easily, uh and would probably help soak
(10:52):
up some of the alcohol and everybody's system. That has
continued to with me ever since. Now. I serve it
to my kids, and it is always something you can
get going very very quickly. But I would cook when
I was in in college whatever was first. My favorite
meal was muscles and spicy tomato sauce. So i'd buy
muscles and I combine that with a tomato sauce. Um.
(11:14):
And the other thing I really love about New York,
which I experienced a lot of when I went to college,
is you never self conscious eating on your own right.
People are always stopping and eating and eating by themselves.
And that's something very very nice, you know, you see
people with a book in a dinner reading, that's that's
a really beautiful thing today. Do you take your children
to restaurants? Do you work in restaurants? How do you
(11:36):
feel about going into a restaurant? What do you look for?
That's a multiple question questions Ever since Jeff Goldblum told
you I could ask a multiple questions. I have always
used restaurants this public space, and I like to move.
I need to be around other people when I think,
(11:56):
and there's nowhere better to be around other people and
surprise by people than restaurants. It's about a certain level
of discomfort because what you're really doing is you're putting
yourself in somebody else's hands in a restaurant that you
don't know whether they're going to cook something the way
you want it cooked, or whether it should be good,
with people that you've never met before, seen before, and
(12:18):
not knowing what conversations you might have, and you're taking
a risk, right, and in that risk comes really beautiful
things when it really pays off, when you've really had
a meal that surprises you, right, that that's sort of
like unexpected serendipity, right, which you could never get from
delivery You're never going to get serendipity when something is
delivered to your home. Right, you get serendipity when you
(12:40):
take a walk down an alley and you find a
restaurant and you just walk in and one time out
of ten it will just turn out to be amazing.
And when you discover that in that risk, you found
something that's truly creative and truly rewarding. And that's what
I'm always looking for. Do you have a memory of
food in terms of relationship or impressing someone? I fell
(13:02):
in love with my wife of a doversoul. We were
at Jus restaurant and we had only just met properly,
and I ordered a dover soul and as it came
um fully on the bone, she and I were talking,
and without taking a break, I fill aid the fish
and ate it, and little to my knowledge that somehow
(13:25):
really impressed her. And she found that sort of creative
skill with my knife and fork and the vowing that
she George Dobsol extremely sexy and Allurian, and a year
later we were married. You've actually lived in many places,
(13:53):
and right now you're living in Africa. How does that
influence your food? I mean every where I traveled, I
obsessively look out for the most local restaurants. So we
don't have Michelin guides anymore, but we have the web,
and we also have friends and ways to make friends.
And I look for the most authentic food there is.
(14:15):
When I went to Ethiopia a couple of years ago,
you know, my Adds taxi driver who's picked me up
in the airport, stayed with me for three days, and
the best meals I had were in his family home. Uh,
and they were extraordinary. Um. And then forget that, what
would they like? My My favorite actually was was when
we he took me to the market and it's the
(14:35):
meat market in Addis at the bar and there are
just enormous carcasses of meat hanging from the top, um
and people shooting flies away from them. And you walk
in and he says, we're going to eat here. So
I said, okay, just choose your meat. And so I
choose a couple of cuts of meat. I even choose
some sweetbreads to be adventurous. Uh. And I go terrific
(14:58):
and they cut it. When they take it away, we
go sit down in the back and it comes back
and literally ninety seconds later, like God, they cook it
quick here and it was raw, and they serve all
those meats raw with a spicy chili sauce or nut
sauce and a really amazing Ethiopian coffee. And I was
there with everyone and we ate it and it was amazing.
(15:20):
And you're working in South Africa. What is the food
like in Johannesburg. The food that I've had in South
Africa is the truly South African food is delicious. They
have extraordinary meat in South Africa. The steak is exceptional.
A lot of stews and uh and so love meats
cooked into maato sauce which is amazing. Um, and some
(15:41):
basic grains like equivalent of polenta as well. So you
talk about being very adventurous with your food, eating raw
sweetbreads and Ethiopia and traveling to you know, all over
the world in Nepal and eating this food, But do
do cook that at home? I don't know the ingredients
well enough and I don't know where to go shopping
(16:03):
for them, and therefore I would rather eat out um
and have somebody who does know them and knows how
to cook them. So at home we we eat pretty
western sole food. My wife Bernie, though, who is Chinese American,
makes the most amazing Chinese and Asian food as well
as Indian food as well. What does she make? She
(16:23):
makes incredible dumplings, um and one tons, which we all
love and cherish. I mean, what's interesting is that there
is very few things in Western food that is completely original, right,
and so we all get influenced by everyone else. So
an amazing oneton is actually like an amazing ravioli, or
she would correct me and say, an amazing ravioli is
(16:46):
like an amazing oneton since China has existed and been
cooking this food for quite a long a lot longer,
which is to say, it's really based about the quality
of the pasta or the rapper as they say, and
how light it is and how thin that is and
how how like can you get it? Uh, and keeping
the sort of fitting as simple as possible, and if
the chibes are good, it makes the one time. And
(17:07):
so again you're very dependent on fresh quality ingredients. You've
worked in NGOs, You've written a book, What's Mine is Yours,
about sustainability and sharing and consumers society. You've traveled to
Afghanistan and Nepal working with people of different cultures. Do
(17:29):
you feel that the that the politics of food is
something that interests you. I'm less interested in the politics
of food at the micro level, which is not to
say I don't think it's important, but like the idea
of the organic movement and such, is less important to me.
At the macro level, which is around food security. I'm
(17:49):
very interested in that. We talk a lot about overpopulation
um but what we, in my opinion, should really be
talking about is food security. There is more than enough
resources in the world to feed more people on this planet,
but we choose politically not to feed those people. We
choose to not send grain to places that it's needed.
(18:11):
We choose to have cows and dairy where we don't
need more milk. Right. We choose not to provide loans
to small holder farmers in Africa and India, and so
we make choices every day around food security and providing
food security to billions of people. Right that have nothing
to do with whether we actually have the ability as
a planet to sustain as resources we could, and I
(18:32):
passionately believe us feed everybody in a healthy, equitable way
that is good for the planet. Should we choose to
It's a choice. Is we the worst? Is we developed nations?
Who is when you say we could feed the planet?
Who is the we? I mean, food security is really
an issue that's defined by Western powers and Western governments.
(18:54):
And if we wanted to again and remove some subsidies
and read this stribute food, we could solve food security forever. Right, Um.
I think looking at innovation to solve this problem is
a really interesting question, um. And I think if you
look at things like impossible meats, it's very exciting. I mean,
(19:15):
the transformation to our ecosystem by removing hamburger meat or
beef from McDonald's would be huge, right, I mean that
would just just change the world. But again, while as
much as I like the idea of innovation and I
believe in it, it is people, not technology that need
(19:36):
to make changes, and those people are leaders and governments,
and it starts at you know, as much as I
believe in you know, becoming a vegetarian, you know, talk
to talk, walk to walk, I really believe that if
political leaders came together and made hard choices and decisions
in a collective way, we could solve most of problems
as well as innovation, several Um, You've talked about comfort
(20:01):
and food, the comfort of food at home, the discomfort
of experienced food often in the restaurant, the comfort of
food of cooking for your children. You use that word
very often in describing what you love about food and
what you look for in food. And I was wondering,
as I've asked everyone, if you needed comfort from food,
(20:26):
not the taste or the excitement or the adventure, what
would be your comfort food. Well, I am very very
privileged because it's not a question of what do I eat,
it's a question of where do I go. And I
go home to see my mom and anything she cooks,
you're so happy. It's really nice. If you remember the mission.
(20:56):
Do you remember the mission of book m to visit
the online shop of the River Cafe. Go to shop
the River Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe Table
four is a production of I Heart Radio and Adam
(21:18):
I Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Okay, all right, let's
go today. Okay, Today, as we sit here in the
(00:24):
River Cafe on a busy Monday lunch, I'm joined by
someone I know rather well, my son Rue Rogers. You
were born in Paris, and so would you say your
earliest memories are of living in Paris. I think my
earliest memories are eating food in Paris, and my earliest
(00:47):
memories are of walking into restaurants, and uh, I remember
going into Benoir and sort of having stories about how
the Pompadu Center was designed there. From the earliest stages,
I think I learned quite quickly only a passion and
love for food, but that you booked the restaurant first,
and you found the restaurant first, and then you figured
out who you were going to invite and what you
were going to talk about. And so I always sort
(01:10):
of felt as though growing up that like it really
was an exploration, not a convenience or a necessity, but
an exploration. And so do you think more of your
members of Paris of eating out rather than home cooking.
I think I still think to this day that like
really great French markets, you know, and I actually probably
remember better walking through the French market, uh, you know,
(01:33):
on Boulevard a Spy with you and Dad, And I
remember Richard dad buying a chicken, a roast chicken, and
they put it in those sort of silver foil bags
and there were no knives and forks, and he would
just literally kept his hand in there and we were
just the three of us were just we were just
eating chunks of chicken as you pulled it off, and
it was the most delicious thing. And then when we
(01:54):
need a dessert, you bought some raspberries and we just
took the rospberays out of the cotton. That was like
back then, and it was beautiful, and I remember it
very well. Do you still go to markets and and
shop and eat that way? Everyone asked me how I
know how to cook? And I don't think I know
how to cook. I know how to shop, and I
think it's two totally different things. If you love food,
(02:15):
you have to love the ingredients, and you never go
out shopping for what you want to make. You let
the shopping define what you're going to make. And that
was the biggest lesson I ever got growing up about
food was it's all about the quality of the ingredients.
I think having a plate of amazingly right tomatoes is
(02:35):
as hard to cook as a real ship, because you
have to know whether those tomatoes are going to be good,
and you have to know how to let those flavors
come out. And so it's not about the complexity of
the recipe. It's about understanding ingredients. Yeah. Also that is
very to do with seasonal food. You say hello to
a vegetable that has just arrived, and at the same
time you're saying goodbye. You know too. I remember in Paris,
(02:58):
remarked too, when Ellen's came in. We always knew that
they were going to come, and then you know, Fennel
would go. Do you remember. I remember living in London
and how you would come back from Paris if I
hadn't been able to join you on your visit with
tons of food from the market. I mean asparagus. I
remember white asparagus coming to London. I don't think we've
(03:19):
ever seen it in the UK, Like you couldn't get
white express, you'd come back with white spargus or chef
that was just seasonal and just being completed. But I
just have this image of you coming back on a
plane back then, right, No, no trains, no boats, like
you would fly back with bags fill but you brought
back just from the market. It's not very popular on
(03:39):
the plane with smelly cheese Rose. And you know, the
story about Rose Gray was that she once reserved a
seat for you know, pumpkin and put it in the
club and she sat in economy. You know. Actually, as
I'm just mentioning Rose, do you have memories of Rose
cooking with Rose? Yeah, well I worked at the River
Cafe when I was I think seven teen and eighteen. Ah,
(04:01):
And so working for your mother and her partner and
her best friend is an interesting experience for your first job,
somewhat terrifying and fast learning. And what's interesting was, you know,
Rose was very exacting and very demanding in what we
had to do and how we made it and how
we delivered it, but very very charming as well, and
(04:22):
and so wanted you to live up to being the
best server, best eater you could be. She was curious
about food. And if Rose was an influence, going back
to to Richard taking the chicken out of of the
bag with his fingers in the market. Do you think
Richard was an influence in your food life your father? Yeah.
I mean I think in a way, we all love
(04:46):
food because Richard was a great eater. And I do
really think that being a great eater is a really
fundamental skill. It can be very frustrating, great because everything
is being analyzed all the time, but it is a
very beautiful thing because you're constantly searching for that new
taste and that new experience and anything else is is
(05:09):
not exciting for that. I mean, I remember the Michelin
Guide with yellow post it notes and written notes, and
I mean like obsession and then like going into bookstores
and saying, we found this restaurant, but we haven't been
do you recommend it? Like the amount of diligence we
did just to have lunch because Dad wanted a great
(05:29):
meal and you wanted to make that possible, but you
you know, and we did it. And so I think
a lot of that absor you know, curiosity and food
cooking and food quality comes from Dad's real keenness and
passion for eating. Actually, it's interesting you said that, because
I do remember that we used to he had this theory.
I don't know where it came from that. If you
wanted to find a good restaurant, you always asked a
(05:51):
bookstore that there was a people who loved books would
probably know where to eat. Do you remember when Richard
went skiing with Bow my brother, and they bought asparagus
and they had to figure out how to cook it right?
And Dad looked at it from an engineering architectural point
of view, and he decided that the top of the
(06:11):
sparagus would narrow and the bottom of the asparagus were wider.
So he cut them up into pieces because the bottom,
the wider pieces, would need more time in the water
than the top pieces. Right and sort of right, you know,
that's how you steam asparagus standing up, That's right. So
that was that Dad took a very sort of like
(06:31):
you know, pragmatic point of view on cooking. This is
probably a question like I only can ask you on
the series, but tell me about cooking with your brothers,
cooking with them, are you trying to preserve our relationship?
You could tell me, because yeah, Ben, Zad and Ape
(06:52):
are all amazing cooks and very very different. Ben is
very precise and very responsible in terms of the planet
and what he's cooking and how much of it he's cooking,
but it always tastes perfect. My only like my standing
(07:13):
image probably of like not just this person, but my
entire lifetime of food was going to stay at Zad's
house and him hanging over a duck with a hair
dryer and drying duck for Christmas. An Abe is an
explorer and you never quite know what he's going to eat.
I do not like surf and tough and meat and
(07:35):
fish together seemed wrong to me. But when I go
to Abe's house, not only am I going to have
scallops with blood sausage, but it's going to be delicious. Um.
So he is always the king of surprise. And so
my brothers are all very different in the way that
they cook for all wonderful experience as well. What about
(07:59):
the American influence, because you you know, I'm American and
every summer, I think your first flight to the United
States is when you were four, So you know what
were those summers, like, what did you eat? What? What
was the American influence as a child, and then we
can talk about later about as an adult. Well, I
think that in general there were four things that I
(08:22):
can remember that we really loved eating in America. It
went hotpstraw me sandwich corner and a cob steak and lobster,
and I think there were muscles that we used to
pick up the beach. But unfortunately the global warming, those
muscles have gone smaller and that's not possible. But we
used to love those things again because there's such strong taste,
Like the lobster would come out of the sea and
(08:43):
you would just boil it and you would eat it.
And the steak, I mean, was just we didn't have
anything like it. Um. And then you know, going to
the Carnegie Deli and having a hot straw me sandwich
with strong mustard was delicious. Um. I think that, you know,
the real American influence was not in food though. I
think the real influence was in new mom and bringing
over the idea that food could be used in a
(09:06):
sort of to make you feel at home, right that like,
if food comes to the table, you will instinctually want
to serve it to other people, even if it's not
your house, Ruthie, you will want to help and serve others.
And there's notion that foods could come with such incredible
generosity and warmth was something that definitely came from your inference.
(09:27):
And what I think makes the River Cafe and what
you do so extraordinay is that you only say yes
and yes. It's such a nice word. It's a beautiful word,
even when you might not be able to carry through it. Yes,
it's still a nice place to start. It's a beautiful answer.
So rude, he went to university in New York, You
(09:48):
went to Colombia. What was it like being a student
in terms of food? Well, I think the most important
thing I learned as a student at university was the
value of a slice of pizza, because we lived on pizza,
and it's delicious. New York pizza is delicious. It's a
very different thing. It can be a snack, can me.
Meal has to be eating the right way. The first
(10:08):
time I ate a slice of pizza, I didn't fold
it and I kept it angled down and it dripped
grease all over my clothes. So I remember very much
so culturally having to get used to the notion of
fast food, but also good food. And I would cook
for people all the time, and I love that. And again,
I learned about New York ingredients, and I learned about
where to buy what and it was you know, it
(10:30):
was really exciting. Do you remember what you would cook
for those jenners with your friends? Um? So the thing
that I the way I made friends as a child
was that we would have parties and then when everybody
got a little bit too drunk, I would make pasta
with tomato sauce. Right. And so that was a very
useful thing that I learned very early on was that
it was very good to have something that you can
make quickly and easily, uh and would probably help soak
(10:52):
up some of the alcohol and everybody's system. That has
continued to with me ever since. Now. I serve it
to my kids, and it is always something you can
get going very very quickly. But I would cook when
I was in in college whatever was first. My favorite
meal was muscles and spicy tomato sauce. So i'd buy
muscles and I combine that with a tomato sauce. Um.
(11:14):
And the other thing I really love about New York,
which I experienced a lot of when I went to college,
is you never self conscious eating on your own right.
People are always stopping and eating and eating by themselves.
And that's something very very nice, you know, you see
people with a book in a dinner reading, that's that's
a really beautiful thing today. Do you take your children
to restaurants? Do you work in restaurants? How do you
(11:36):
feel about going into a restaurant? What do you look for?
That's a multiple question questions Ever since Jeff Goldblum told
you I could ask a multiple questions. I have always
used restaurants this public space, and I like to move.
I need to be around other people when I think,
(11:56):
and there's nowhere better to be around other people and
surprise by people than restaurants. It's about a certain level
of discomfort because what you're really doing is you're putting
yourself in somebody else's hands in a restaurant that you
don't know whether they're going to cook something the way
you want it cooked, or whether it should be good,
with people that you've never met before, seen before, and
(12:18):
not knowing what conversations you might have, and you're taking
a risk, right, and in that risk comes really beautiful
things when it really pays off, when you've really had
a meal that surprises you, right, that that's sort of
like unexpected serendipity, right, which you could never get from
delivery You're never going to get serendipity when something is
delivered to your home. Right, you get serendipity when you
(12:40):
take a walk down an alley and you find a
restaurant and you just walk in and one time out
of ten it will just turn out to be amazing.
And when you discover that in that risk, you found
something that's truly creative and truly rewarding. And that's what
I'm always looking for. Do you have a memory of
food in terms of relationship or impressing someone? I fell
(13:02):
in love with my wife of a doversoul. We were
at Jus restaurant and we had only just met properly,
and I ordered a dover soul and as it came
um fully on the bone, she and I were talking,
and without taking a break, I fill aid the fish
and ate it, and little to my knowledge that somehow
(13:25):
really impressed her. And she found that sort of creative
skill with my knife and fork and the vowing that
she George Dobsol extremely sexy and Allurian, and a year
later we were married. You've actually lived in many places,
(13:53):
and right now you're living in Africa. How does that
influence your food? I mean every where I traveled, I
obsessively look out for the most local restaurants. So we
don't have Michelin guides anymore, but we have the web,
and we also have friends and ways to make friends.
And I look for the most authentic food there is.
(14:15):
When I went to Ethiopia a couple of years ago,
you know, my Adds taxi driver who's picked me up
in the airport, stayed with me for three days, and
the best meals I had were in his family home. Uh,
and they were extraordinary. Um. And then forget that, what
would they like? My My favorite actually was was when
we he took me to the market and it's the
(14:35):
meat market in Addis at the bar and there are
just enormous carcasses of meat hanging from the top, um
and people shooting flies away from them. And you walk
in and he says, we're going to eat here. So
I said, okay, just choose your meat. And so I
choose a couple of cuts of meat. I even choose
some sweetbreads to be adventurous. Uh. And I go terrific
(14:58):
and they cut it. When they take it away, we
go sit down in the back and it comes back
and literally ninety seconds later, like God, they cook it
quick here and it was raw, and they serve all
those meats raw with a spicy chili sauce or nut
sauce and a really amazing Ethiopian coffee. And I was
there with everyone and we ate it and it was amazing.
(15:20):
And you're working in South Africa. What is the food
like in Johannesburg. The food that I've had in South
Africa is the truly South African food is delicious. They
have extraordinary meat in South Africa. The steak is exceptional.
A lot of stews and uh and so love meats
cooked into maato sauce which is amazing. Um, and some
(15:41):
basic grains like equivalent of polenta as well. So you
talk about being very adventurous with your food, eating raw
sweetbreads and Ethiopia and traveling to you know, all over
the world in Nepal and eating this food, But do
do cook that at home? I don't know the ingredients
well enough and I don't know where to go shopping
(16:03):
for them, and therefore I would rather eat out um
and have somebody who does know them and knows how
to cook them. So at home we we eat pretty
western sole food. My wife Bernie, though, who is Chinese American,
makes the most amazing Chinese and Asian food as well
as Indian food as well. What does she make? She
(16:23):
makes incredible dumplings, um and one tons, which we all
love and cherish. I mean, what's interesting is that there
is very few things in Western food that is completely original, right,
and so we all get influenced by everyone else. So
an amazing oneton is actually like an amazing ravioli, or
she would correct me and say, an amazing ravioli is
(16:46):
like an amazing oneton since China has existed and been
cooking this food for quite a long a lot longer,
which is to say, it's really based about the quality
of the pasta or the rapper as they say, and
how light it is and how thin that is and
how how like can you get it? Uh, and keeping
the sort of fitting as simple as possible, and if
the chibes are good, it makes the one time. And
(17:07):
so again you're very dependent on fresh quality ingredients. You've
worked in NGOs, You've written a book, What's Mine is Yours,
about sustainability and sharing and consumers society. You've traveled to
Afghanistan and Nepal working with people of different cultures. Do
(17:29):
you feel that the that the politics of food is
something that interests you. I'm less interested in the politics
of food at the micro level, which is not to
say I don't think it's important, but like the idea
of the organic movement and such, is less important to me.
At the macro level, which is around food security. I'm
(17:49):
very interested in that. We talk a lot about overpopulation
um but what we, in my opinion, should really be
talking about is food security. There is more than enough
resources in the world to feed more people on this planet,
but we choose politically not to feed those people. We
choose to not send grain to places that it's needed.
(18:11):
We choose to have cows and dairy where we don't
need more milk. Right. We choose not to provide loans
to small holder farmers in Africa and India, and so
we make choices every day around food security and providing
food security to billions of people. Right that have nothing
to do with whether we actually have the ability as
a planet to sustain as resources we could, and I
(18:32):
passionately believe us feed everybody in a healthy, equitable way
that is good for the planet. Should we choose to
It's a choice. Is we the worst? Is we developed nations?
Who is when you say we could feed the planet?
Who is the we? I mean, food security is really
an issue that's defined by Western powers and Western governments.
(18:54):
And if we wanted to again and remove some subsidies
and read this stribute food, we could solve food security forever. Right, Um.
I think looking at innovation to solve this problem is
a really interesting question, um. And I think if you
look at things like impossible meats, it's very exciting. I mean,
(19:15):
the transformation to our ecosystem by removing hamburger meat or
beef from McDonald's would be huge, right, I mean that
would just just change the world. But again, while as
much as I like the idea of innovation and I
believe in it, it is people, not technology that need
(19:36):
to make changes, and those people are leaders and governments,
and it starts at you know, as much as I
believe in you know, becoming a vegetarian, you know, talk
to talk, walk to walk, I really believe that if
political leaders came together and made hard choices and decisions
in a collective way, we could solve most of problems
as well as innovation, several Um, You've talked about comfort
(20:01):
and food, the comfort of food at home, the discomfort
of experienced food often in the restaurant, the comfort of
food of cooking for your children. You use that word
very often in describing what you love about food and
what you look for in food. And I was wondering,
as I've asked everyone, if you needed comfort from food,
(20:26):
not the taste or the excitement or the adventure, what
would be your comfort food. Well, I am very very
privileged because it's not a question of what do I eat,
it's a question of where do I go. And I
go home to see my mom and anything she cooks,
you're so happy. It's really nice. If you remember the mission.
(20:56):
Do you remember the mission of book m to visit
the online shop of the River Cafe. Go to shop
the River Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe Table
four is a production of I Heart Radio and Adam
(21:18):
I Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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