October 25, 2022 • 24 mins
Sitting here in The River Café on a sunny Monday morning with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli with girolles, and waiters laying tables in the garden, the uncertain world we live in feels miles away.
The artist and filmmaker Steve McQueen does not separate the world of beauty and the world of suffering in any of his work. Political oppression, slavery, sexual inequality.
Steve and I met in 1999 when he won the Turner Prize for his radical video art, and we once had dinner together with President Obama.
It was clear that the only person President Obama was interested in talking to was Steve McQueen and he didn’t want to share him with anyone else. Now, a few years later, I finally have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being a generous person, will share him with you.
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/
Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/
Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favourite shows.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios. Sitting here in the River Cafe on a
Sunday Monday morning, with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli,
with hiroles and waiters laying tables in the garden, the
(00:22):
uncertain world we live in feels miles away. The artist
and filmmaker step mc queen does not separate the world
of beauty and the world of suffering in any of
his work political oppression, slavery, sexual inequality. Steph and I
met in nineteen ninety nine when he won the Turner
(00:44):
Prize for his radical video art, and we once had
dinner together with President Obama. It was clear that the
only person President Obama was interested in talking to with
Steve mc queen, and he didn't want to share him
with anyone else. Now, a few years later, I finally
have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being a generous person,
(01:08):
we'll share him with you. Steve and I share a
hero in Paul Robeson. We share the same concerns for
equality and justice and food, and today we're going to
talk all about that and more. Thank you, Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Tell me about growing up in London. You lived with
your parents in West London and what did you eat?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, we grew up. I grew up in the first
leship with Bush, West London. My relationship with food really
starts with the market. I was the kid who was
carrying the bags behind their mother, you know, because basically
I would have to go with her, because you know,
I was the sort of textra pad hands a character.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Shopping back home.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Food was a way of actually getting to do London
because it's someone had said to my mother this, you know,
you could get so and so sea based in this
market for this amount of money, she will be there.
So people used to talk about where can they get
particularly kind of food and fresh produce.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Where was your mother born?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
My mother was born in Trinidad, but she grew up
in in Grenada, and my father was born in Grenado.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
How old were they when they came to London.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
My mother was about fourteen fifteen. I think she's about
fifteen when she came to London. I think in the
early sixties, and my father was a little bit older.
I think maybe it was about twenty one. I don't
know when I think he came early sixties too, but
not not at the same time.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And so do you think her mother had taken her
to the market. As you say, the market does introduce
us to a culture, that introduces us to a city.
It's the first place I always go when I go
to any town in any city in any country. But
tell me more about the smells of the market and
what it looked like for you and your mother's experience
of the market.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, in fact, what happened was that a lot of
majority of people for coming from way did this headline,
and they grew their own food, you know, and look
after you know, the animals and so forth and whatnot.
And fishing was a big part of the culture too,
because obviously my mother lived on the coast in a
place called Stears and was a very big fishing spot there,
you know, it's called a fishing village.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Food was very.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Much directly sort of to do with who they were.
So when they came to London, of course looking for
good food was very important. And you know, we used
to go to all kinds of bloody markets all over London.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I so, I said, I met up with it.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I said, missed my football focus on the sacle because
I had to go to the market with my mum.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It was something which I remember.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
There was all different cultures, you know, it was didn't
You had the sort of you know, the.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Londoners and the white Londoners and the Indian, you're the Jewish.
You had all kinds of people. It was fabulous. It
was really kind of cool, Tobe.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
When you would come home from the market. What would
you eat? What would they cook from the market?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh, if you get dashing, you know spinage? You know again,
you know you cook? I mean my my my favorite
was like a nice stewed chicken. I'm not a special thing,
I'm roty, just you know, Oh my god, what was it?
A beautiful It's like a nice stew fish. And I
used to love what was this? This one thing I
(04:15):
used to love very much was a vegetable?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
What was it? It was? I love? I love?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
It was all kinds of exotic stuff. I mean I
say exotic because it was familiar to me. But my friends,
my wife, friends, and what was that was this?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Was this? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Who cooked in the house.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
My mother cooked, my father cooked. My father was a
good cook too.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
He took pride in the Christmas Ham.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
That was his job.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
There was a particular way of cooking that came from
because he's uncle was a butcher in the West Indies,
so there was a particular way of cooking the ham.
I can't even prescribe it now, but it's all close,
all into indented in all everywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It was almost like sort of a ror movie. Marvelous. Yeah,
great cooks, great cooks.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Did you cook with them? Was it a family affair?
Would you all cook together?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I mean I loved being with my mother in a
kitchen because somehow I love to help out.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I love to sort of be I don't know, I
love to love that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So I can't say that I'm a great cook, but
I was a very good shoe chef, a bit of
a neat and tidy person.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Would they entertain? Would friends come over? Did was there
that feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
When people did come over? It was? It was a
lot of family and fair and well.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I think most of the things I used to do
when the people's come up with them would just listen
because there was always always that would come out that
my parents will never talk to us about, of course,
but always because adults will talk to adults, so therefore
them find out about sort of how what was going on?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Or when you left this very comforting family meals where
you were cooked for and you ate together. What was
that like when you left home? Where did you live?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I was actually near you, guys. Actually I was in Fulham.
I was just around the corner from me. I was
with his girlfriend and she was great, was a very
important girlfriend of mine. Her name was Anuke. She was
a Swiss. And then she had discovered this restaurant, this
place called Malati, the Indonesian place and so, which was delicious,
(06:13):
It was gorgeous, and that was my first restaurant.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And she that was your first restaurant.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I think that was one of my first restaurants. Yeah,
I think I was about nineteen years old.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
And after that the restaurants become part of your social life.
Did you love restaurants?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I mean, what's great about I mean now, I suppose
in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
we didn't have that was the world, I think, and
to be introduced to the world through food and of
course good company, that's always the main ingredient for going
to a restaurant. So that was wonderful and then we
got to know. So we've got a lot of restaurants
and so we got to know. I remember during that time,
(06:47):
miss early nineties, early early nineties. Yeah, and also in
the East then too.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, what about an arts school? Was that revelation?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean, you know, canon bitter cheese and bag it.
I mean that was that was kind of like interesting
because again there was an addition to waste in this cheese.
I mean the cheese.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I was crappy cheese.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You know, you can imagine a sort of a big block
of something which they called cheese. But getting to them
cheese was interesting during my time at Foundation at Chelsea.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean, it's a kind of interesting life change, isn't
it between this going to the market with your mother
and carrying the bag and coming home and cooking and
then sitting down and eating and then having independence and
having to fend for yourself and discover life out there.
Did you go home? Would you return home for the
home cooked meal?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yes? I used to love going home for food.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
My goodness, I said, oh, oh, my goodness, I used
to love it. It's just it's just the sort of yeah,
it was difficult because at first it was how do
I cook? What do I cook? I was on the
phone to my mom, Mom, how do I do this?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Mom? I do this? My Mom, I do that. So
a lot of coals up.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Making sort of soups and things like that, and how
do I season them? Because I can't. For granted, I
said to be a shoe shop, but I wasn't really looking.
It wasn't really studying, yea, So a lot of phone
calls basically back round, Welcome.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Back to River Cafe, Table four. In each episode, my
guest reads a recipe they have chosen from one of
our cookbooks. We chose spinach and peas, So would you
like to go for it and tell the world how
to make it?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
One kilogram fresh peas in their pods, extra virgin olive oil,
one garlic cloth peel and diced, one dried red chili crumbled,
one knogram of spinach, washed tough sports, removed.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Pid the piece and blanche them in plenty of boily water.
In Italy, no one ever cooks vegetables.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Absolutely only past it.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So rather than blenching these peas, boil them so that
they almost melt together with spinach and the olive oil.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Gorgeous. So now Steve, here we are and we're going
to talk about the series that has just been on
television that we've all watched and been so moved by.
Small acts. You tell the story of a local restaurant
constantly harassed by the police. Is that a memory or
is that? Can you tell me about the restaurant, the
(09:41):
politics and the series.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Sure, well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
The Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank Critchlow
in Lambergrove on All Saints Road, and he opened a
restaurant in nineteen sixty eight and it was a sort
of home away from home restaurant. You can imagine, as
I said before, the peaceeople wanting the sort of the
taste of home and had a vibrancy of having sort
(10:05):
of like many people wanted to sort of come to
a place to eat and to sort of commune with
each other. So it was a place of refuge in
it in a way. You know, the vibe, the vibes
that came out of there, and it was just one
of those places which became very infectious if people wanted
to go. It was it was it was something which
was which was which was on the scene and unfortunately
the police and the authorities that be obviously didn't like
(10:29):
what was happening at this place because again it was
you know, it was people from the Western Ears, it
was working class people, it was the thinkers, it was
sort of activists were coming there and also the hoy eploy.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So all these people.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Coming to this spot and talking over food, having ideas
and obviously that was something which the authorities didn't like,
and therefore they tried to disrupt disrupted as much as
they could. You know, it was a case of the
people not wanting certain ideas having a foot in the UK,
and they thought that the Mangrove was a place where
those ideas could sort of take root.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
There's something about doing that kind of discussion as well
over food. And one of the things that I see
in the restaurant is that somehow being out of your house,
being away from your domestic life, being looked after, gives
you the chance to really focus on a conversation. Do
you find that in a restaurant.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Absolutely absolutely, And there's a sense of, I don't know
what is it. Purpose, you're there, you're present, there's another
person there and present, but also actually just a listen.
It's just a case of being in an environment where
you are you know, you feel comfortable in order to
(11:44):
say things and listen.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And also I've talked to various people in business and
in film and creating movies or making deals. I mean
when I always quote is Michael Caine who said that
he never did a deal for a movie in America
that didn't take place in a restaurant. And he said
that was very Hollywood. Do you work in restaurants? Do
you like to meet people that you're going to work
(12:08):
with in a restaurant?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
First, I love it, but that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I mean, I think it's sort of it's a classy
way to do anything, isn't it. And also I love
it because growing up in the art world. What was
wonderful about growing up in the art world is that
artists never paid for dinners, never because you're the artist.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And it was amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
In fact, I think that's how I grew up in
food in an an interesting way. It was through the
art world. It's completely different to the film world. I mean,
you know the fact that you you know, you might
go crappy sang which you're you're you're lucky. But in
the art world, it was always the best wines. It
was always the best food. You know, if it was
an opening or even a meeting, it was always the
best restaurant. And that was a huge education. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I was thinking about making movies and the movies you've made,
and of course here we are talking about food and
eating and the joy of being taken care of through food.
And then I think of the movie that you know,
was so earth shattering, which was Hunger, And so we're
talking about a movie called Hunger and the state of
(13:14):
hunger and somebody put their principles and politics above comfort
and as a political act actually starved themselves. So what
was it like making a movie that was the absence
of food as a political statement?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Heavy? I mean, for me, it was again it's food
is interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I related to that in a way that of being
a child, in the way that you know, the often
only power a child has is frailing to eat his
or her mother saying you're not leaving the table until
you finish that plate, and the child sort of you know,
refusing to eat, and then you're sent off the bed,
(14:00):
you know. And it's interesting because you know what what
you know, the clothes you wear that as a as
a child of a cerdaden age, what time you go
to bed, what food you eat is chosen by your parents,
and the whole idea that this child, the power this
child has is to refrain to eat. That was my
relationship in some ways to Bobby Sands and hunger strike,
that the power that person had was to refrain to
eat every since it was a child. I remembered asking
(14:22):
my mom when I saw this image of Bobby's Sands
on on television with a number beneath his image, and
asking my mother, what's what's what is that? How oldest
person is? Because no, that how many days this person
has been on hunger strike. So there was an immediate
relationship with the story and it was, yeah, it was.
It was difficult, but I think Michael Fans been there,
you know where cars is. Bobby Sands was tremendous and
that was a bond up you know we have to
(14:43):
this day. It was a real kind of a labor
of love.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And what are the food scenes in your movies? In
twelve years a slave? There's a scene, isn't there at
the dinner table?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I seem to remember, Yeah, there's lots of I think
there's lots of food in my films. I mean you
can see after that is shame the two characters, Brandon
and any sort of a possible girlfriend or at this
dinner table and this waiter, annoying waiter comes in every
five seconds to interrupt them. I remember that from having
lots of dinners in New York and every five seconds
one becomes in the middle of something was getting bigger.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know how conversations are. They had to get to
that point, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
It's always it was commercial buddy breaks every five seconds.
You have to start from a scratch every five minutes.
So it didn't make for a good eating experience. So
I put that in the movie What do you.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Eat on a film?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
No?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
when I started filmmaking and there hunger and sharing in
twelve this it's like all the actors and all the
crew will eat together. We did the people in their
buddy trailers in that crap, everyone lead together. There's something
about communal eating and it's about weed. It's such a
(15:53):
unifying thing to see, you know, the hear and makeup
and the camera department and tune up, furity and sitting
at a table together and talking about the film or
talking about things. There's a camaraderie. It's only time often
when you're sort of on set together that you had
that sort of time, you know, when you're sitting together
(16:13):
eating and it's fun.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's fun. I love it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Year three is an exhibition that was at the Tate
and I went to see it three times because every
time I went back I saw something something different in
the expression of a child of a teacher. It really
told the story of the world we live in through
these photographs. And one of the issues that I think
(16:44):
is very important is that when we had the lockdown
a year ago, one of the things we learned that
when children were denied school, they were also denied food,
and they were denied food at lunchtime, which might have
been their only meal of the day. And the idea
that we have a society that children depend on having
(17:07):
their food away from the home because of the poverty
in the home is appalling and shocking and distressing everything else.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yes, absolutely, I mean I had schooled this which I
paid for by my mother. That's why even today I
like hot meals. I love hot lunches, I mean, and
they were vital. They were vital there were children. I
know for a fact that that was the main meal
of the day, if not the only meal of the day.
And this is with our bottle of milk in the
(17:35):
morning before missus snatcher took it away from us.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, I love school meals in that way. Also, just
because we're such a good laugh in the canteen, you know,
I associate food in school with good times. And I
can even remember the smell of it, the canteen and
the noise and the cutlery banging together, and it's so important.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Also, people have to sort of really tip the hat
to Marcus Rashford and what he did in the sense of,
you know, getting the government to sort of stand down
twice about the school mill because you know it can
This is you know, if we can't look after people
we can't afford to eat, then I don't know who
we are as human beings. That it took a footballer
to do that is kind of a bit you know.
(18:18):
There you go, everyone has got to step up in
your own way I suppose if people aren't doing their
job properly, that meaning the government. And also, don't forget
this again, It's just one of those things I feel
that you know, everyone is unfortunately not brought into this
world equally. But if you just give someone the possibility
a little bit of a shaft of light, one doesn't
know where that might lead them to. So, yeah, the
fact that people actually have a meal in the stomach,
(18:40):
you know in Britain, Yeah, it's more than important. One
thing I was very shocked by when I was shooting
in Chicago, shooting widows, was how I didn't see a
grocery store in a black neighborhood. I didn't see any
greens in a black neighbor you know, there wasn't a
green grocers, but there was always some sort of fast
(19:02):
food place where people eat.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So people are losing this sort of heritage of food.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
People are not aware of food and nourishment and possibilities
within food. And food is politics in a way, it
reverts back to what we were talking about right at
the beginning of a conversation. It starts with like, in
a way, markets, because markets, a lot of markets are
on the threat. A lot of markets have closed. So
(19:27):
this sense of community, sense of promarderiate, a sense of
sort of love of food and love of each other
is being sort of erased in the sort of you know,
working class areas. I mean, you get these markets, but
they're so they're kind of like posh markets, aren't they.
They're sort of farmers markets, they call them. And you know,
the food is so expensive, so and I can I
(19:49):
feel that they're becoming kind of food deserts in a
way where kids are growing up on fast food and
not being introduced to sort of love food in a
way that Stundlach, which I'm a bit sort of concerned about.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, food is a connection, and food is a memory,
and food is giving and sharing, and food is political
and social, and it's also comfort. It's something that we
go to and we need comfort. And so I suppose
Steve McQueen, what would you say is the food you
would go to if you needed comfort?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
For me, the comfort food that I very much love
and I appreciate is often a cold day, you know,
and you come in and it's my mum's chicken soups
West Indian chicken soup, which has the bones in it
and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones, and
it's the sort of.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
You know, it's the time, it's.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The garlic, it's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
sugar ingredient which she wants, you still want atomic, the dumplings,
a bit of potatoes, a bit of peas.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
So those are the kind of things I really love. Yeah,
And I could hear my dad sucking the bones right now.
It was a wonderful, you know, having those dinners together
on those cold days. I remember it was. It was beautiful.
It was beautiful and lots of great memories. My dad's
not anymore. So when I often do think about him,
(21:12):
I do think about him, and that soup. I do
think about him. Christmas and the ham, of course, and Christmas.
Christmas breakfast was a big thing.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Hot coke coo.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
My dad would make a bake. A bake is a
kind of a flat bread West Indian flat bread in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
And oh my god, how can I how can I
not say this? Fish cakes? My mother's fish cakes. Oh
my god, my mother's fish cakes.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
On the Christmas morning and she's making these little bakes
which was a sort of like a like a bread
you'll fry and oil, oh my god, and even my
daughter youtually when my mom comes up as yours, ask
Granny please make fish cakes for me because it's a
West Indian fishcakes such as it's gorgeous and of course
you know there's never anything left for me when I
get home. But you know it's just I think, really,
(22:00):
what you've done actually is actually given me.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I mean fast, what love is rock?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Not even love is rock. That's what the whole of
Small Acts was based on. The foundation of all of
that was based on food and memory. Because it's what's
so fascinating. I'm rambling on it again myself. But the
smell is the most antaste is the most potent sources
of memory, not the photographs. Photographs is only twenty so
(22:28):
much because you know, it cuts out what's beyond the
frame is not present, it's not visible.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Going on wrapping.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I'll stop myself, no doubt it's beautiful, but it is
what it does. There are people who say, I never
remembered that until we started talking about the food, and
that brought back the memory. I had somebody whose father
had left home and he would when he saw his
children on the weekends he would suddenly start cooking for them,
and he said, oh, I don't know. I don't think
(22:57):
I've ever told anybody that story. But now I remember
my father actually is a way of his guilt or
his love just started cooking, you know. And I think,
what you just when you choose your comfort food, you
start thinking about your father and your mother, and you
think about the memories and that it's so potent, isn't it.
I thought it would be interesting, But what it really
(23:20):
brings home over and over again is the connection that
food has for us for memories.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, forget about this, I'm telling you. Do You've done it, mate,
smell and til you've done it.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, thank you, you've done it.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
It's all to do with you.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
to shop The Rivercafe dot co dot uk. Ruthie's Table
for is a production of iHeartRadio Anatomized Studios. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(24:03):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of iHeartRadio and
Adamized Studios. Sitting here in the River Cafe on a
Sunday Monday morning, with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli,
with hiroles and waiters laying tables in the garden, the
(00:22):
uncertain world we live in feels miles away. The artist
and filmmaker step mc queen does not separate the world
of beauty and the world of suffering in any of
his work political oppression, slavery, sexual inequality. Steph and I
met in nineteen ninety nine when he won the Turner
(00:44):
Prize for his radical video art, and we once had
dinner together with President Obama. It was clear that the
only person President Obama was interested in talking to with
Steve mc queen, and he didn't want to share him
with anyone else. Now, a few years later, I finally
have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being a generous person,
(01:08):
we'll share him with you. Steve and I share a
hero in Paul Robeson. We share the same concerns for
equality and justice and food, and today we're going to
talk all about that and more. Thank you, Steve.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Tell me about growing up in London. You lived with
your parents in West London and what did you eat?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, we grew up. I grew up in the first
leship with Bush, West London. My relationship with food really
starts with the market. I was the kid who was
carrying the bags behind their mother, you know, because basically
I would have to go with her, because you know,
I was the sort of textra pad hands a character.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Shopping back home.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Food was a way of actually getting to do London
because it's someone had said to my mother this, you know,
you could get so and so sea based in this
market for this amount of money, she will be there.
So people used to talk about where can they get
particularly kind of food and fresh produce.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Where was your mother born?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
My mother was born in Trinidad, but she grew up
in in Grenada, and my father was born in Grenado.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
How old were they when they came to London.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
My mother was about fourteen fifteen. I think she's about
fifteen when she came to London. I think in the
early sixties, and my father was a little bit older.
I think maybe it was about twenty one. I don't
know when I think he came early sixties too, but
not not at the same time.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
And so do you think her mother had taken her
to the market. As you say, the market does introduce
us to a culture, that introduces us to a city.
It's the first place I always go when I go
to any town in any city in any country. But
tell me more about the smells of the market and
what it looked like for you and your mother's experience
of the market.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, in fact, what happened was that a lot of
majority of people for coming from way did this headline,
and they grew their own food, you know, and look
after you know, the animals and so forth and whatnot.
And fishing was a big part of the culture too,
because obviously my mother lived on the coast in a
place called Stears and was a very big fishing spot there,
you know, it's called a fishing village.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Food was very.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Much directly sort of to do with who they were.
So when they came to London, of course looking for
good food was very important. And you know, we used
to go to all kinds of bloody markets all over London.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
I so, I said, I met up with it.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I said, missed my football focus on the sacle because
I had to go to the market with my mum.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
It was something which I remember.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
There was all different cultures, you know, it was didn't
You had the sort of you know, the.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Londoners and the white Londoners and the Indian, you're the Jewish.
You had all kinds of people. It was fabulous. It
was really kind of cool, Tobe.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
When you would come home from the market. What would
you eat? What would they cook from the market?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh, if you get dashing, you know spinage? You know again,
you know you cook? I mean my my my favorite
was like a nice stewed chicken. I'm not a special thing,
I'm roty, just you know, Oh my god, what was it?
A beautiful It's like a nice stew fish. And I
used to love what was this? This one thing I
(04:15):
used to love very much was a vegetable?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
What was it? It was? I love? I love?
Speaker 3 (04:21):
It was all kinds of exotic stuff. I mean I
say exotic because it was familiar to me. But my friends,
my wife, friends, and what was that was this?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Was this? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Who cooked in the house.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
My mother cooked, my father cooked. My father was a
good cook too.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
He took pride in the Christmas Ham.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
That was his job.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
There was a particular way of cooking that came from
because he's uncle was a butcher in the West Indies,
so there was a particular way of cooking the ham.
I can't even prescribe it now, but it's all close,
all into indented in all everywhere.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It was almost like sort of a ror movie. Marvelous. Yeah,
great cooks, great cooks.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Did you cook with them? Was it a family affair?
Would you all cook together?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I mean I loved being with my mother in a
kitchen because somehow I love to help out.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
I love to sort of be I don't know, I
love to love that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
So I can't say that I'm a great cook, but
I was a very good shoe chef, a bit of
a neat and tidy person.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Would they entertain? Would friends come over? Did was there
that feeling.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
When people did come over? It was? It was a
lot of family and fair and well.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
I think most of the things I used to do
when the people's come up with them would just listen
because there was always always that would come out that
my parents will never talk to us about, of course,
but always because adults will talk to adults, so therefore
them find out about sort of how what was going on?
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Or when you left this very comforting family meals where
you were cooked for and you ate together. What was
that like when you left home? Where did you live?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I was actually near you, guys. Actually I was in Fulham.
I was just around the corner from me. I was
with his girlfriend and she was great, was a very
important girlfriend of mine. Her name was Anuke. She was
a Swiss. And then she had discovered this restaurant, this
place called Malati, the Indonesian place and so, which was delicious,
(06:13):
It was gorgeous, and that was my first restaurant.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And she that was your first restaurant.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
I think that was one of my first restaurants. Yeah,
I think I was about nineteen years old.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
And after that the restaurants become part of your social life.
Did you love restaurants?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I mean, what's great about I mean now, I suppose
in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
we didn't have that was the world, I think, and
to be introduced to the world through food and of
course good company, that's always the main ingredient for going
to a restaurant. So that was wonderful and then we
got to know. So we've got a lot of restaurants
and so we got to know. I remember during that time,
(06:47):
miss early nineties, early early nineties. Yeah, and also in
the East then too.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, what about an arts school? Was that revelation?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
I mean, you know, canon bitter cheese and bag it.
I mean that was that was kind of like interesting
because again there was an addition to waste in this cheese.
I mean the cheese.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
I was crappy cheese.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You know, you can imagine a sort of a big block
of something which they called cheese. But getting to them
cheese was interesting during my time at Foundation at Chelsea.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean, it's a kind of interesting life change, isn't
it between this going to the market with your mother
and carrying the bag and coming home and cooking and
then sitting down and eating and then having independence and
having to fend for yourself and discover life out there.
Did you go home? Would you return home for the
home cooked meal?
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yes? I used to love going home for food.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
My goodness, I said, oh, oh, my goodness, I used
to love it. It's just it's just the sort of yeah,
it was difficult because at first it was how do
I cook? What do I cook? I was on the
phone to my mom, Mom, how do I do this?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Mom? I do this? My Mom, I do that. So
a lot of coals up.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Making sort of soups and things like that, and how
do I season them? Because I can't. For granted, I
said to be a shoe shop, but I wasn't really looking.
It wasn't really studying, yea, So a lot of phone
calls basically back round, Welcome.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Back to River Cafe, Table four. In each episode, my
guest reads a recipe they have chosen from one of
our cookbooks. We chose spinach and peas, So would you
like to go for it and tell the world how
to make it?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
One kilogram fresh peas in their pods, extra virgin olive oil,
one garlic cloth peel and diced, one dried red chili crumbled,
one knogram of spinach, washed tough sports, removed.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Pid the piece and blanche them in plenty of boily water.
In Italy, no one ever cooks vegetables.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Absolutely only past it.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So rather than blenching these peas, boil them so that
they almost melt together with spinach and the olive oil.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Gorgeous. So now Steve, here we are and we're going
to talk about the series that has just been on
television that we've all watched and been so moved by.
Small acts. You tell the story of a local restaurant
constantly harassed by the police. Is that a memory or
is that? Can you tell me about the restaurant, the
(09:41):
politics and the series.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Sure, well.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
The Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank Critchlow
in Lambergrove on All Saints Road, and he opened a
restaurant in nineteen sixty eight and it was a sort
of home away from home restaurant. You can imagine, as
I said before, the peaceeople wanting the sort of the
taste of home and had a vibrancy of having sort
(10:05):
of like many people wanted to sort of come to
a place to eat and to sort of commune with
each other. So it was a place of refuge in
it in a way. You know, the vibe, the vibes
that came out of there, and it was just one
of those places which became very infectious if people wanted
to go. It was it was it was something which
was which was which was on the scene and unfortunately
the police and the authorities that be obviously didn't like
(10:29):
what was happening at this place because again it was
you know, it was people from the Western Ears, it
was working class people, it was the thinkers, it was
sort of activists were coming there and also the hoy eploy.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
So all these people.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Coming to this spot and talking over food, having ideas
and obviously that was something which the authorities didn't like,
and therefore they tried to disrupt disrupted as much as
they could. You know, it was a case of the
people not wanting certain ideas having a foot in the UK,
and they thought that the Mangrove was a place where
those ideas could sort of take root.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
There's something about doing that kind of discussion as well
over food. And one of the things that I see
in the restaurant is that somehow being out of your house,
being away from your domestic life, being looked after, gives
you the chance to really focus on a conversation. Do
you find that in a restaurant.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Absolutely absolutely, And there's a sense of, I don't know
what is it. Purpose, you're there, you're present, there's another
person there and present, but also actually just a listen.
It's just a case of being in an environment where
you are you know, you feel comfortable in order to
(11:44):
say things and listen.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And also I've talked to various people in business and
in film and creating movies or making deals. I mean
when I always quote is Michael Caine who said that
he never did a deal for a movie in America
that didn't take place in a restaurant. And he said
that was very Hollywood. Do you work in restaurants? Do
you like to meet people that you're going to work
(12:08):
with in a restaurant?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
First, I love it, but that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
I mean, I think it's sort of it's a classy
way to do anything, isn't it. And also I love
it because growing up in the art world. What was
wonderful about growing up in the art world is that
artists never paid for dinners, never because you're the artist.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And it was amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
In fact, I think that's how I grew up in
food in an an interesting way. It was through the
art world. It's completely different to the film world. I mean,
you know the fact that you you know, you might
go crappy sang which you're you're you're lucky. But in
the art world, it was always the best wines. It
was always the best food. You know, if it was
an opening or even a meeting, it was always the
best restaurant. And that was a huge education. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I was thinking about making movies and the movies you've made,
and of course here we are talking about food and
eating and the joy of being taken care of through food.
And then I think of the movie that you know,
was so earth shattering, which was Hunger, And so we're
talking about a movie called Hunger and the state of
(13:14):
hunger and somebody put their principles and politics above comfort
and as a political act actually starved themselves. So what
was it like making a movie that was the absence
of food as a political statement?
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Heavy? I mean, for me, it was again it's food
is interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I related to that in a way that of being
a child, in the way that you know, the often
only power a child has is frailing to eat his
or her mother saying you're not leaving the table until
you finish that plate, and the child sort of you know,
refusing to eat, and then you're sent off the bed,
(14:00):
you know. And it's interesting because you know what what
you know, the clothes you wear that as a as
a child of a cerdaden age, what time you go
to bed, what food you eat is chosen by your parents,
and the whole idea that this child, the power this
child has is to refrain to eat. That was my
relationship in some ways to Bobby Sands and hunger strike,
that the power that person had was to refrain to
eat every since it was a child. I remembered asking
(14:22):
my mom when I saw this image of Bobby's Sands
on on television with a number beneath his image, and
asking my mother, what's what's what is that? How oldest
person is? Because no, that how many days this person
has been on hunger strike. So there was an immediate
relationship with the story and it was, yeah, it was.
It was difficult, but I think Michael Fans been there,
you know where cars is. Bobby Sands was tremendous and
that was a bond up you know we have to
(14:43):
this day. It was a real kind of a labor
of love.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
And what are the food scenes in your movies? In
twelve years a slave? There's a scene, isn't there at
the dinner table?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I seem to remember, Yeah, there's lots of I think
there's lots of food in my films. I mean you
can see after that is shame the two characters, Brandon
and any sort of a possible girlfriend or at this
dinner table and this waiter, annoying waiter comes in every
five seconds to interrupt them. I remember that from having
lots of dinners in New York and every five seconds
one becomes in the middle of something was getting bigger.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
You know how conversations are. They had to get to
that point, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
It's always it was commercial buddy breaks every five seconds.
You have to start from a scratch every five minutes.
So it didn't make for a good eating experience. So
I put that in the movie What do you.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Eat on a film?
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So?
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
No?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
when I started filmmaking and there hunger and sharing in
twelve this it's like all the actors and all the
crew will eat together. We did the people in their
buddy trailers in that crap, everyone lead together. There's something
about communal eating and it's about weed. It's such a
(15:53):
unifying thing to see, you know, the hear and makeup
and the camera department and tune up, furity and sitting
at a table together and talking about the film or
talking about things. There's a camaraderie. It's only time often
when you're sort of on set together that you had
that sort of time, you know, when you're sitting together
(16:13):
eating and it's fun.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
It's fun. I love it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Year three is an exhibition that was at the Tate
and I went to see it three times because every
time I went back I saw something something different in
the expression of a child of a teacher. It really
told the story of the world we live in through
these photographs. And one of the issues that I think
(16:44):
is very important is that when we had the lockdown
a year ago, one of the things we learned that
when children were denied school, they were also denied food,
and they were denied food at lunchtime, which might have
been their only meal of the day. And the idea
that we have a society that children depend on having
(17:07):
their food away from the home because of the poverty
in the home is appalling and shocking and distressing everything else.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yes, absolutely, I mean I had schooled this which I
paid for by my mother. That's why even today I
like hot meals. I love hot lunches, I mean, and
they were vital. They were vital there were children. I
know for a fact that that was the main meal
of the day, if not the only meal of the day.
And this is with our bottle of milk in the
(17:35):
morning before missus snatcher took it away from us.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, I love school meals in that way. Also, just
because we're such a good laugh in the canteen, you know,
I associate food in school with good times. And I
can even remember the smell of it, the canteen and
the noise and the cutlery banging together, and it's so important.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You know.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Also, people have to sort of really tip the hat
to Marcus Rashford and what he did in the sense of,
you know, getting the government to sort of stand down
twice about the school mill because you know it can
This is you know, if we can't look after people
we can't afford to eat, then I don't know who
we are as human beings. That it took a footballer
to do that is kind of a bit you know.
(18:18):
There you go, everyone has got to step up in
your own way I suppose if people aren't doing their
job properly, that meaning the government. And also, don't forget
this again, It's just one of those things I feel
that you know, everyone is unfortunately not brought into this
world equally. But if you just give someone the possibility
a little bit of a shaft of light, one doesn't
know where that might lead them to. So, yeah, the
fact that people actually have a meal in the stomach,
(18:40):
you know in Britain, Yeah, it's more than important. One
thing I was very shocked by when I was shooting
in Chicago, shooting widows, was how I didn't see a
grocery store in a black neighborhood. I didn't see any
greens in a black neighbor you know, there wasn't a
green grocers, but there was always some sort of fast
(19:02):
food place where people eat.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
So people are losing this sort of heritage of food.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
People are not aware of food and nourishment and possibilities
within food. And food is politics in a way, it
reverts back to what we were talking about right at
the beginning of a conversation. It starts with like, in
a way, markets, because markets, a lot of markets are
on the threat. A lot of markets have closed. So
(19:27):
this sense of community, sense of promarderiate, a sense of
sort of love of food and love of each other
is being sort of erased in the sort of you know,
working class areas. I mean, you get these markets, but
they're so they're kind of like posh markets, aren't they.
They're sort of farmers markets, they call them. And you know,
the food is so expensive, so and I can I
(19:49):
feel that they're becoming kind of food deserts in a
way where kids are growing up on fast food and
not being introduced to sort of love food in a
way that Stundlach, which I'm a bit sort of concerned about.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Yeah, food is a connection, and food is a memory,
and food is giving and sharing, and food is political
and social, and it's also comfort. It's something that we
go to and we need comfort. And so I suppose
Steve McQueen, what would you say is the food you
would go to if you needed comfort?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
For me, the comfort food that I very much love
and I appreciate is often a cold day, you know,
and you come in and it's my mum's chicken soups
West Indian chicken soup, which has the bones in it
and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones, and
it's the sort of.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
You know, it's the time, it's.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
The garlic, it's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
sugar ingredient which she wants, you still want atomic, the dumplings,
a bit of potatoes, a bit of peas.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
So those are the kind of things I really love. Yeah,
And I could hear my dad sucking the bones right now.
It was a wonderful, you know, having those dinners together
on those cold days. I remember it was. It was beautiful.
It was beautiful and lots of great memories. My dad's
not anymore. So when I often do think about him,
(21:12):
I do think about him, and that soup. I do
think about him. Christmas and the ham, of course, and Christmas.
Christmas breakfast was a big thing.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Hot coke coo.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
My dad would make a bake. A bake is a
kind of a flat bread West Indian flat bread in
the morning.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
And oh my god, how can I how can I
not say this? Fish cakes? My mother's fish cakes. Oh
my god, my mother's fish cakes.
Speaker 3 (21:38):
On the Christmas morning and she's making these little bakes
which was a sort of like a like a bread
you'll fry and oil, oh my god, and even my
daughter youtually when my mom comes up as yours, ask
Granny please make fish cakes for me because it's a
West Indian fishcakes such as it's gorgeous and of course
you know there's never anything left for me when I
get home. But you know it's just I think, really,
(22:00):
what you've done actually is actually given me.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I mean fast, what love is rock?
Speaker 3 (22:05):
Not even love is rock. That's what the whole of
Small Acts was based on. The foundation of all of
that was based on food and memory. Because it's what's
so fascinating. I'm rambling on it again myself. But the
smell is the most antaste is the most potent sources
of memory, not the photographs. Photographs is only twenty so
(22:28):
much because you know, it cuts out what's beyond the
frame is not present, it's not visible.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Going on wrapping.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
I'll stop myself, no doubt it's beautiful, but it is
what it does. There are people who say, I never
remembered that until we started talking about the food, and
that brought back the memory. I had somebody whose father
had left home and he would when he saw his
children on the weekends he would suddenly start cooking for them,
and he said, oh, I don't know. I don't think
(22:57):
I've ever told anybody that story. But now I remember
my father actually is a way of his guilt or
his love just started cooking, you know. And I think,
what you just when you choose your comfort food, you
start thinking about your father and your mother, and you
think about the memories and that it's so potent, isn't it.
I thought it would be interesting, But what it really
(23:20):
brings home over and over again is the connection that
food has for us for memories.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, forget about this, I'm telling you. Do You've done it, mate,
smell and til you've done it.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, thank you, you've done it.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
It's all to do with you.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
to shop The Rivercafe dot co dot uk. Ruthie's Table
for is a production of iHeartRadio Anatomized Studios. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
(24:03):
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.