March 15, 2022 • 22 mins
Alfonso Cuarón is a man who combines beauty in film, with a passion for telling stories. On Episode 26 of Ruthie's Table 4, the Academy Award–winning director, writer and producer talks with Ruthie about their mutual love for his native Mexico, and the feelings they share - their children are the centre of their lives, food is the focus of their days, and Italy is a second home for both of them.
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/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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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 for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Today, my guest is
Alfonso Cuaron, the Academy Award winning director, writer and producer.
Amongst his many masterpieces are Gravity, Roma and Harry Potter.
(00:21):
He is a man who combines beauty and film with
a passion for telling stories. Alfonso is from Mexico, and
ever since the architect Ricardo le Garetta brought us there,
our family has returned every year to this stunning country
and the people who live there. Alfonso and I share
(00:41):
the feeling that our children at the center of our lives,
that food is a focus of our days, and Italy
is a second home for us both. I admired Alfonso
through his movies long before I knew him, and more
and more ever since today, as we sit in the
garden of the River Cafe and talked together, you will
(01:03):
understand why Alfonso, when I cook a meal in the
River Cafe, when we when we are serving a meal,
what you think about is the action of the dish.
(01:25):
But what really we're thinking about is the preparation before.
So we we start very early in the morning to prepare,
to think about process and I found very moving the
interview that you did about making a film, and you
talked about that. You talked about the lighting, you talked
(01:45):
about the black and white photography, you talked about the cinematography,
you talked about process. So process in film for process
and food? What what do you feel about? What? What
is your think about? The relationship is exactly the same process,
But I think it's it's the same with any creative endeavor,
being this a technical endeavor or uh or or an
(02:08):
artistic endeavor. I think that everything comes from the concept.
You know, first there's a concept, and that concept, interestingly,
I think comes out of memories, and those memories in
the specific case of I mean that's what for this
(02:30):
is so amazing because it combines the two biggest centers
of memory, that is taste and smell in film, you
go through different things like tell me about film and
in the specific case of roma for instance, the process.
I try to focus the process in images, but also
(02:51):
in terms of smells and and sounds and uh in
terms of once that you start getting concept also then
you you have to you have to to start landing
that process. How landing it is like how am I
going to make this happen that I guess that in
(03:13):
the in the kitchen, in the when you're cooking is
pretty pretty similar. You have an idea of a recipe,
you have idea for uh. For a film, you write
the screenplay, you write the recipe, so everybody can have
the same sharity information because that's something that is so specifically,
it's so similar between between say, cooking and and seeing
(03:38):
him at that a lot of different processes are involved
and a lot of different people are involved in the process.
Another element that we have in common is the presentation.
Because one thing is just mixing the ingredients and having
the amazing dish, but how you're going to present it,
(03:58):
and that's the last thing. That's that's what I do.
That's what the hedge Off does. We stand there and
I will not send a plate out to your table.
I'm the last person, so the responsibility is much I'm
the last person to see a play before it goes
and I guess you're the last person to see your
film before it's in the cinema. And then not only that,
but also you have to because in the film also
(04:21):
is is the presentation goes together your film with which
image you're going to to to use to convey the film,
meaning the posters, the traders. Yeah, all of that stuff
of answer. Tell me about the food of your childhood.
(04:41):
Tell me about growing up in Mexico. I belong to
a middle class family in Mexico City. You know, Mexico.
And you know how different is a middle class in
Mexico that the European middle class. So they don't tell
h a middle class family in Mexico. Growing up in
(05:04):
the sixties and the seventies, there was still a mentality
of making things last. I remember the refrigerator in the
kitchen was probably a refrigerator of the fifties. You know
that rattle a lot. By the way. Uh, the kitchen
was an old kitchen. I mean there was one TV
(05:27):
set for the whole home and an old one and
with the food it was So what I'm saying that
is that the the caotomy of this is that in
one hand, yes, it's that it was less opposent that
that what it would be like a European or American families,
(05:48):
a middle class families. But at the same time, because
of the horrible socialist structure in Mexico and the disparity
any middle class fund Real has domestic workers, and many
of those families, of these middle class families, they have
(06:09):
social domestic workers that live in the premises in the
in what it was called the servants quarter. Yeah. And
when you say servants quarter, you're you're thinking, okay, well, yes,
a huge house is not not necessarily could. Everything was
one cramped up and I have to say that the
(06:30):
duty of the kitchen it fell in the in the
hands of these domestic workers. In my house there was
one person that was born in charge of the kitchen.
One another person was in charge of all the other
(06:51):
chores around the house. When I my first memory was
a very old woman called Benita Uh. I guess that
she was from Misteco origin south of that's south in Mexico.
I mean Mistakeo. They extend the extend between what is
(07:13):
Vera Cruz and beneath that she was really all the
memory I have of her was just a face filled
with wrinkles, and beneath that was the was the cook.
And she would just pretty much. She was very independent
about unless there was there were special occasions in which,
(07:35):
as you we were talking before, it was more about
my grandmother giving instruction. She wouldn't bring the food of
her region, because Mexico is original. She cooked the food.
Where if she'd come from Ohaka, would she cook, she cooked?
She would cook, cook for what hack. But being a
middle class family in Mexico, there was a lot of
(07:56):
Mexican food, Yes, but there was this kind of uh
Spanish tradition I would I would think um and a
combination of this kind of Spanish and European French tradition
completely adapted. I guess you know, it was very syncretic um.
(08:18):
And when I was a kid also they was starting
to be greater influence from the US. So the whole
thing of burgers and cook dogs. I'm picturing that your household,
your family home, and so you would come home from school,
or your father would come home from work, or your
mother would come home, and then you would also do
(08:39):
you have a large family? Did you have brothers? Yeah?
I had. I have three siblings, one sister, two brothers,
And the household was pretty much the way they describing
in the film room. The interesting thing is that it
was a combination between would chever food beneath a cooked
by because you knew how to cook, it was great.
(09:02):
But also my grandmother would come with her big book
of recipes that it was one of those ancient books
you know. Well, it was not a book, it was
a notebook. It was all written, handwritten, probably from her family,
her mom or whatever. It was a very old kind
of uh notebook, and she would go through the pages
(09:23):
and find like the recipe that was going to be
for that day. So that means that so those recipes
will come from from isn't Because yesterday I did a
conversation with someone Rushdie and so there's someone who grew
up in Bombay with a book like that in his
kitchen from his great grandmother. He said that almost every
(09:44):
kitchen you know had the great grandma's or the grandmother's
recipes written in hand, you know. And well that would
have been maybe my great grandmother the book and who knows,
for help far back it would come in and it
was I remember it was I never and I was
a kid, and it was not that interested. But what
I was amazing was they hand writing, because they hand
(10:07):
writing look antique yea yeah, yeah. And there was steel
like in between pages like dry flowers and stuff. Where
is that book? I have no idea? Better find it
the recipe that I'm going to read for our fonsor
(10:31):
that he chose is or ketti with tomato and ricotta,
three hundred grams or kette three hundred grams of cherry
tomatoes very right, cut in half and squeezed, one garlic
cove chopped, fifty grams of grated parmesan, one bunch of
fresh basil, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and
(10:56):
two hundred grams of ricotta. Combine the tomatoes and garlic,
season add the olive oil and toss to combine. Let
marinate for fifteen minutes or so. Put the ricotta in
a bowl and season with salt and black pepper. Cook
the raquetti and boiling salted water until al dente, and
(11:16):
then drain gently. Heat the tomato mixture and add the
drained or quetty, stirring gently to combine. Finally, stir in
the ricotta and the basil leaves and serve with parmesan. So, Alfonso,
why did you choose this recipe? Sounds so simple, is
(11:38):
so in many ways so basic, and I think that
that makes it so universal. It is one of those
in which it allows every single flavor to go to
come through, you know, it's with the with the tomatoes,
(11:59):
particularly the as tomatoes that you use, you feel the soil.
It's interesting because food is amazing because you can like
simplicity the same way that you can enjoy a dish
that takes like fifteen hours to make you know, and
and and it's a complete different journey. Is that completely
(12:20):
different trip. The the beauty of dishes like this is
is how honest and immediate they feel. But by this
because of the same reason, nothing can go wrong. I
think that growing up in the United States, the image
of Mexican food that we had of the of Mexican
(12:41):
food is being so heavy and so many, so many
different dishes on a plate. You know that you would
have you go to a Mexican restaurant and then it
would just be very heavy. And then the experience that
I had it was really radical to go to Mexico
and see this incredibly refined. You know, even if it
was just rice and beans, there was just or if
(13:02):
it was a fish with a bit of chili and cilantra,
or if it was tortilla with um just herbs and
some cheese, it was so delicate. You know, it's robust.
But the difference between the interpretation of Mexican food internationally
and the reality of eating it in Mexico. For me
as a cook was well, yeah, it's totally because you know,
(13:27):
of course you have heavy, heavy dishes, I mean, and
you you have a lot of that that is like
fast food. They would be the equivalent of fast food.
A lot of them that you find in in in stands,
like thousands of stands that you know in the in
the streets stands. That is, they use a lot of
corn and dog corn, door tortilla massa tortilla and different shapes,
(13:51):
and a lot of double is fried and and and
if you think about it, the difference between what it
would be a sopiclupa tacco and say what act you
if you ask what are the ingredients pretty much exactly
the same. The difference is how that corn dough is
(14:12):
prepared a little bit like pasta. Now that one year
is it can be heavy if it's if you limit
Mexican food to that. But that's you know, is that
that is just it's like saying Italian food, this pizza.
Whenever I go to a city and most is the
first thing I do is try and go to market
because in a way. The market tells you where you are,
(14:34):
tells you about the people there, tells you about food
that's there, the attitude towards the food. Um. And so
Mexico for me was full of great markets. Were you
did you go to the markets? Well, that's you're you're
you're hitting something that's very important there, because yeah, I
think that unfortunately, all of that is changing as well
(14:56):
in Mexico because of the arrival of the big supermarkets
and the convenience of the big supermarket. Book where I
grew up, it was I love as a kid going
to to to to the market. It was an adventure.
I mean it was just going through the stalls and
you have all these kind of fruits and vegetables, but
(15:17):
also you will go to the mid section of the
fish section and they were like chopping all the stuff there. Yeah,
and it was the mixture of of of the sounds,
the smells, but o these things the sounds. You know,
you've been in a in a market in Mexico, like
most markets, of course, it's just the cacophony of sounds
between the people announcing uh, their their their produce and
(15:43):
the chopping of the of the butcher to some music
in the distance. That's another thing. Growing up, it was
the smells of the bakery and also the most beautiful smell,
the smell of the tortillarea. Tell me that that. Oh,
(16:04):
that's to do as you as you know. To do
the tortillas, you go through a process called mixed mixed amel.
That is how you grind the corn. And it's a
it's a machine. It's a big machine that grinds the
corn into this dog and then the machine actually goes
(16:26):
and creates a tortilla. And so you don't have that
rolling out process. No, you don't have that rolling out
And now it's mechanical in most of the cases, there's
a whole mechanical sound that comes with it is very
metallical and very machine with a lot of squeaking. And
the thing is the combination of the sound and the smell.
(16:49):
That is fantastic. Now I love that, But nothing beats
a handmade tortilla. There was you know, loud Esquivel and
she wrote like word for chocolate. Yes, of course, okay.
Lauda used to say that the big difference is that
when you're doing the tortilla by hand, you're actually infusing
(17:10):
the tortilla with energy. She was saying that when you
left home and you were on your ound, did you
at first did you cook? Did you start cooking for
yourself or did you I tried to cook for myself,
(17:33):
and I was yeah, I was sort of successful, but
I you know, I was I was young, and I
was completely busy trying to make a living that my
priority was elsewhere, and wrongly so, because I think that
I would have help a lot discover discovered the kitchen
and cooking earlier, and that didn't happen until later, and
(17:58):
not because of me. It's because as my son came
to live with me, and it was this whole thing
of Okay, I'm not going to be just going and
doing I was living in New York at the time,
says I'm not going to be just doing takeaways, you know,
for my son. I have his his home, I need
to cook for him. So yeah, I would. Then I
(18:20):
started spending a long time going through recipe books and
and trying to figure out this combination of yes, food
that this was more kind of international food, if you might,
but always having Mexican, Mexican dishes or Mexican ingredients. And
I was in New York and you could get at
(18:40):
that time some ingredients. Now you can get everything New
York for Mexican food, but then it was a bit
more difficult, so you will have to sort out the places. Um.
And then it's when I started cooking. The pronis and
it's something I haven't haven't sold yet. What is that
that I love cooking but I'm messy. Oh yeah, that's
(19:03):
a problem. And the other thing is I don't know
how to manage the time. Time and miss is the thing.
And because that was appearing, which I said, you know,
I just want to stay here home, and you know,
like my kid just moved to New York, I want
to be here. So it was pretty much dedicated to that,
(19:25):
and my life would go into doing menus and we're
not going to cook tomorrow. When you when you talk
about we've talked about food in your in your parents
home and your grandmother is cooking, and in New York
you're cooking and being ingredients. How the restaurants appeal to you?
Do you like eating in a restaurant? Did your parents
(19:46):
ever take you to a restaurant in Mexico City? Yes,
that was for me growing up. That was a big treat.
Going to a restaurant was a treat. It was a
treat because it was expensive, so you would eat at home.
I mean, the typical thing is, oh, I would like
to go to a restaurant, and my grandmother and my
mom saying, we can cook it at home and it's cheaper.
(20:10):
You would get mostly Mexican food, where it would be
international food or Argentine and steaks or panadas and stuff
like that. Once that I start being more independent pretty much.
I lived in restaurants, yes, because also restaurants are not
(20:30):
only a place where there's food, it's a communion. And
in Mexico, you know how it goes. I mean, the
thing in Mexico is that comedias or lunchtime is dangerous
because you know that you're going to agree with some
friends to meet at three pm for lunch, and you
(20:52):
sit there and maybe they order a tequila to open up,
and then food comes and people eat. Um. The launch
extents until six pm, seven pm, and suddenly they're just
staying there and you're asking for some sort of diner.
(21:16):
So food is um if it is a connection and
it is something very important to our life. So I
suppose my last question to you from a very wonderful
conversation here as people are starting to eat in the garden.
Is if you have a comfort food, if there's a
food that you go to when not because you're hungry,
(21:38):
not because you're celebrating, but because you need comfort, what
would that food be? I think differently, will because yeah,
that would be that would be it. Well, I look
forward to having a case to deal with you, and
I would love that to visit the online shop of
(22:01):
The River Cafe. Go to shop The River Cafe dot
co dot uk. H River Cafe Table four is a
production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. For
(22:23):
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe Table for a production of I
Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. Today, my guest is
Alfonso Cuaron, the Academy Award winning director, writer and producer.
Amongst his many masterpieces are Gravity, Roma and Harry Potter.
(00:21):
He is a man who combines beauty and film with
a passion for telling stories. Alfonso is from Mexico, and
ever since the architect Ricardo le Garetta brought us there,
our family has returned every year to this stunning country
and the people who live there. Alfonso and I share
(00:41):
the feeling that our children at the center of our lives,
that food is a focus of our days, and Italy
is a second home for us both. I admired Alfonso
through his movies long before I knew him, and more
and more ever since today, as we sit in the
garden of the River Cafe and talked together, you will
(01:03):
understand why Alfonso, when I cook a meal in the
River Cafe, when we when we are serving a meal,
what you think about is the action of the dish.
(01:25):
But what really we're thinking about is the preparation before.
So we we start very early in the morning to prepare,
to think about process and I found very moving the
interview that you did about making a film, and you
talked about that. You talked about the lighting, you talked
(01:45):
about the black and white photography, you talked about the cinematography,
you talked about process. So process in film for process
and food? What what do you feel about? What? What
is your think about? The relationship is exactly the same process,
But I think it's it's the same with any creative endeavor,
being this a technical endeavor or uh or or an
(02:08):
artistic endeavor. I think that everything comes from the concept.
You know, first there's a concept, and that concept, interestingly,
I think comes out of memories, and those memories in
the specific case of I mean that's what for this
(02:30):
is so amazing because it combines the two biggest centers
of memory, that is taste and smell in film, you
go through different things like tell me about film and
in the specific case of roma for instance, the process.
I try to focus the process in images, but also
(02:51):
in terms of smells and and sounds and uh in
terms of once that you start getting concept also then
you you have to you have to to start landing
that process. How landing it is like how am I
going to make this happen that I guess that in
(03:13):
the in the kitchen, in the when you're cooking is
pretty pretty similar. You have an idea of a recipe,
you have idea for uh. For a film, you write
the screenplay, you write the recipe, so everybody can have
the same sharity information because that's something that is so specifically,
it's so similar between between say, cooking and and seeing
(03:38):
him at that a lot of different processes are involved
and a lot of different people are involved in the process.
Another element that we have in common is the presentation.
Because one thing is just mixing the ingredients and having
the amazing dish, but how you're going to present it,
(03:58):
and that's the last thing. That's that's what I do.
That's what the hedge Off does. We stand there and
I will not send a plate out to your table.
I'm the last person, so the responsibility is much I'm
the last person to see a play before it goes
and I guess you're the last person to see your
film before it's in the cinema. And then not only that,
but also you have to because in the film also
(04:21):
is is the presentation goes together your film with which
image you're going to to to use to convey the film,
meaning the posters, the traders. Yeah, all of that stuff
of answer. Tell me about the food of your childhood.
(04:41):
Tell me about growing up in Mexico. I belong to
a middle class family in Mexico City. You know, Mexico.
And you know how different is a middle class in
Mexico that the European middle class. So they don't tell
h a middle class family in Mexico. Growing up in
(05:04):
the sixties and the seventies, there was still a mentality
of making things last. I remember the refrigerator in the
kitchen was probably a refrigerator of the fifties. You know
that rattle a lot. By the way. Uh, the kitchen
was an old kitchen. I mean there was one TV
(05:27):
set for the whole home and an old one and
with the food it was So what I'm saying that
is that the the caotomy of this is that in
one hand, yes, it's that it was less opposent that
that what it would be like a European or American families,
(05:48):
a middle class families. But at the same time, because
of the horrible socialist structure in Mexico and the disparity
any middle class fund Real has domestic workers, and many
of those families, of these middle class families, they have
(06:09):
social domestic workers that live in the premises in the
in what it was called the servants quarter. Yeah. And
when you say servants quarter, you're you're thinking, okay, well, yes,
a huge house is not not necessarily could. Everything was
one cramped up and I have to say that the
(06:30):
duty of the kitchen it fell in the in the
hands of these domestic workers. In my house there was
one person that was born in charge of the kitchen.
One another person was in charge of all the other
(06:51):
chores around the house. When I my first memory was
a very old woman called Benita Uh. I guess that
she was from Misteco origin south of that's south in Mexico.
I mean Mistakeo. They extend the extend between what is
(07:13):
Vera Cruz and beneath that she was really all the
memory I have of her was just a face filled
with wrinkles, and beneath that was the was the cook.
And she would just pretty much. She was very independent
about unless there was there were special occasions in which,
(07:35):
as you we were talking before, it was more about
my grandmother giving instruction. She wouldn't bring the food of
her region, because Mexico is original. She cooked the food.
Where if she'd come from Ohaka, would she cook, she cooked?
She would cook, cook for what hack. But being a
middle class family in Mexico, there was a lot of
(07:56):
Mexican food, Yes, but there was this kind of uh
Spanish tradition I would I would think um and a
combination of this kind of Spanish and European French tradition
completely adapted. I guess you know, it was very syncretic um.
(08:18):
And when I was a kid also they was starting
to be greater influence from the US. So the whole
thing of burgers and cook dogs. I'm picturing that your household,
your family home, and so you would come home from school,
or your father would come home from work, or your
mother would come home, and then you would also do
(08:39):
you have a large family? Did you have brothers? Yeah?
I had. I have three siblings, one sister, two brothers,
And the household was pretty much the way they describing
in the film room. The interesting thing is that it
was a combination between would chever food beneath a cooked
by because you knew how to cook, it was great.
(09:02):
But also my grandmother would come with her big book
of recipes that it was one of those ancient books
you know. Well, it was not a book, it was
a notebook. It was all written, handwritten, probably from her family,
her mom or whatever. It was a very old kind
of uh notebook, and she would go through the pages
(09:23):
and find like the recipe that was going to be
for that day. So that means that so those recipes
will come from from isn't Because yesterday I did a
conversation with someone Rushdie and so there's someone who grew
up in Bombay with a book like that in his
kitchen from his great grandmother. He said that almost every
(09:44):
kitchen you know had the great grandma's or the grandmother's
recipes written in hand, you know. And well that would
have been maybe my great grandmother the book and who knows,
for help far back it would come in and it
was I remember it was I never and I was
a kid, and it was not that interested. But what
I was amazing was they hand writing, because they hand
(10:07):
writing look antique yea yeah, yeah. And there was steel
like in between pages like dry flowers and stuff. Where
is that book? I have no idea? Better find it
the recipe that I'm going to read for our fonsor
(10:31):
that he chose is or ketti with tomato and ricotta,
three hundred grams or kette three hundred grams of cherry
tomatoes very right, cut in half and squeezed, one garlic
cove chopped, fifty grams of grated parmesan, one bunch of
fresh basil, a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and
(10:56):
two hundred grams of ricotta. Combine the tomatoes and garlic,
season add the olive oil and toss to combine. Let
marinate for fifteen minutes or so. Put the ricotta in
a bowl and season with salt and black pepper. Cook
the raquetti and boiling salted water until al dente, and
(11:16):
then drain gently. Heat the tomato mixture and add the
drained or quetty, stirring gently to combine. Finally, stir in
the ricotta and the basil leaves and serve with parmesan. So, Alfonso,
why did you choose this recipe? Sounds so simple, is
(11:38):
so in many ways so basic, and I think that
that makes it so universal. It is one of those
in which it allows every single flavor to go to
come through, you know, it's with the with the tomatoes,
(11:59):
particularly the as tomatoes that you use, you feel the soil.
It's interesting because food is amazing because you can like
simplicity the same way that you can enjoy a dish
that takes like fifteen hours to make you know, and
and and it's a complete different journey. Is that completely
(12:20):
different trip. The the beauty of dishes like this is
is how honest and immediate they feel. But by this
because of the same reason, nothing can go wrong. I
think that growing up in the United States, the image
of Mexican food that we had of the of Mexican
(12:41):
food is being so heavy and so many, so many
different dishes on a plate. You know that you would
have you go to a Mexican restaurant and then it
would just be very heavy. And then the experience that
I had it was really radical to go to Mexico
and see this incredibly refined. You know, even if it
was just rice and beans, there was just or if
(13:02):
it was a fish with a bit of chili and cilantra,
or if it was tortilla with um just herbs and
some cheese, it was so delicate. You know, it's robust.
But the difference between the interpretation of Mexican food internationally
and the reality of eating it in Mexico. For me
as a cook was well, yeah, it's totally because you know,
(13:27):
of course you have heavy, heavy dishes, I mean, and
you you have a lot of that that is like
fast food. They would be the equivalent of fast food.
A lot of them that you find in in in stands,
like thousands of stands that you know in the in
the streets stands. That is, they use a lot of
corn and dog corn, door tortilla massa tortilla and different shapes,
(13:51):
and a lot of double is fried and and and
if you think about it, the difference between what it
would be a sopiclupa tacco and say what act you
if you ask what are the ingredients pretty much exactly
the same. The difference is how that corn dough is
(14:12):
prepared a little bit like pasta. Now that one year
is it can be heavy if it's if you limit
Mexican food to that. But that's you know, is that
that is just it's like saying Italian food, this pizza.
Whenever I go to a city and most is the
first thing I do is try and go to market
because in a way. The market tells you where you are,
(14:34):
tells you about the people there, tells you about food
that's there, the attitude towards the food. Um. And so
Mexico for me was full of great markets. Were you
did you go to the markets? Well, that's you're you're
you're hitting something that's very important there, because yeah, I
think that unfortunately, all of that is changing as well
(14:56):
in Mexico because of the arrival of the big supermarkets
and the convenience of the big supermarket. Book where I
grew up, it was I love as a kid going
to to to to the market. It was an adventure.
I mean it was just going through the stalls and
you have all these kind of fruits and vegetables, but
(15:17):
also you will go to the mid section of the
fish section and they were like chopping all the stuff there. Yeah,
and it was the mixture of of of the sounds,
the smells, but o these things the sounds. You know,
you've been in a in a market in Mexico, like
most markets, of course, it's just the cacophony of sounds
between the people announcing uh, their their their produce and
(15:43):
the chopping of the of the butcher to some music
in the distance. That's another thing. Growing up, it was
the smells of the bakery and also the most beautiful smell,
the smell of the tortillarea. Tell me that that. Oh,
(16:04):
that's to do as you as you know. To do
the tortillas, you go through a process called mixed mixed amel.
That is how you grind the corn. And it's a
it's a machine. It's a big machine that grinds the
corn into this dog and then the machine actually goes
(16:26):
and creates a tortilla. And so you don't have that
rolling out process. No, you don't have that rolling out
And now it's mechanical in most of the cases, there's
a whole mechanical sound that comes with it is very
metallical and very machine with a lot of squeaking. And
the thing is the combination of the sound and the smell.
(16:49):
That is fantastic. Now I love that, But nothing beats
a handmade tortilla. There was you know, loud Esquivel and
she wrote like word for chocolate. Yes, of course, okay.
Lauda used to say that the big difference is that
when you're doing the tortilla by hand, you're actually infusing
(17:10):
the tortilla with energy. She was saying that when you
left home and you were on your ound, did you
at first did you cook? Did you start cooking for
yourself or did you I tried to cook for myself,
(17:33):
and I was yeah, I was sort of successful, but
I you know, I was I was young, and I
was completely busy trying to make a living that my
priority was elsewhere, and wrongly so, because I think that
I would have help a lot discover discovered the kitchen
and cooking earlier, and that didn't happen until later, and
(17:58):
not because of me. It's because as my son came
to live with me, and it was this whole thing
of Okay, I'm not going to be just going and
doing I was living in New York at the time,
says I'm not going to be just doing takeaways, you know,
for my son. I have his his home, I need
to cook for him. So yeah, I would. Then I
(18:20):
started spending a long time going through recipe books and
and trying to figure out this combination of yes, food
that this was more kind of international food, if you might,
but always having Mexican, Mexican dishes or Mexican ingredients. And
I was in New York and you could get at
(18:40):
that time some ingredients. Now you can get everything New
York for Mexican food, but then it was a bit
more difficult, so you will have to sort out the places. Um.
And then it's when I started cooking. The pronis and
it's something I haven't haven't sold yet. What is that
that I love cooking but I'm messy. Oh yeah, that's
(19:03):
a problem. And the other thing is I don't know
how to manage the time. Time and miss is the thing.
And because that was appearing, which I said, you know,
I just want to stay here home, and you know,
like my kid just moved to New York, I want
to be here. So it was pretty much dedicated to that,
(19:25):
and my life would go into doing menus and we're
not going to cook tomorrow. When you when you talk
about we've talked about food in your in your parents
home and your grandmother is cooking, and in New York
you're cooking and being ingredients. How the restaurants appeal to you?
Do you like eating in a restaurant? Did your parents
(19:46):
ever take you to a restaurant in Mexico City? Yes,
that was for me growing up. That was a big treat.
Going to a restaurant was a treat. It was a
treat because it was expensive, so you would eat at home.
I mean, the typical thing is, oh, I would like
to go to a restaurant, and my grandmother and my
mom saying, we can cook it at home and it's cheaper.
(20:10):
You would get mostly Mexican food, where it would be
international food or Argentine and steaks or panadas and stuff
like that. Once that I start being more independent pretty much.
I lived in restaurants, yes, because also restaurants are not
(20:30):
only a place where there's food, it's a communion. And
in Mexico, you know how it goes. I mean, the
thing in Mexico is that comedias or lunchtime is dangerous
because you know that you're going to agree with some
friends to meet at three pm for lunch, and you
(20:52):
sit there and maybe they order a tequila to open up,
and then food comes and people eat. Um. The launch
extents until six pm, seven pm, and suddenly they're just
staying there and you're asking for some sort of diner.
(21:16):
So food is um if it is a connection and
it is something very important to our life. So I
suppose my last question to you from a very wonderful
conversation here as people are starting to eat in the garden.
Is if you have a comfort food, if there's a
food that you go to when not because you're hungry,
(21:38):
not because you're celebrating, but because you need comfort, what
would that food be? I think differently, will because yeah,
that would be that would be it. Well, I look
forward to having a case to deal with you, and
I would love that to visit the online shop of
(22:01):
The River Cafe. Go to shop The River Cafe dot
co dot uk. H River Cafe Table four is a
production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. For
(22:23):
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
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