October 5, 2021 • 26 mins
On this week’s episode, Ruthie and Sir Paul McCartney talk about the first time he tasted wine in Paris with John Lennon, what it was like being a vegetarian in the world of rock and roll, and how to cook the perfect roasted aubergines with tomatoes and basil. Here Comes The Sun.
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm sorry, I think I'm going to sneeze.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
This is River Cafe Table four.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I always managed to sneeze, like on telephone calls.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
With me Ruthie Rogers.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I don't think I've ever sneezed on a podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
On River Cafe Table four. I talked to friends who
know the River Cafe well about food, the food they cook,
the food they eat, the food of their memories.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Do you know what I feel?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It receding, Oh no, I wanted to hear Paul McCartney sneeze.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That would have been don't worry, it may come, and
when it comes, I can do up to nine. I
warn you for me.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Paul is not just a great musician, but a great
lover of food. And one of my favorite possessions is
a photograph that Paul recently sent me of him and
his grandson with a plate of tomato pasta they had
just cooked.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
They were both so proud.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Cooking in Liverpool in my working class family was very
much how everyone else ate, so there was not much variety,
and it was only when I came down to London
when the Beatles came down here to make records and
eventually to live down here. That you would go to
fine restaurants and try and navigate your way through the menu.
(01:34):
The eating was pretty much fuel until I got down
to London. I mean, for instance, I hated wine because well,
we never had it. I mean, the nearest we came
to alcoholic beverages was when we were a little older
on a Sunday with the Sunday lunch, we would have
a glass of cider. That was it. But whenever I
(01:57):
tasted wine, I hated it. And I hitchhiked to Paris.
He got given a fabulous birthday present by his rich
relatives in Scotland, and one of them gave him one
hundred pounds for his birthday. You know. I mean, I
still think that's a reasonable gift.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
It's very reasonable, one hundred quid.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I have it anyway, So we hitchhiked to Paris, and
then we used the money to get food and stuff,
and we thought, oh, we've got to have a wine experience.
We're in France, you know. So we went into a
cafe corner cafe, and we sort of sidled up to
the bar and said, do van ordinaire ciavou Play, and
(02:45):
she gave us two glasses of red wine and we
took a sip and thought, oh, that is terrible. It's
like vinegar. God, I don't know what the fuss is
about all these people going on about wine. They're crazy,
We're saying. So. We never liked wine till we got
down to London. And the first time I ever remember
(03:07):
really liking wine it was with George Martin. My girlfriend
at the time was Jane Asher, and Jane and I
went out with George and his wife, Judy, and we
went to a little restaurant in Charlotte Street called Latroale.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I probably never remember that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, I was treating so the way to the wine waiter,
Somelia came up to me and said, would you like
a wine? Sir? He leaned in all very intimate, and
I sort of equally whispering. I said, I'd like you
to recommend to me. I don't know much about wine.
Said oh, yes, sir, thank you very much, leave it
to me, and then he brought back a bottle of
(03:47):
Louis Latour's court Aunt Graci nineteen fifty nine, and I
took a taste of it. Oh, it was like velvet,
was it. I thought, now I get it, and I
see why people go crazy about one. And it was
funny because years after that, I thought, Okay, got on
(04:08):
grant Sye nineteen fifty nine. That's the wine I've got
to order. And then years later I thought it was
not quite as good as the one I had, and
I realized that I was now ordering the fifty nine
and this was now ten twenty years later, whereas he
was serving it at five years. Yeah, it took a
(04:28):
little while for that penny to drop.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
This is River Cafe Table four. In each episode, my
guess reads a recipe they've chosen from one of our cookbooks.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And this is the recipe for roast aubergine. So the
Americans call eggplant. For any Americans listening, okay, So you
take two aubergines cut into two centimeter thick slices, eight
ripe plum tomatoes cut in haw then one hundred grams
of parmesan grated, two tablespoons of basil leaves torn into
(05:09):
small pieces, extra virgin olive oil. You place the aubergine
in a colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Leave for
half an hour. The pat dry preheat the oven to
two hundred degrees celsius. Squeeze the juice from the tomatoes
(05:29):
and chop into small pieces. Place the tomatoes in a bowl,
season well with salt and pepper and tossed with a
tablespoonful of olive oil. Then stare in the parmesan and basil.
Brush an ovenproof dish with olive oil. Place the aubergine
slices on the dish, brush with olive oil and season.
(05:53):
Bake for fifteen minutes, then turn them over and spoon
the tomato mixture on top. Return into the oven for
five minutes. Serve warm, or they're also delicious at room temperature.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Thank you, beautiful. Why did you choose this recipe?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's just one of my favorite dishes. Being vegetarian. In
some restaurants, there's limited options. Not in the River Cafe,
but you know certain restaurants it's a bit limited, but
they often have an eggplant or aubergin parmesan. So I
will go for that, and I love it and I
(06:36):
eat it at home. It's just a great dish. It's
comforting when.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You were growing up where they have a lot of
variety vegetables.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you come across are we going to call them
eggplant in this conversation?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I should?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So many words aren't there for this vegetable. I remember
when I first came to London. I went into a
green grocer and I asked for eggplant and he brought
me out eggs, and then I said, no, I don't
on eggs, and he brought me out a plant, you know,
And then I realized that they called them by the
French name Aubergean's, and then an Italian it smelon sata.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
How do you want to refer to them?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Let's do aberging because that's what I let's do.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Okay, So tell me about Aberjean's in Liverpool.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
You didn't get them. I've never heard of them till
I came down to London. Really yeah, I mean vegetables
would be potatoes, yeah, carrots, onion, and then you would
get broad beans, which we call butter beans. I like
them to this day. I like a nice butter bean soup.
(07:37):
So yeah, but it was very limited, and that would
be with a piece of meat. It was a pretty
bland menu that we had.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Who did the cooking in your house?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
My mom?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Tell me about your mom? Did she like cooking?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Do you think or did she see it as a
duty to do she did.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
She have a job she did. She was a nurse,
so she worked full on. Then she became a sister
on the word, and then eventually she became a midwife.
So she was hard working. I think she enjoyed cooking.
But I'm sure there was a little bit of providing
for your family in there, you know, because in those
(08:13):
days there was no question about it. Really it was
the woman's role. I would do a little bit myself
sometimes because my mom unfortunately died when I was fourteen,
so there was my dad and me and my younger
brother left to look after ourselves. Sometimes I'd get home
(08:33):
from school before my dad would from work, and I'd
have to knock up a little bit of a meal.
I became very good at mashed potatoes.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
What was your technique do you remember?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, I mean these days it's probably like over the
top and would need to be a little bit health aarized.
But then I would mash them normally with a fork
so we didn't have many cooking implements, and mashed them
up till I got all the lumps out. And I
was very keen on that. Then I would pile in.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
A lot of butter, yea delicious.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
A little bit of milk, and then whip that little
soccer up. And then sometimes if I was trying to
be exotic, I'd put some finely chopped onions raw, which
is kind of nice.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I'd say that that is a very sophisticated way. I
mean that is, we always say that mashed potatoes and
France are really butter with potatoes. You know, did your
mother teach you how to do that or was it instinctive?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I think I probably just watched her do it. So
I would make that, and then my dad would leave
either some sausages or chops to go with it. That
was basically it. But yeah, you know, my mum was
a proper cook. The only time I really couldn't eat
what she had cooked and what she'd offered on the
(10:00):
table on a plate, there was a tongue, and I
did not like the look of this bloody grate cow's tongue.
I was not persuaded to eat that. I'm afraid.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
When you said that your dad would leave you the
sausages of the pork so he would do the shopping.
Did he have a night job, would he come home
for dinner.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
No.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He was a cotton salesman, so he worked just during
the day. He would leave roughly the same time as
we left for school, so he would sell cotton it
came in from the port and then he would sell
that onto the mills which were behind Liverpool in Lancashire.
That was a big industry at the time to this day,
(10:40):
I know how to take the staple of some raw cotton?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Do you?
Speaker 4 (10:44):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You've got a piece of cotton that's you know, just
come off the bush and being packed, and you take
it between your thumbs and you tease it, and you
keep teasing it till you all you're left with is
the one bit that won't tease off. That thing that's left,
the thread that's left is called the staple. And you
(11:07):
judge the quality of the cotton on the length of
that staple.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
That's very beautiful. What year would this have been? What
years have we time?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
In mid fifties, so I was coming to London a
huge exposure to food and to restaurants and going out.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean in Liverpool there weren't till my knowledge,
any real sort of fine restaurants. You had great Chinese food,
great Indian food, but the English cooking was normally done
best at home. Yes, you know you had an ante
or somebody who was like really made a great stew
(11:52):
in Liverpool. There's a stew that's called scouse.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
It's like an Irish stew sort of everything in and
then you years later, when Linda and I became vegetarian,
we went up and my Auntie was very nice, very kind,
and she made scouts without the meat, which Liverpolitan is
called blind scouse.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
It.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I'm sure you've written and talked about this, but how
did the decision by the two of you? And Mary
said to me, you must remember that my father and
my mother decided this together.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
It wasn't my mother's that's true.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We will be vegetarian, said it was a joint decision,
which now everybody I have to say is thinking about
the environment. All my children and grandchildren are either not
eating meat or fish at all.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Goodness, so thinking about the environment exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
But what were you thinking about then? What made you
do that?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
What it was was we were on the farm in Scotland.
We had a farm in a place called Campbelltown, which
is south down the Argyle Peninsula south of Glasgow, so
we spent quite a bit of time there. The Beatles
break up got a bit heavy in the business scene
and you just couldn't deal with it. So we decided
(13:07):
to just elope, even though we were married. We just
escaped there and it was just a sheep farm. We
were looking out of the kitchen window one day and
there were lambs. It was lambing season, early in spring,
and the lambs were gambling around so full of life,
and it was like, wow, this is really cool. And
(13:27):
I always say that what they seemed like they were doing,
it would be about twenty of them. They'd start at
one end of the field and then it'd be as
if someone said let's go and they all go and
run to the other side of the field. Let's go back.
So they were just running up and down, gambling and
jumping and everything were going, isn't this cute and great?
(13:49):
Then we suddenly realized we were eating leg of lamb.
So that was when the penny dropped and it was
like h leg of lamb. Then it was just we said,
you know what, do we try and not eat meat?
We try and go veggie. And in those days of course,
it was actually difficult, but we decided that we'd make
(14:10):
it a challenge. It just became a fun challenge. Okay,
what do you do? So we gradually begun filling the
hole in the middle of the plate. We'd keep everything
else and then we'd just work on things to take
the place of where the meat had been. And it
was quite funny actually, because at Christmas, you know, I'd
(14:31):
always loved the role which I had been given in
the family of carving the turkey, and Linda did cook
the turkey great. She was really good at that. So
suddenly here we were without anything for me to carve.
So she had the brilliant idea of making a macaroni
cheese so that we know it to taste good, and
(14:53):
then she let it cool and go solid, and then
we put it in the fridge overnight, and then the
next day I had this big block that I could
come into turkey sized portions. So it was like that.
It actually became very interesting to work out how to
do it because nobody else was bothering, you know. I
(15:15):
remember going with Linda's father one night to clarages and thinking, oh, great,
you know they're going to know how to do it.
We said, well, where'd you turn? Can you make some suggestions?
The waiter gave us a very sniffy look and said anyway.
He came back with a plate of vegetables steamed. Yeah,
that was the limit of his imagination. But you know,
things started to change really quickly.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
But I think, Paul, without interrupting you, that you have
to take credit for that change. Linda, have to take
credit for that change, because you didn't just personally become vegetarian,
but you kind of told the world about what it
was like and how it was like, especially you know,
with her books and her vision created a place. I'll
(15:57):
tell you a story. Do you remember there was that
restaurant called Crack. It was like the only vegetarian restaurant
in London.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It was, and I thought it was very cool the
way they called it cranks.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
And I once went there with Richard the first days
that I met him, and I was so happy to
see him, and I kept kissing him and having my
arms around him, and I saw a woman staring at
us and getting very annoyed, and so of course I
just did it more. She came over to the table
and she said, I think that what you've been doing
is appalling, but that you should be doing it in
(16:27):
a vegetarian restaurant.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Makes it worse.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
It was somehow the idea that you couldn't be sexy
and have vegetables. So I think I think you could
say that you and Linda made vegetables sexy and rock
and roll.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
It was something very important.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That is funny though, isn't it. It used to come
with the territory that if people were veggie, they were cranks,
and therefore they were boring, and so it gave this
image of the whole thing being really boring. The people
are boring, there's no kissing allowed. Yeah, you know, but
that soon left the arena.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Were you unique in the group of musicians and the
other people that were performing at the in the sixties.
Did they have the same explosion of food and enjoy
of food or do you think you were kind of
more passionate about it.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I don't know, you know, I think a lot of
them did, a lot of them didn't. Some people remained
traditional eaters. I mean, you know, the a couple of
people these days I know who were from those times
who just want English cooking. You know, it's just like
they want life to stay exactly the same as it was,
and I get it. You know, it kind of split
(17:42):
into two groups. I suppose, you know, the people who
weren't bothered with all that rubbishy wine and fine food.
They probably still thought it tastes like vinegar.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
But when you travel, when you were on tour and
you were suddenly traveling in other countries, do you remember
being in Japan or China or an exotic place and
being confronted with food that you'd never seen before.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Never Japan mainly. I mean, I haven't actually been to China,
but Japan was quite an experience. I like Japanese food
these days because I'm vegetarian. A lot of it's a
bit fishy for me, but you can work your way
around it. I enjoy Japanese cuisine. I like sort of
Asian fusion. It didn't really mean that we would have
(18:26):
it at home. It was more when you went to
the country, you'd enjoy the food of that particular country.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And you've just done a book, haven't you tell me
about Linda McCartney's family Kitchen.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, we wanted to take a lot of her cooking
ideas and bring them more up to date. With the
way people tend to eat. Now it's vegetarian, but we
decided to actually make it vegan. Vegetarians so near to
be in anyway. I mean, you're only talking about cheese
and dairy products. You know that you've got so many
(19:06):
substitutes for those these days. So yeah, we just wanted
to get some really tasty, easy to make dishes that
would be good for a family, because I think if
you say to people, well, I'm vegetarian. These days actually
it is not so shocking, but it used to be
people say, oh, if you're coming to dinner, what can
I do? What can I get you? You know, So
(19:29):
that was originally why Linda got together a cookbook. So
it's nice to have come through it, really, you know,
it puts a perspective on it for us that it
was the kind of thing where you're getting told off
for kids in a restaurant, and nowadays it's just the opposite. Yeah,
you know, I'll tell you a restaurant I like a
lot is ABCV.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
In New York.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, ABC is great. I forget the guy's name, Jean Pierre, George, George,
that's it. Yeah, And he made ABC, which good, but
ABCV is all veggie and so good. I always come
out of that having eaten too much. And the other
thing I like is that the waiters they're all very
(20:11):
invested in the idea. It really is kind of quite thrilling,
you know. And I sort of transport myself through time
back to play the vege of lounges through to modern day.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I interviewed al Gore and again, like you not a musician,
but a very good politician and a very good environmentalist.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
And you know, it's hard to break the connection.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Between what we are, what our politics are, and what
our view on sustainability and how we vote, how we think,
how we judge, and how we eat.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
You know, that is.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's all connecting now, isn't it. And I think that's
so interesting. You have a farm. Al Gore has made
his farm, he inherited it in Tennessee, and he's made
it completely sustainable and organic. And the change the soil
tell us about your fine.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, well I was this organic, went organic well over
twenty years ago. And when I first bought the farm,
there were some fields that my farm guys would say, well,
there's no worms in these fields, there's no life because
basically all you did was you put on pesticides and
then you put a fertilizer in. So I thought, okay,
(21:23):
that's the challenge. You know, we're going to go organic.
So I talked to the Soil Association, who were very
good and kind of came and gave us some clues.
And we went organic. And the local farmers would say, oh,
you know, you're stupid. You're doing there. You know, it's
no use. Of course, nowadays they get it and they think, oh,
it's a good idea. So yeah, we changed the soil.
(21:47):
We grow crops like I like doing things like spelt wheat,
just because it's a little bit different. Rye. We grow peas.
Actually we're just getting into growing hemp. You know. The
funny thing is with government regulations, you've got to keep
it where people can't see it. You get all the
(22:08):
kids coming in and robbing it.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
You've left something else out. Because Stella told me that
you're making your own hair.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, we do. Through the years, I would hear like
a neighbor would be selling some land that was next
door to ours. So I went to this one and
I said, I hear you selling that hop garden there,
and he said, yeah, you know anyway, So long story
should I've got it. And then I thought, well, I've
got to start doing hops. You know, I've got to
(22:36):
bring it back because the region we're in in Sussex
was a very big hop growing area. So I went
to a local brewer who's just in the village near us,
and I said, could you make some beer for me?
And so I said, I'll grow the hops. Yeah, and
you put it all together and organic, it must be organic,
(22:57):
and so he did. And then we were looking for
a name for the beer. And you know, these artists
and beers, they've got to have crazy names. So I
was riding with Linda one day through our woods and
she was behind me and I stopped and I said,
you're not going to believe what you're going to see.
Now what I said, Look, she caught up with me
(23:20):
and it was a stinkhorn. I don't know if you
know what a stinkhorn is.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
I have no idea what a stink horn is.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It's a fungus that is white and erect and very phallic.
I mean it looks like an erect penis. And then
beside it, which is even better, there was another one
which was like a limp penis. So you got this
erect thing, and I'm saying, I'm saying, well, I tell
(23:46):
people this. I said, don't blame me. This is nature.
It's not me being dirty. So that's what our beer
is called old Stinkhorn.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
So can we get it?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
You can, I'll put you on the list. I send
it to friends. I just send it to friends.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Can we have it in the river cafe?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
That would be well, we don't produce that many. It's
more a personal I'll send you a six pack.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Okay, I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
The connection of between you and myself, as I said,
was music. It was is food. It was you know
when on my Desert Island discs I played I Will Sung,
Do you remember I was sung by Garrison Kelly Or
And you came in and said, you'd never heard that version.
And we played the memorial for our son who died
aged twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That was the first time I heard of your love
of that song, which it was very very lovely. To
imagine it at a memorial was very poignant.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
It was very beautiful.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
And I think that if you know, for me, then
for Richard and our family, that was comfort and it
was connection and so I guess my last question to
you is if food is something you do politically by
what you choose to eat, if it's socially what you
sit down with your friends and he It's also comfort,
isn't it? There is that is comfort that we go
(25:01):
to that makes us feel better. What for my last
question would be, Sir Paul McCartney, your comfort.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Food, Well, I like a casada or a quesadilla. It
is a comfort food. It's like a pizza turned inside out.
I love it. In fact, I think I'm having it tonight.
All right, Ruthie, thanks a lot. I love you. Don
(25:30):
hope you're sensible enough.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You were wonderful, You are wonderful. I'll see you soon.
When are you coming in?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
As soon as I can?
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Okay, come on, we're waiting for you. Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
to shop The Rivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm sorry, I think I'm going to sneeze.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
This is River Cafe Table four.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I always managed to sneeze, like on telephone calls.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
With me Ruthie Rogers.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
I don't think I've ever sneezed on a podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
On River Cafe Table four. I talked to friends who
know the River Cafe well about food, the food they cook,
the food they eat, the food of their memories.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Do you know what I feel?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
It receding, Oh no, I wanted to hear Paul McCartney sneeze.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
That would have been don't worry, it may come, and
when it comes, I can do up to nine. I
warn you for me.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Paul is not just a great musician, but a great
lover of food. And one of my favorite possessions is
a photograph that Paul recently sent me of him and
his grandson with a plate of tomato pasta they had
just cooked.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
They were both so proud.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Cooking in Liverpool in my working class family was very
much how everyone else ate, so there was not much variety,
and it was only when I came down to London
when the Beatles came down here to make records and
eventually to live down here. That you would go to
fine restaurants and try and navigate your way through the menu.
(01:34):
The eating was pretty much fuel until I got down
to London. I mean, for instance, I hated wine because well,
we never had it. I mean, the nearest we came
to alcoholic beverages was when we were a little older
on a Sunday with the Sunday lunch, we would have
a glass of cider. That was it. But whenever I
(01:57):
tasted wine, I hated it. And I hitchhiked to Paris.
He got given a fabulous birthday present by his rich
relatives in Scotland, and one of them gave him one
hundred pounds for his birthday. You know. I mean, I
still think that's a reasonable gift.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
It's very reasonable, one hundred quid.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
I have it anyway, So we hitchhiked to Paris, and
then we used the money to get food and stuff,
and we thought, oh, we've got to have a wine experience.
We're in France, you know. So we went into a
cafe corner cafe, and we sort of sidled up to
the bar and said, do van ordinaire ciavou Play, and
(02:45):
she gave us two glasses of red wine and we
took a sip and thought, oh, that is terrible. It's
like vinegar. God, I don't know what the fuss is
about all these people going on about wine. They're crazy,
We're saying. So. We never liked wine till we got
down to London. And the first time I ever remember
(03:07):
really liking wine it was with George Martin. My girlfriend
at the time was Jane Asher, and Jane and I
went out with George and his wife, Judy, and we
went to a little restaurant in Charlotte Street called Latroale.
Speaker 4 (03:23):
I probably never remember that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, I was treating so the way to the wine waiter,
Somelia came up to me and said, would you like
a wine? Sir? He leaned in all very intimate, and
I sort of equally whispering. I said, I'd like you
to recommend to me. I don't know much about wine.
Said oh, yes, sir, thank you very much, leave it
to me, and then he brought back a bottle of
(03:47):
Louis Latour's court Aunt Graci nineteen fifty nine, and I
took a taste of it. Oh, it was like velvet,
was it. I thought, now I get it, and I
see why people go crazy about one. And it was
funny because years after that, I thought, Okay, got on
(04:08):
grant Sye nineteen fifty nine. That's the wine I've got
to order. And then years later I thought it was
not quite as good as the one I had, and
I realized that I was now ordering the fifty nine
and this was now ten twenty years later, whereas he
was serving it at five years. Yeah, it took a
(04:28):
little while for that penny to drop.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
This is River Cafe Table four. In each episode, my
guess reads a recipe they've chosen from one of our cookbooks.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And this is the recipe for roast aubergine. So the
Americans call eggplant. For any Americans listening, okay, So you
take two aubergines cut into two centimeter thick slices, eight
ripe plum tomatoes cut in haw then one hundred grams
of parmesan grated, two tablespoons of basil leaves torn into
(05:09):
small pieces, extra virgin olive oil. You place the aubergine
in a colander and sprinkle with sea salt. Leave for
half an hour. The pat dry preheat the oven to
two hundred degrees celsius. Squeeze the juice from the tomatoes
(05:29):
and chop into small pieces. Place the tomatoes in a bowl,
season well with salt and pepper and tossed with a
tablespoonful of olive oil. Then stare in the parmesan and basil.
Brush an ovenproof dish with olive oil. Place the aubergine
slices on the dish, brush with olive oil and season.
(05:53):
Bake for fifteen minutes, then turn them over and spoon
the tomato mixture on top. Return into the oven for
five minutes. Serve warm, or they're also delicious at room temperature.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Thank you, beautiful. Why did you choose this recipe?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's just one of my favorite dishes. Being vegetarian. In
some restaurants, there's limited options. Not in the River Cafe,
but you know certain restaurants it's a bit limited, but
they often have an eggplant or aubergin parmesan. So I
will go for that, and I love it and I
(06:36):
eat it at home. It's just a great dish. It's
comforting when.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
You were growing up where they have a lot of
variety vegetables.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Did you come across are we going to call them
eggplant in this conversation?
Speaker 4 (06:49):
I should?
Speaker 3 (06:49):
So many words aren't there for this vegetable. I remember
when I first came to London. I went into a
green grocer and I asked for eggplant and he brought
me out eggs, and then I said, no, I don't
on eggs, and he brought me out a plant, you know,
And then I realized that they called them by the
French name Aubergean's, and then an Italian it smelon sata.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
How do you want to refer to them?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Let's do aberging because that's what I let's do.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Okay, So tell me about Aberjean's in Liverpool.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
You didn't get them. I've never heard of them till
I came down to London. Really yeah, I mean vegetables
would be potatoes, yeah, carrots, onion, and then you would
get broad beans, which we call butter beans. I like
them to this day. I like a nice butter bean soup.
(07:37):
So yeah, but it was very limited, and that would
be with a piece of meat. It was a pretty
bland menu that we had.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Who did the cooking in your house?
Speaker 2 (07:47):
My mom?
Speaker 4 (07:47):
Tell me about your mom? Did she like cooking?
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Do you think or did she see it as a
duty to do she did.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
She have a job she did. She was a nurse,
so she worked full on. Then she became a sister
on the word, and then eventually she became a midwife.
So she was hard working. I think she enjoyed cooking.
But I'm sure there was a little bit of providing
for your family in there, you know, because in those
(08:13):
days there was no question about it. Really it was
the woman's role. I would do a little bit myself
sometimes because my mom unfortunately died when I was fourteen,
so there was my dad and me and my younger
brother left to look after ourselves. Sometimes I'd get home
(08:33):
from school before my dad would from work, and I'd
have to knock up a little bit of a meal.
I became very good at mashed potatoes.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
What was your technique do you remember?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, I mean these days it's probably like over the
top and would need to be a little bit health aarized.
But then I would mash them normally with a fork
so we didn't have many cooking implements, and mashed them
up till I got all the lumps out. And I
was very keen on that. Then I would pile in.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
A lot of butter, yea delicious.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
A little bit of milk, and then whip that little
soccer up. And then sometimes if I was trying to
be exotic, I'd put some finely chopped onions raw, which
is kind of nice.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
I'd say that that is a very sophisticated way. I
mean that is, we always say that mashed potatoes and
France are really butter with potatoes. You know, did your
mother teach you how to do that or was it instinctive?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
I think I probably just watched her do it. So
I would make that, and then my dad would leave
either some sausages or chops to go with it. That
was basically it. But yeah, you know, my mum was
a proper cook. The only time I really couldn't eat
what she had cooked and what she'd offered on the
(10:00):
table on a plate, there was a tongue, and I
did not like the look of this bloody grate cow's tongue.
I was not persuaded to eat that. I'm afraid.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
When you said that your dad would leave you the
sausages of the pork so he would do the shopping.
Did he have a night job, would he come home
for dinner.
Speaker 5 (10:19):
No.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
He was a cotton salesman, so he worked just during
the day. He would leave roughly the same time as
we left for school, so he would sell cotton it
came in from the port and then he would sell
that onto the mills which were behind Liverpool in Lancashire.
That was a big industry at the time to this day,
(10:40):
I know how to take the staple of some raw cotton?
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Do you?
Speaker 4 (10:44):
How do you do that?
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You've got a piece of cotton that's you know, just
come off the bush and being packed, and you take
it between your thumbs and you tease it, and you
keep teasing it till you all you're left with is
the one bit that won't tease off. That thing that's left,
the thread that's left is called the staple. And you
(11:07):
judge the quality of the cotton on the length of
that staple.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
That's very beautiful. What year would this have been? What
years have we time?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
In mid fifties, so I was coming to London a
huge exposure to food and to restaurants and going out.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, absolutely, I mean in Liverpool there weren't till my knowledge,
any real sort of fine restaurants. You had great Chinese food,
great Indian food, but the English cooking was normally done
best at home. Yes, you know you had an ante
or somebody who was like really made a great stew
(11:52):
in Liverpool. There's a stew that's called scouse.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
It's like an Irish stew sort of everything in and
then you years later, when Linda and I became vegetarian,
we went up and my Auntie was very nice, very kind,
and she made scouts without the meat, which Liverpolitan is
called blind scouse.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
It.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I'm sure you've written and talked about this, but how
did the decision by the two of you? And Mary
said to me, you must remember that my father and
my mother decided this together.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
It wasn't my mother's that's true.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
We will be vegetarian, said it was a joint decision,
which now everybody I have to say is thinking about
the environment. All my children and grandchildren are either not
eating meat or fish at all.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Goodness, so thinking about the environment exactly.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
But what were you thinking about then? What made you
do that?
Speaker 2 (12:45):
What it was was we were on the farm in Scotland.
We had a farm in a place called Campbelltown, which
is south down the Argyle Peninsula south of Glasgow, so
we spent quite a bit of time there. The Beatles
break up got a bit heavy in the business scene
and you just couldn't deal with it. So we decided
(13:07):
to just elope, even though we were married. We just
escaped there and it was just a sheep farm. We
were looking out of the kitchen window one day and
there were lambs. It was lambing season, early in spring,
and the lambs were gambling around so full of life,
and it was like, wow, this is really cool. And
(13:27):
I always say that what they seemed like they were doing,
it would be about twenty of them. They'd start at
one end of the field and then it'd be as
if someone said let's go and they all go and
run to the other side of the field. Let's go back.
So they were just running up and down, gambling and
jumping and everything were going, isn't this cute and great?
(13:49):
Then we suddenly realized we were eating leg of lamb.
So that was when the penny dropped and it was
like h leg of lamb. Then it was just we said,
you know what, do we try and not eat meat?
We try and go veggie. And in those days of course,
it was actually difficult, but we decided that we'd make
(14:10):
it a challenge. It just became a fun challenge. Okay,
what do you do? So we gradually begun filling the
hole in the middle of the plate. We'd keep everything
else and then we'd just work on things to take
the place of where the meat had been. And it
was quite funny actually, because at Christmas, you know, I'd
(14:31):
always loved the role which I had been given in
the family of carving the turkey, and Linda did cook
the turkey great. She was really good at that. So
suddenly here we were without anything for me to carve.
So she had the brilliant idea of making a macaroni
cheese so that we know it to taste good, and
(14:53):
then she let it cool and go solid, and then
we put it in the fridge overnight, and then the
next day I had this big block that I could
come into turkey sized portions. So it was like that.
It actually became very interesting to work out how to
do it because nobody else was bothering, you know. I
(15:15):
remember going with Linda's father one night to clarages and thinking, oh, great,
you know they're going to know how to do it.
We said, well, where'd you turn? Can you make some suggestions?
The waiter gave us a very sniffy look and said anyway.
He came back with a plate of vegetables steamed. Yeah,
that was the limit of his imagination. But you know,
things started to change really quickly.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
But I think, Paul, without interrupting you, that you have
to take credit for that change. Linda, have to take
credit for that change, because you didn't just personally become vegetarian,
but you kind of told the world about what it
was like and how it was like, especially you know,
with her books and her vision created a place. I'll
(15:57):
tell you a story. Do you remember there was that
restaurant called Crack. It was like the only vegetarian restaurant
in London.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
It was, and I thought it was very cool the
way they called it cranks.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
And I once went there with Richard the first days
that I met him, and I was so happy to
see him, and I kept kissing him and having my
arms around him, and I saw a woman staring at
us and getting very annoyed, and so of course I
just did it more. She came over to the table
and she said, I think that what you've been doing
is appalling, but that you should be doing it in
(16:27):
a vegetarian restaurant.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Makes it worse.
Speaker 5 (16:33):
It was somehow the idea that you couldn't be sexy
and have vegetables. So I think I think you could
say that you and Linda made vegetables sexy and rock
and roll.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
It was something very important.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That is funny though, isn't it. It used to come
with the territory that if people were veggie, they were cranks,
and therefore they were boring, and so it gave this
image of the whole thing being really boring. The people
are boring, there's no kissing allowed. Yeah, you know, but
that soon left the arena.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Were you unique in the group of musicians and the
other people that were performing at the in the sixties.
Did they have the same explosion of food and enjoy
of food or do you think you were kind of
more passionate about it.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
I don't know, you know, I think a lot of
them did, a lot of them didn't. Some people remained
traditional eaters. I mean, you know, the a couple of
people these days I know who were from those times
who just want English cooking. You know, it's just like
they want life to stay exactly the same as it was,
and I get it. You know, it kind of split
(17:42):
into two groups. I suppose, you know, the people who
weren't bothered with all that rubbishy wine and fine food.
They probably still thought it tastes like vinegar.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
But when you travel, when you were on tour and
you were suddenly traveling in other countries, do you remember
being in Japan or China or an exotic place and
being confronted with food that you'd never seen before.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Never Japan mainly. I mean, I haven't actually been to China,
but Japan was quite an experience. I like Japanese food
these days because I'm vegetarian. A lot of it's a
bit fishy for me, but you can work your way
around it. I enjoy Japanese cuisine. I like sort of
Asian fusion. It didn't really mean that we would have
(18:26):
it at home. It was more when you went to
the country, you'd enjoy the food of that particular country.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
And you've just done a book, haven't you tell me
about Linda McCartney's family Kitchen.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, we wanted to take a lot of her cooking
ideas and bring them more up to date. With the
way people tend to eat. Now it's vegetarian, but we
decided to actually make it vegan. Vegetarians so near to
be in anyway. I mean, you're only talking about cheese
and dairy products. You know that you've got so many
(19:06):
substitutes for those these days. So yeah, we just wanted
to get some really tasty, easy to make dishes that
would be good for a family, because I think if
you say to people, well, I'm vegetarian. These days actually
it is not so shocking, but it used to be
people say, oh, if you're coming to dinner, what can
I do? What can I get you? You know, So
(19:29):
that was originally why Linda got together a cookbook. So
it's nice to have come through it, really, you know,
it puts a perspective on it for us that it
was the kind of thing where you're getting told off
for kids in a restaurant, and nowadays it's just the opposite. Yeah,
you know, I'll tell you a restaurant I like a
lot is ABCV.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
In New York.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, ABC is great. I forget the guy's name, Jean Pierre, George, George,
that's it. Yeah, And he made ABC, which good, but
ABCV is all veggie and so good. I always come
out of that having eaten too much. And the other
thing I like is that the waiters they're all very
(20:11):
invested in the idea. It really is kind of quite thrilling,
you know. And I sort of transport myself through time
back to play the vege of lounges through to modern day.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
I interviewed al Gore and again, like you not a musician,
but a very good politician and a very good environmentalist.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
And you know, it's hard to break the connection.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Between what we are, what our politics are, and what
our view on sustainability and how we vote, how we think,
how we judge, and how we eat.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
You know, that is.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's all connecting now, isn't it. And I think that's
so interesting. You have a farm. Al Gore has made
his farm, he inherited it in Tennessee, and he's made
it completely sustainable and organic. And the change the soil
tell us about your fine.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, well I was this organic, went organic well over
twenty years ago. And when I first bought the farm,
there were some fields that my farm guys would say, well,
there's no worms in these fields, there's no life because
basically all you did was you put on pesticides and
then you put a fertilizer in. So I thought, okay,
(21:23):
that's the challenge. You know, we're going to go organic.
So I talked to the Soil Association, who were very
good and kind of came and gave us some clues.
And we went organic. And the local farmers would say, oh,
you know, you're stupid. You're doing there. You know, it's
no use. Of course, nowadays they get it and they think, oh,
it's a good idea. So yeah, we changed the soil.
(21:47):
We grow crops like I like doing things like spelt wheat,
just because it's a little bit different. Rye. We grow peas.
Actually we're just getting into growing hemp. You know. The
funny thing is with government regulations, you've got to keep
it where people can't see it. You get all the
(22:08):
kids coming in and robbing it.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
You've left something else out. Because Stella told me that
you're making your own hair.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Yeah, we do. Through the years, I would hear like
a neighbor would be selling some land that was next
door to ours. So I went to this one and
I said, I hear you selling that hop garden there,
and he said, yeah, you know anyway, So long story
should I've got it. And then I thought, well, I've
got to start doing hops. You know, I've got to
(22:36):
bring it back because the region we're in in Sussex
was a very big hop growing area. So I went
to a local brewer who's just in the village near us,
and I said, could you make some beer for me?
And so I said, I'll grow the hops. Yeah, and
you put it all together and organic, it must be organic,
(22:57):
and so he did. And then we were looking for
a name for the beer. And you know, these artists
and beers, they've got to have crazy names. So I
was riding with Linda one day through our woods and
she was behind me and I stopped and I said,
you're not going to believe what you're going to see.
Now what I said, Look, she caught up with me
(23:20):
and it was a stinkhorn. I don't know if you
know what a stinkhorn is.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
I have no idea what a stink horn is.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It's a fungus that is white and erect and very phallic.
I mean it looks like an erect penis. And then
beside it, which is even better, there was another one
which was like a limp penis. So you got this
erect thing, and I'm saying, I'm saying, well, I tell
(23:46):
people this. I said, don't blame me. This is nature.
It's not me being dirty. So that's what our beer
is called old Stinkhorn.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
So can we get it?
Speaker 2 (23:55):
You can, I'll put you on the list. I send
it to friends. I just send it to friends.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
Can we have it in the river cafe?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
That would be well, we don't produce that many. It's
more a personal I'll send you a six pack.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Okay, I'm waiting for it.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
The connection of between you and myself, as I said,
was music. It was is food. It was you know
when on my Desert Island discs I played I Will Sung,
Do you remember I was sung by Garrison Kelly Or
And you came in and said, you'd never heard that version.
And we played the memorial for our son who died
aged twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
That was the first time I heard of your love
of that song, which it was very very lovely. To
imagine it at a memorial was very poignant.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
It was very beautiful.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
And I think that if you know, for me, then
for Richard and our family, that was comfort and it
was connection and so I guess my last question to
you is if food is something you do politically by
what you choose to eat, if it's socially what you
sit down with your friends and he It's also comfort,
isn't it? There is that is comfort that we go
(25:01):
to that makes us feel better. What for my last
question would be, Sir Paul McCartney, your comfort.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Food, Well, I like a casada or a quesadilla. It
is a comfort food. It's like a pizza turned inside out.
I love it. In fact, I think I'm having it tonight.
All right, Ruthie, thanks a lot. I love you. Don
(25:30):
hope you're sensible enough.
Speaker 4 (25:31):
You were wonderful, You are wonderful. I'll see you soon.
When are you coming in?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
As soon as I can?
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Okay, come on, we're waiting for you. Okay.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
to shop The Rivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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