November 30, 2021 • 26 mins
This week on Ruthie's Table 4, Ruthie Rogers sits down with the forty fifth Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, to discuss State Dinners at The Elysee Palace, working lunches in the White House, sustainable farming, his Southern Barbecues and more.
And should you want to know how to make the Tuscan soup, Pappa al Pomodoro, the Vice President will read you the recipe.
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. I remember vividly going
to the El Say Palace. Fantastic meal. I've had many
such meals, especially when I was Vice president, Formal banquets
in China and the Great Hall of the People. I
(00:22):
don't think I've had an Italian state dinner. I wish
I had Vice president for I really please that you're here,
and that you're in Tennessee and I'm in London. We're
going to find a connection. I don't. I've been pretty
(00:44):
much a vegan for eight years now. I occasionally supplement
it with some sustainable seafood. But yes, I don't consider
myself a great cook Ruthie by any stretch of the imagination.
But during the pandemic, make like a lot of people,
I picked up a few new skills just because the
(01:05):
chance to go out to restaurants was foreclosed, and I'm
surrounded by a lot of fresh food here at the farm.
So yeah, I I've done my best. And do your children,
Yes they do. They're all good cooks, uh, including my son,
my youngest, who learned cooking from his grandmother. My mother.
(01:28):
I remember when he was quite young, she taught him
how to make bread. She had her own bread recipe
that was just absolutely delicious, coming hot straight out of
the oven. And he loved it so much that he
got her to teach him how to how to make it.
But yes, all the others do as well. I would
say they're good cooks, are they. Are they vegans? Well,
(01:50):
no they're not, but they've cut back on red meat
for sure. You've chosen, and we've chosen together a recipe
for the suit Papa Pomodora, And I think you might
have had it the last summer that you were in
the River Cafe. So would you like to read the
recipe for Papa al Pomodora. Four ms of ripe plum tomatoes, peeled,
(02:17):
seated and chopped. Two garlic cloves sliced, two hundred fifty
milli liters of olive oil, one stale sour dough loaf
crust removed, one large bunch of fresh basil leaves torn,
Heat three tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan. Add
(02:38):
the garlic and fried gently. Then add the tomatoes. Simmer
for thirty minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauces thick season well,
Add six hundred milli liters of water and bring to
a boil. Add the bread cut into chunks and stir
until the bread of sorbs little. I quit cool slightly,
(03:03):
adding more water if necessary. Stir the basil into the
soup with the remaining olive oil. And this dish is
best served at room temperature. I know what I like
about this recipe. I like the fact that it's only
made in the summer, when the when the tomatoes are right.
It's only has four ingredients, and it has such a
(03:25):
simple taste of Italy. It reminds me of Italy to
I was thinking about the way. One of the other
things about Italian food is that it is so regional,
and if you're in Tuscany, you eat something that you
probably would never have if you were in Naples and
in Venice, you might have a risutta that nobody in
Pulio would have heard of. And I was thinking that
(03:46):
about Southern food, because you grew up between Washington and Tennessee,
between a hotel and a farm. That is exactly right.
Every single year of my life I went back and forth.
My father was in the US House of representatives when
I was born, had been for ten years, and went
(04:08):
to the Senate when I was four years old. And
so we went back and forth. As soon as there
was a spring vacation or a Christmas vacation, off we
would go driving back to Tennessee. Yeah, it was quite
a contrast to enjoy the food on the farm and
(04:29):
fresh from the garden and then go back to the
old Fairfax Hotel in Washington, d C. Owned by a
distant cousin. But the food and Washington, d C. Was
quite different from that and Tennessee. But in my mother's
kitchen it was pretty much the same in both locations.
(04:49):
Did she cook in the hotel? I had to have
this image of being a kind of eloise in the
plaza and ordering room service. Would you have family meals
in the hotel? Was it an apartment in hotel? It
was a small apartment, two bedrooms. My sister and I
shared a bedroom, one bathroom in the entire apartment, a
small kitchen. It did have a dining area and a
(05:11):
living room, and that was it. It was a very
small apartment. I don't really ever remember, believe it or not.
I really don't ever remember getting room service because now
we we equate room service with the hotel. What would
your mother cook? Who cooked in your house? My mother
was was a good cook. She was a lawyer, one
of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School
(05:33):
back in the nineteen thirties. My sister, when she got older,
was a good cook as well. I remember one time
when my mother and my sister both went on a
tear competitively making sufflets. They just became entranced with the
whole notion. And for several weeks I would come home
(05:56):
from school and there would be a one or two
different small yea sounds good to me and nic seem
to come home to. And then going down to the farm.
So was that We'll talk about the farm, but also
Southern cooking because being an American like you um, and
you think about the identity, you know, there may be
Midwestern food, or there's specific Northwest food or upstate New
(06:20):
York food. Would you say that going to Tennessee there
was a kind of real basis of food from the South.
Fried chicken and barbecue, fresh vegetables. We would pay attention
to win the new corn was ready, when the vegetables
were coming in, and we had a big garden on
(06:41):
the farm. My grandmother also had a garden which she
worked in UH pretty much constantly, and she canned food.
I don't remember ever eating any of her canned food,
but she was of the generation that really prepared for
what might come by canning lots of food in her cellar,
(07:02):
and I would help her occasionally. But Southern food has
changed over time, very influenced by Black American recipes. I
don't know that the full credit for Southern cuisine that
should go to Black Americans has been widely understood, but
(07:23):
it certainly is the case nowadays. Of course, Nashville Hot
Chicken is a distinctive brand that has gone far and wide.
Barbecue is still identified with the South, and Tennessee takes
a lot of pride and it's barbecue. I I had
a barbecue team when I was in the US Senate.
(07:46):
Every year they have a huge barbecue contest in Memphis, Tennessee.
It's a wonderful how many, how much you can, or
how delicious it is. What do you think was the
well the judges, UH primarily grated on taste, but the
presentation was a factor. But I was in the Senate,
(08:11):
so the point of it was not necessarily to win
the contest, but to meet all the people who came by. Well,
that is food as a connection, you know, because on
the farm, when you talk about the corn coming and
eating it right away, and the probably the potatoes, all
the produce from the farm is one of the great
luxuries of life. If you can eat a potato when
(08:31):
it's just been dug up, if you can have I
grew up enough State, New York, and we didn't have
a farm, but we always knew that if we were
having the corn for lunch, we'd buy it in the morning,
and if we were having it for dinner we'd have
it we'd buy it late afternoon from the farm store.
Was that sense of of the immediacy of farming and cooking.
Do you think that is something that has stayed with you?
And now you have the farm, don't you changed it radically? Yes,
(08:56):
the family farm is now my farm, and starting a
eight years ago, I converted it to a regenerative agriculture farm.
We also have livestock. I'm a vegan cattle farmer. They're
not many of us, but rotational grazing where you manage
(09:16):
the livestock in cooperation with the vegetables and fruits. Really
is an effective way to make the soil healthier and
make the farm successful. You know, Regenerative agriculture is a
farmer led movement and it has also led to some
(09:37):
new food chains. We sell at farmers markets and we
sell to local chefs in Nashville, and we have several
hundred boxes each week that go through a program called
Community Supported Agriculture, and we deliver the boxes so we
give of them to the food Bank in Nashville, particularly
(10:01):
during the hard times of the pandemic. It's a connection
that I established when I was a boy. Every summer
of my life I worked on this farm and really
developed quite a an attachment to it and then moved
back to Nashville and to the farm which is outside
of Nashville when I made a transition into the business
(10:23):
world involuntarily, but I've really enjoyed it a great deal.
We opened the River Cafe after being closed for four months.
(10:47):
It was very emotional. You know, people's connect you know.
I would say, if you go down the list, you
would say, of course, you know, education, schools, they would say, libraries,
you would say, healthcare. You would say, there's so many
priorities in the city. But what it's been very moving
to me is how important going to a restaurant is.
It's not just the food, it's connecting with your friends.
(11:09):
It's sitting at a table and being able to focus
on your who you're with and the conversation. As a child,
let's go back to the beginning. When you were growing up.
Was going to a restaurant a special occasion? Yes, it
was a special occasion, But in Carthage, Tennessee, the restaurants
and cafes were really more basic like diners more or
(11:32):
less meeting three? Do you have that expression in London?
A meeting three where you go through a cafeteria line.
But it was always fun. We would go after church
to the city cafe in in Carthage, Tennessee. Every week.
That would be part of the tradition that you would
go to a cafe after church. That's very nice. And
(11:54):
what I look for now in a restaurant is a
place with wonderful food first of all, and and a
wonderful ambiance, uh and a good feeling and wonderful friends
that you make over the years. There is something special
about it. And you know, I have become close friends
(12:16):
with quite a few of the chefs in Nashville. Nashville
is becoming a foodie city and there are a lot
of really great chefs that have come and every year
here at the farm, I have a conference in the
fall after the harvest called the Climate Underground Conference, which
(12:38):
looks at the health of the soil, the economic health
of the farmers and the chefs. And of course during
the pandemic, a lot of restaurants has struggled so much,
but the chefs that have become friends over the years
have really stepped up to provide food for populations in
(13:03):
the community that really fell on hard times during the year.
And in many communities, it's a remarkable development that chefs
became a new variety of superhero There are many of
them that filled the breach and fed people that were
(13:24):
hungry and somehow made it all work. Yeah. I think
that here as well, and certainly in my own restaurant
with the young chefs. There's so many initiatives that we
did with food banks. We have a hospital very near
us and we were cooking for the doctors in the hospital,
and I think it really gave us all someone you know,
how how fortunate we are the way we have a
(13:44):
skill can be used for a social purpose. And I
think that food as politics. You know that this very
little separation is that between what we're all trying to
do and to make the world a better place. But
I think it is interesting the way how a government
and how society looks at feeding the people who need help. Absolutely,
(14:08):
and there are so many of these so called food
deserts in communities black and brown and indigenous communities where
you might get a kind of a gas station that
has a marked by it that sells uh, you know,
slim jims, some kind of jerky and snacks and food
(14:32):
that's not very healthy for you. And there has been
a growing recognition in those communities and others that we
would all benefit by developing a healthier connection to the
sources of our food uh and paying more attention to
the way it's harvested and prepared. And where schools are concerned,
(14:56):
I have partnered with Alice Water, so I'm sure you know,
and Berkeley, and one of her programs is called the
Edible Schoolyard, which is has gone beyond the pilot phase
and is now being expanded into the University of California
system and school districts around the country to educate children
(15:18):
in school about gardening and about growing food and preparing
food and moving past this era when people thought food
came from the grocery store and didn't give any thought
beyond that. And of course it's so much better and
healthier in every way when people take responsibility for eating
(15:42):
enough fresh vegetables and fruits, and cutting back on meat
consumption and really paying attention to the health of the
meals they consume. Especially I remember not longa walking down
the street in Paris and there was an outside cold
matter now, which is a you know, it's a nursery
school for for children probably between three and five, and
(16:04):
they had the menus for the week, and it was
so moving to see that they started with the salary ramolade,
and then they had a suit to poissant, I mean
really quite sophisticated and tasteful and thought out food, and
then a main course, and they even had for these
little kids at a cheese course, you know, and then
a fruit and I thought that was a glimpse. I
(16:26):
took a photograph of the way society values and educates
the children that are growing up. That says a mark
of their priorities, and I know that we have hope
now for advancing that with Alice, and we actually cook
every year in the in her benefit in New York.
And again, you know, she's a force, she's a phenomenon,
(16:48):
and we all just needed to work on I think of,
you know, poverties education food. What was food like in
the White House, because my knowledge of the White House
was watching the West Wing and seeing Toby and all
(17:09):
these guys go down to the canteen, and I was wondering,
did you work over food? Would you entertain and talk
about policies over food or was it quite a separate
thing over sandwich? I would say it was mostly separate,
but it was not at all uncommon to work over meals.
And uh, former President Clinton and I had a weekly
(17:32):
luncheon just the two of us that was never missed
on the schedule. And the food, I have to say,
was was excellent. You know, each president or first Lady,
we I guess the proper analog would be first gentleman
(17:52):
when we have a woman present. Traditionally first ladies have
picked the White House chef, and during the years when
I worked as Vice President in the White House, so
the food was food was excellent. And do you do
you think the going back to the farm and sustainability
and your work on climate change and your books and
your writing and your constant campaigning for trying to save
(18:16):
our planet, would you tell me more about how you
see the sustainability and what we can do. I thought
it was impressive that you said it's not it doesn't
have to be placed as a burden on the individual,
which I think we all want to share that responsibility.
But that on policy, which is what we all look towards,
(18:36):
is how can the policies that you've established on your farm,
how does that policy reach a global network a larger audience. Well,
agriculture can be one of the biggest solutions to the
climate crisis. It can not solve it by itself, for sure,
And the main task is to stop burning all the
(19:00):
fossil fuels. We are putting more than a hundred sixty
million tons of man made global warming pollution into the
atmosphere every day. But it was not until nineteen fifty
that the majority of the greenhouse gases the global warming
pollution came from something other than farming. And it was
(19:25):
not until in the nineteen seventies until the majority of
the accumulated global warming pollution was no longer from agriculture.
What happened was in part the use of heavy plowing
and the kind of reductionist model for growing food that says,
(19:48):
you know, just get rid of everything except what you
want to grow, and then use heavy chemical inputs and
insecticides and herbicides and anthetic nitrogen fertilizer which was only
invented in Germany hundred years ago. In that stretch of time,
(20:12):
we have seen a massive outgassing of c O two
from the top soils. Forgive me for going on on
this moment. People talk about planting trees to pull CEO
two back out of the atmosphere, and it's something we
certainly need to do, but we also need to remember
(20:34):
that if you look at all of the carbon and
every tree in the world, plus every plant in the world,
there's three times that much carbon in the first ten
centimeters of top soils around the world. And by sharply
reducing the amount of plowing and using natural fertilizing techniques
(20:57):
and natural pest control techniques and using cover crops, always
keep roots in the soil, don't let it lie loose
use perennials where you can use rotational grazing agro forestry.
These techniques can reverse the flow of global warming pollution
(21:18):
out of the soil and actually put a large amount
of CEO two back in the soil. So regenerative agriculture
not only produces healthier foods and healthier communities, but it
also contributes to a healthier planet by becoming a key
part of our arsenal in combating the climate crisis. I
(21:41):
get asked a lot, and we can answer every question.
You know, we only fish from the British waters, and
nothing comes by plane to the river except for the
mozzarella from Naples, you know. And so we're all working
on this. But how do we make this a movement
of conscious change? Well, it's difficult. Ten Chefs and restaurateurs
(22:02):
can play a key role in providing information to their customers,
contributing to their knowledge about where the food comes from
and how it's prepared. For processed food, there is now
a movement in some countries to require a labeling of foods.
We already have it in so many places concerning the
(22:25):
nutritional content of the food, but now some jurisdictions are
requiring CEO two labeling, which is a big help for
those of us who are interested in that. And you
can't go on a detective hunt every time you buy
something off the shelf or order addition a restaurant. So
if there is a new standard by which the purveyors
(22:50):
of food volunteer the provenance of the food and pay
attention to it and then communicated about it, then that's
had some more general knowledge of how important it is
to connect to healthy food that's grown in healthy ways.
I would love to come and see your farm, and
I think it's it's so interesting that you are doing
(23:12):
this and being a vegan, working on your farm, making
your farm different and showing by example, and as with
everything you do, I have so much respect for it.
And I think that apart from being a farmer and
a politician, I know that you're really good eater. I
do know that because I've seen well you know, the
(23:34):
way I keep ordering more of your food may not
be a good, uh standard to go by because you're
this will sound like flattery, and I guess it is,
but it's also true. Your food is delicious. I think
the Italian with just me eating a lot of you.
I love it. But I think also that Italian food
is very Whenever we have we have more and more
(23:56):
vegans and certainly vegetarians coming in, and actually the I
and diet is very healthy. It is you know, when
you walk into our restaurant, there's always vegetables on the bar,
you know, whether they're artchants in season or finishing. I
think we all go to food for excitement and for communication,
(24:16):
as you say, for memories of our childhood, and we
also go to food, I think very often for comfort.
And so my last question to you is, really, if
you had to define a certain food that you enjoy
eating as a food that you go to for comfort,
would you tell me what that would be. I would
(24:36):
prefer one of your thin vegan pizzas accompanied by I
don't know the name of the dish, but it's fried
zucchini string kinni flowers. Yeah, zucchini flowers. That's what I
always start with at River Cafe. And I was alerted
that you might ask about my favorite comfort food, and
(24:59):
honestly that is what immediately sprang to mind. Well, it's
always there for your comfort or not, whatever is needed.
Thank you so much again, and much love to you,
Thank you well. You have a standing invitation to come
and visit Candy Fork Arms here in Kennethey would love
(25:21):
to host you and look forward to seeing you in
person at the River Cafe soon. Thank you, so much,
so much, love to you, Thank you. This holiday season,
if you can't come to the River Cafe, the River
Cafe will come to you. Our beautiful gift boxes are
(25:42):
full of ingredients we cook with and design objects we
have in our homes. River Cafe Olive oil, Tuscan chocolates,
Venetian glasses of Florentine, Christmas cake made in our pastry
kitchen and more. We shipped them everywhere. To find out
more or to place your order, visit chop the River
Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe Table for is
(26:10):
a production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. I remember vividly going
to the El Say Palace. Fantastic meal. I've had many
such meals, especially when I was Vice president, Formal banquets
in China and the Great Hall of the People. I
(00:22):
don't think I've had an Italian state dinner. I wish
I had Vice president for I really please that you're here,
and that you're in Tennessee and I'm in London. We're
going to find a connection. I don't. I've been pretty
(00:44):
much a vegan for eight years now. I occasionally supplement
it with some sustainable seafood. But yes, I don't consider
myself a great cook Ruthie by any stretch of the imagination.
But during the pandemic, make like a lot of people,
I picked up a few new skills just because the
(01:05):
chance to go out to restaurants was foreclosed, and I'm
surrounded by a lot of fresh food here at the farm.
So yeah, I I've done my best. And do your children,
Yes they do. They're all good cooks, uh, including my son,
my youngest, who learned cooking from his grandmother. My mother.
(01:28):
I remember when he was quite young, she taught him
how to make bread. She had her own bread recipe
that was just absolutely delicious, coming hot straight out of
the oven. And he loved it so much that he
got her to teach him how to how to make it.
But yes, all the others do as well. I would
say they're good cooks, are they. Are they vegans? Well,
(01:50):
no they're not, but they've cut back on red meat
for sure. You've chosen, and we've chosen together a recipe
for the suit Papa Pomodora, And I think you might
have had it the last summer that you were in
the River Cafe. So would you like to read the
recipe for Papa al Pomodora. Four ms of ripe plum tomatoes, peeled,
(02:17):
seated and chopped. Two garlic cloves sliced, two hundred fifty
milli liters of olive oil, one stale sour dough loaf
crust removed, one large bunch of fresh basil leaves torn,
Heat three tablespoons of olive oil in a saucepan. Add
(02:38):
the garlic and fried gently. Then add the tomatoes. Simmer
for thirty minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauces thick season well,
Add six hundred milli liters of water and bring to
a boil. Add the bread cut into chunks and stir
until the bread of sorbs little. I quit cool slightly,
(03:03):
adding more water if necessary. Stir the basil into the
soup with the remaining olive oil. And this dish is
best served at room temperature. I know what I like
about this recipe. I like the fact that it's only
made in the summer, when the when the tomatoes are right.
It's only has four ingredients, and it has such a
(03:25):
simple taste of Italy. It reminds me of Italy to
I was thinking about the way. One of the other
things about Italian food is that it is so regional,
and if you're in Tuscany, you eat something that you
probably would never have if you were in Naples and
in Venice, you might have a risutta that nobody in
Pulio would have heard of. And I was thinking that
(03:46):
about Southern food, because you grew up between Washington and Tennessee,
between a hotel and a farm. That is exactly right.
Every single year of my life I went back and forth.
My father was in the US House of representatives when
I was born, had been for ten years, and went
(04:08):
to the Senate when I was four years old. And
so we went back and forth. As soon as there
was a spring vacation or a Christmas vacation, off we
would go driving back to Tennessee. Yeah, it was quite
a contrast to enjoy the food on the farm and
(04:29):
fresh from the garden and then go back to the
old Fairfax Hotel in Washington, d C. Owned by a
distant cousin. But the food and Washington, d C. Was
quite different from that and Tennessee. But in my mother's
kitchen it was pretty much the same in both locations.
(04:49):
Did she cook in the hotel? I had to have
this image of being a kind of eloise in the
plaza and ordering room service. Would you have family meals
in the hotel? Was it an apartment in hotel? It
was a small apartment, two bedrooms. My sister and I
shared a bedroom, one bathroom in the entire apartment, a
small kitchen. It did have a dining area and a
(05:11):
living room, and that was it. It was a very
small apartment. I don't really ever remember, believe it or not.
I really don't ever remember getting room service because now
we we equate room service with the hotel. What would
your mother cook? Who cooked in your house? My mother
was was a good cook. She was a lawyer, one
of the first women to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School
(05:33):
back in the nineteen thirties. My sister, when she got older,
was a good cook as well. I remember one time
when my mother and my sister both went on a
tear competitively making sufflets. They just became entranced with the
whole notion. And for several weeks I would come home
(05:56):
from school and there would be a one or two
different small yea sounds good to me and nic seem
to come home to. And then going down to the farm.
So was that We'll talk about the farm, but also
Southern cooking because being an American like you um, and
you think about the identity, you know, there may be
Midwestern food, or there's specific Northwest food or upstate New
(06:20):
York food. Would you say that going to Tennessee there
was a kind of real basis of food from the South.
Fried chicken and barbecue, fresh vegetables. We would pay attention
to win the new corn was ready, when the vegetables
were coming in, and we had a big garden on
(06:41):
the farm. My grandmother also had a garden which she
worked in UH pretty much constantly, and she canned food.
I don't remember ever eating any of her canned food,
but she was of the generation that really prepared for
what might come by canning lots of food in her cellar,
(07:02):
and I would help her occasionally. But Southern food has
changed over time, very influenced by Black American recipes. I
don't know that the full credit for Southern cuisine that
should go to Black Americans has been widely understood, but
(07:23):
it certainly is the case nowadays. Of course, Nashville Hot
Chicken is a distinctive brand that has gone far and wide.
Barbecue is still identified with the South, and Tennessee takes
a lot of pride and it's barbecue. I I had
a barbecue team when I was in the US Senate.
(07:46):
Every year they have a huge barbecue contest in Memphis, Tennessee.
It's a wonderful how many, how much you can, or
how delicious it is. What do you think was the
well the judges, UH primarily grated on taste, but the
presentation was a factor. But I was in the Senate,
(08:11):
so the point of it was not necessarily to win
the contest, but to meet all the people who came by. Well,
that is food as a connection, you know, because on
the farm, when you talk about the corn coming and
eating it right away, and the probably the potatoes, all
the produce from the farm is one of the great
luxuries of life. If you can eat a potato when
(08:31):
it's just been dug up, if you can have I
grew up enough State, New York, and we didn't have
a farm, but we always knew that if we were
having the corn for lunch, we'd buy it in the morning,
and if we were having it for dinner we'd have
it we'd buy it late afternoon from the farm store.
Was that sense of of the immediacy of farming and cooking.
Do you think that is something that has stayed with you?
And now you have the farm, don't you changed it radically? Yes,
(08:56):
the family farm is now my farm, and starting a
eight years ago, I converted it to a regenerative agriculture farm.
We also have livestock. I'm a vegan cattle farmer. They're
not many of us, but rotational grazing where you manage
(09:16):
the livestock in cooperation with the vegetables and fruits. Really
is an effective way to make the soil healthier and
make the farm successful. You know, Regenerative agriculture is a
farmer led movement and it has also led to some
(09:37):
new food chains. We sell at farmers markets and we
sell to local chefs in Nashville, and we have several
hundred boxes each week that go through a program called
Community Supported Agriculture, and we deliver the boxes so we
give of them to the food Bank in Nashville, particularly
(10:01):
during the hard times of the pandemic. It's a connection
that I established when I was a boy. Every summer
of my life I worked on this farm and really
developed quite a an attachment to it and then moved
back to Nashville and to the farm which is outside
of Nashville when I made a transition into the business
(10:23):
world involuntarily, but I've really enjoyed it a great deal.
We opened the River Cafe after being closed for four months.
(10:47):
It was very emotional. You know, people's connect you know.
I would say, if you go down the list, you
would say, of course, you know, education, schools, they would say, libraries,
you would say, healthcare. You would say, there's so many
priorities in the city. But what it's been very moving
to me is how important going to a restaurant is.
It's not just the food, it's connecting with your friends.
(11:09):
It's sitting at a table and being able to focus
on your who you're with and the conversation. As a child,
let's go back to the beginning. When you were growing up.
Was going to a restaurant a special occasion? Yes, it
was a special occasion, But in Carthage, Tennessee, the restaurants
and cafes were really more basic like diners more or
(11:32):
less meeting three? Do you have that expression in London?
A meeting three where you go through a cafeteria line.
But it was always fun. We would go after church
to the city cafe in in Carthage, Tennessee. Every week.
That would be part of the tradition that you would
go to a cafe after church. That's very nice. And
(11:54):
what I look for now in a restaurant is a
place with wonderful food first of all, and and a
wonderful ambiance, uh and a good feeling and wonderful friends
that you make over the years. There is something special
about it. And you know, I have become close friends
(12:16):
with quite a few of the chefs in Nashville. Nashville
is becoming a foodie city and there are a lot
of really great chefs that have come and every year
here at the farm, I have a conference in the
fall after the harvest called the Climate Underground Conference, which
(12:38):
looks at the health of the soil, the economic health
of the farmers and the chefs. And of course during
the pandemic, a lot of restaurants has struggled so much,
but the chefs that have become friends over the years
have really stepped up to provide food for populations in
(13:03):
the community that really fell on hard times during the year.
And in many communities, it's a remarkable development that chefs
became a new variety of superhero There are many of
them that filled the breach and fed people that were
(13:24):
hungry and somehow made it all work. Yeah. I think
that here as well, and certainly in my own restaurant
with the young chefs. There's so many initiatives that we
did with food banks. We have a hospital very near
us and we were cooking for the doctors in the hospital,
and I think it really gave us all someone you know,
how how fortunate we are the way we have a
(13:44):
skill can be used for a social purpose. And I
think that food as politics. You know that this very
little separation is that between what we're all trying to
do and to make the world a better place. But
I think it is interesting the way how a government
and how society looks at feeding the people who need help. Absolutely,
(14:08):
and there are so many of these so called food
deserts in communities black and brown and indigenous communities where
you might get a kind of a gas station that
has a marked by it that sells uh, you know,
slim jims, some kind of jerky and snacks and food
(14:32):
that's not very healthy for you. And there has been
a growing recognition in those communities and others that we
would all benefit by developing a healthier connection to the
sources of our food uh and paying more attention to
the way it's harvested and prepared. And where schools are concerned,
(14:56):
I have partnered with Alice Water, so I'm sure you know,
and Berkeley, and one of her programs is called the
Edible Schoolyard, which is has gone beyond the pilot phase
and is now being expanded into the University of California
system and school districts around the country to educate children
(15:18):
in school about gardening and about growing food and preparing
food and moving past this era when people thought food
came from the grocery store and didn't give any thought
beyond that. And of course it's so much better and
healthier in every way when people take responsibility for eating
(15:42):
enough fresh vegetables and fruits, and cutting back on meat
consumption and really paying attention to the health of the
meals they consume. Especially I remember not longa walking down
the street in Paris and there was an outside cold
matter now, which is a you know, it's a nursery
school for for children probably between three and five, and
(16:04):
they had the menus for the week, and it was
so moving to see that they started with the salary ramolade,
and then they had a suit to poissant, I mean
really quite sophisticated and tasteful and thought out food, and
then a main course, and they even had for these
little kids at a cheese course, you know, and then
a fruit and I thought that was a glimpse. I
(16:26):
took a photograph of the way society values and educates
the children that are growing up. That says a mark
of their priorities, and I know that we have hope
now for advancing that with Alice, and we actually cook
every year in the in her benefit in New York.
And again, you know, she's a force, she's a phenomenon,
(16:48):
and we all just needed to work on I think of,
you know, poverties education food. What was food like in
the White House, because my knowledge of the White House
was watching the West Wing and seeing Toby and all
(17:09):
these guys go down to the canteen, and I was wondering,
did you work over food? Would you entertain and talk
about policies over food or was it quite a separate
thing over sandwich? I would say it was mostly separate,
but it was not at all uncommon to work over meals.
And uh, former President Clinton and I had a weekly
(17:32):
luncheon just the two of us that was never missed
on the schedule. And the food, I have to say,
was was excellent. You know, each president or first Lady,
we I guess the proper analog would be first gentleman
(17:52):
when we have a woman present. Traditionally first ladies have
picked the White House chef, and during the years when
I worked as Vice President in the White House, so
the food was food was excellent. And do you do
you think the going back to the farm and sustainability
and your work on climate change and your books and
your writing and your constant campaigning for trying to save
(18:16):
our planet, would you tell me more about how you
see the sustainability and what we can do. I thought
it was impressive that you said it's not it doesn't
have to be placed as a burden on the individual,
which I think we all want to share that responsibility.
But that on policy, which is what we all look towards,
(18:36):
is how can the policies that you've established on your farm,
how does that policy reach a global network a larger audience. Well,
agriculture can be one of the biggest solutions to the
climate crisis. It can not solve it by itself, for sure,
And the main task is to stop burning all the
(19:00):
fossil fuels. We are putting more than a hundred sixty
million tons of man made global warming pollution into the
atmosphere every day. But it was not until nineteen fifty
that the majority of the greenhouse gases the global warming
pollution came from something other than farming. And it was
(19:25):
not until in the nineteen seventies until the majority of
the accumulated global warming pollution was no longer from agriculture.
What happened was in part the use of heavy plowing
and the kind of reductionist model for growing food that says,
(19:48):
you know, just get rid of everything except what you
want to grow, and then use heavy chemical inputs and
insecticides and herbicides and anthetic nitrogen fertilizer which was only
invented in Germany hundred years ago. In that stretch of time,
(20:12):
we have seen a massive outgassing of c O two
from the top soils. Forgive me for going on on
this moment. People talk about planting trees to pull CEO
two back out of the atmosphere, and it's something we
certainly need to do, but we also need to remember
(20:34):
that if you look at all of the carbon and
every tree in the world, plus every plant in the world,
there's three times that much carbon in the first ten
centimeters of top soils around the world. And by sharply
reducing the amount of plowing and using natural fertilizing techniques
(20:57):
and natural pest control techniques and using cover crops, always
keep roots in the soil, don't let it lie loose
use perennials where you can use rotational grazing agro forestry.
These techniques can reverse the flow of global warming pollution
(21:18):
out of the soil and actually put a large amount
of CEO two back in the soil. So regenerative agriculture
not only produces healthier foods and healthier communities, but it
also contributes to a healthier planet by becoming a key
part of our arsenal in combating the climate crisis. I
(21:41):
get asked a lot, and we can answer every question.
You know, we only fish from the British waters, and
nothing comes by plane to the river except for the
mozzarella from Naples, you know. And so we're all working
on this. But how do we make this a movement
of conscious change? Well, it's difficult. Ten Chefs and restaurateurs
(22:02):
can play a key role in providing information to their customers,
contributing to their knowledge about where the food comes from
and how it's prepared. For processed food, there is now
a movement in some countries to require a labeling of foods.
We already have it in so many places concerning the
(22:25):
nutritional content of the food, but now some jurisdictions are
requiring CEO two labeling, which is a big help for
those of us who are interested in that. And you
can't go on a detective hunt every time you buy
something off the shelf or order addition a restaurant. So
if there is a new standard by which the purveyors
(22:50):
of food volunteer the provenance of the food and pay
attention to it and then communicated about it, then that's
had some more general knowledge of how important it is
to connect to healthy food that's grown in healthy ways.
I would love to come and see your farm, and
I think it's it's so interesting that you are doing
(23:12):
this and being a vegan, working on your farm, making
your farm different and showing by example, and as with
everything you do, I have so much respect for it.
And I think that apart from being a farmer and
a politician, I know that you're really good eater. I
do know that because I've seen well you know, the
(23:34):
way I keep ordering more of your food may not
be a good, uh standard to go by because you're
this will sound like flattery, and I guess it is,
but it's also true. Your food is delicious. I think
the Italian with just me eating a lot of you.
I love it. But I think also that Italian food
is very Whenever we have we have more and more
(23:56):
vegans and certainly vegetarians coming in, and actually the I
and diet is very healthy. It is you know, when
you walk into our restaurant, there's always vegetables on the bar,
you know, whether they're artchants in season or finishing. I
think we all go to food for excitement and for communication,
(24:16):
as you say, for memories of our childhood, and we
also go to food, I think very often for comfort.
And so my last question to you is, really, if
you had to define a certain food that you enjoy
eating as a food that you go to for comfort,
would you tell me what that would be. I would
(24:36):
prefer one of your thin vegan pizzas accompanied by I
don't know the name of the dish, but it's fried
zucchini string kinni flowers. Yeah, zucchini flowers. That's what I
always start with at River Cafe. And I was alerted
that you might ask about my favorite comfort food, and
(24:59):
honestly that is what immediately sprang to mind. Well, it's
always there for your comfort or not, whatever is needed.
Thank you so much again, and much love to you,
Thank you well. You have a standing invitation to come
and visit Candy Fork Arms here in Kennethey would love
(25:21):
to host you and look forward to seeing you in
person at the River Cafe soon. Thank you, so much,
so much, love to you, Thank you. This holiday season,
if you can't come to the River Cafe, the River
Cafe will come to you. Our beautiful gift boxes are
(25:42):
full of ingredients we cook with and design objects we
have in our homes. River Cafe Olive oil, Tuscan chocolates,
Venetian glasses of Florentine, Christmas cake made in our pastry
kitchen and more. We shipped them everywhere. To find out
more or to place your order, visit chop the River
Cafe dot co dot uk. River Cafe Table for is
(26:10):
a production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios.
For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows
Host
Ruth Rogers
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