January 9, 2023 • 30 mins
'Dame Judi Dench is not just a national and international treasure, she's an interplanetary treasure. If there is life on Mars, they're talking about her most recent performance. Judi is a woman of warmth, a woman of wit. She is a friend I admire, respect and adore.'
Join us on todays episode of Ruthie's Table 4: Dame Judi Dench to hear about her childhood, her accolades and her own experience cooking for others.
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home.
On Ruthie’s Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers.
Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks.
Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation.
For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adam I's Studios. Dame Judy Dench is not
just a national and international treasure, She's an interplanetary treasure
if there is life on Mars. They're talking about her
(00:22):
most recent performance. Judy is a woman of warmth, a
woman of wit. A friend tells a story than when
he mentioned to Judy hadn't seen the royal family. Judy replied,
tell me when you're coming, and I'll be sure to
overact for you. After record this conversation, Judy is having
(00:43):
lunch in the River Cafe. We are planning to definitely
overcook for this woman, a friend I admire, respect and adore. Yeah,
on the mains, while we've got these beautiful, really sweet
(01:05):
grapes at the moment which passed so well with the grouse,
and there's turbot and sea bass. Oh my wormish, you
can have everything. We have had people come in order
everything on the and did they stay for a month
or for a month? Yeah? A month? Yeah. I always
(01:28):
say a recipe is half science and have poetry, And
so we're going to skip the science and read the poetry.
How about that? Yes, well, I would love to have
read a recipe, or even given you a recipe, but
will come to that later. But you are talking to
the worst cooking in Britain, and I think it wasn't
(01:50):
a sonnet about food. But I just know this one poem.
But it's Hilaire Belloc, and it's about Henry King, Henry
King R King. Here he goes. The chief defect of
Henry King was chewing little bits of string. At last
he swallowed some that tied itself in ugly knots inside.
(02:12):
Physicians of the utmost fame were called at once, But
when they came, they answered, as they took their fees,
there is no cure for this disease. Henry will very
soon be dead. His parents stood about his bed, lamenting
his untimely death. When Henry cried with latest breath, Oh,
my friends, be warned by me that breakfast, dinner, lunch
(02:35):
and tea are all the human frame requires. With that,
the wretched child expires, the wretched child. So as he
work of this poem, he was quite a lectural Bellock,
wasn't he. He liked to tell everyone what to do,
and children how to be polite. It's not the sad.
He was rather grim. Might think bellock, Well, it's it's
(03:01):
you know, there's a message, right, don't snack, there's the message,
or you might don't snack. What was it like growing up?
He grew up in Yorkshire, are I did? I was
born in New York. My brothers were born in Lancashire.
My mother was from Dublin, my father from Dorset and
(03:21):
who went to Dublin. And recently in the last year
I found out that my mother's side of the family
is Danish and goes back to um somebody who worked
at the day at elsin or in fact Well and
was there when Shakespeare's first company went over there. I
(03:42):
was brought up during the war. I was five when
the war broke out, and we were very lucky because
my part was a doctor and he used to visit
all the farms all around York as well as York itself,
and everyone used to say, Oh, do have a chicken,
Do have goose? Do have a duck? We were really
(04:03):
lucky and that way we had we always had food
and things. And that's also where we had sixteen cats
because there was nobody else in the neighbors. Sixteen we
did sixteen, because nobody wanted that they all did them
or take them out, but they all came round to
our place. It was a triumph. And who would cook
(04:25):
the food? Would your mother? Would you sit down to
family meals? Yes? Or how many you have siblings? Who did?
Two brothers, two brothers older than me, but all and
we always had the house full of friends. Meals were
a great thing. I'm always trying to say. Now, you know,
do enjoy sitting down at the table and not looking
(04:45):
at the phone if possible? What was it like the
meal time at your house? Was there always a discussion
and always singing, singing, a lot of singing. My mom
playing the piano. My father could recite the whole of
and more Darthur. My brother Jeff, who was an actor
long before me and at Stratford, used to know realms
(05:07):
of Shakespeare and it was a kind of I think
that was in the family very much before that. People
used to be able to I mean I remember sitting
on the stairs and hearing friends who were invited around,
and somebody singing and playing the piano, and you know,
you couldn't miss the arts. So when you think of
(05:29):
your early meals, you think more of the performance. I
think only of family meals around the table, and it
was a a family thing that we we you wouldn't
miss because that's when you got to actually discuss things
and talk about things. Who would cook? Your mother? Did
(05:52):
my mother? Or we had a wonderful person called Sissy.
What did she cook? Because Yorkshire has a very definite
regional food when it was when it was course, it
was mostly what you could afford to get. And I
remember there was a market in New Yorker, wonderable market,
and you'd go around and people would come in and
they'd have a chicken in a basket, you know, all
(06:14):
prepared for cooking and things. And I mean I could
get the rations for five people when I was six.
I could easily go and carry the rations which were
so minimal for everybody. But I never remember Rucie being
hungry or or thinking, gosh, you know, I wish there
was more of this. I don't we read really lucky.
(06:38):
And your father didn't go away. He was he was
away in the First World War. He was he was
a hero. He got the military crossing bar, he got
do you know where he was? He was in Arras
And then because of a knee injury that he'd got
he was sent home to have and that way he
(07:02):
got he was not at Passiondale mhm. It was just
fantastically well lucky is not really the word. And so
for your father to have been in the war and
then come home must have it. It was an extraorbinary thing.
And I knew, I knew about his work up, but
(07:24):
I didn't know it was quite so illustrious. Switch And
do you think that? Do you think your parents wanted
to be actors or to be singers or part of
their nature? No, my father they there was an amateur
group in New York called the Settlement Players. My power
(07:45):
and mom were part of that. Mommy never want to
do it, but she was wonderful seamstress and could make
costumes and things like that. And then when it came
to the mystery plays, the miracle plays, when they were
done for the first time, Daddy played and asked the
High Priest and we were a lot of us were
auditioned by Martin Brown. We were to quake aboard in
(08:07):
school in New York, and we were, we made angels,
we were we had a wonderful time, wonderful time. You
remember the first auditions that would have been at what
age was your first It wasn't really an audition. They
just came and said you, you, you, you and you
and when when did you know that that's what you
wanted to But I wanted to do oh not ages
(08:30):
R not for not until fifty three, because I wanted
to be a designer, staged stage designer. But I was
taking to Stratford by my parents and saw Michael Redgrave
in Leah and I can remember seeing this set which
(08:52):
completely changed my idea. During the holidays at school, I'd
assisted Void, the designer your rep, painting sets for him,
and I only really understood plays by three acts. You know,
you designed one act and then the curtain would come down.
(09:13):
You change a few things and we'll go up. But
but for Lear, for the Stratford it was the most
phenomenal set that never changed. It was a huge flat
disc that revolved with a rock in the middle of
it was the throne or the cave or nothing had
to be changed, hopefully, it was kind of continuous. And
(09:36):
that right that I thought, no, good bye yourk art school,
I'm going to try for Central. When you went on
these theatrical journeys, with your parents, you went to Stratford,
you went to the theater in New York. Would you
go to a restaurant before or after? Was that part
of the evening? Was that part of the experience? Each
(09:56):
was partly, but probably we were always in a rush,
was in a rush to get things on time. But
there was a restaurant that we used to that used
to be the most enormous treat to go to outside York.
And we used to cycle there. This would be post war.
(10:20):
This would be that was post war. Yes, but we
all had bikes, so we that was the greatest. Was
it a treat go to a restaurant? Simply wonderful? It
was called the by do We and it was wonderful.
It was wonderful food. I mean not sophisticated in any way,
(10:42):
not in any way. And so what are the dishes
of your childhood that you remember that? Did you have
Yorkshire putting putting hair? I change something we used to
have at school. I used to try and stay away
on a Tuesday because they used to do Yorkshire pudding
with treacle the trickle. Now even now that's that was
(11:07):
really so it was a dessert or they served the
treacle Yorkshire pudding with people. It's so disgusting. But it
was always on a Tuesday. And I used to feign
illness on a Tuesday and gil on about the third
or fourth Tuesday. My mar said, this is something about school.
She said, this is not to do with illness. And
(11:29):
it was a Yorkshire pudding with a treat. That's at school.
That was at my prep school. But that's food was
important to you. Food matter. It didn't matter because of
course during the war, of course, it was just something
to sustain you. And as I say, because of my
path visiting right around in the country, we were just
(11:54):
so lucky that we had enough to eat, but so
many people didn't. I often think that when people are
very critical of food in Britain in the fifties or
even the sixties, Britain had come out of a war,
they came out of rationing, they came out of kitchen
gardens where people didn't have food. And to go from
(12:17):
that too, you know, grand cuisine or two cooking. It
seems so unfair to criticize a nation that had suffered
food wise, to being critical of you know, the way
they cooked, you know, So I feel it must have
been very tough because it was It was just a
question of giving you something that filled you. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:40):
But also I mean I love the idea of your
mother cooking a goose, or cooking duck, or cooking the
food that wasting. Were the vegetables grew the vegetables in
the garden and next door it was the most wonderful
pear tree. And my brother and I Jeff, the younger
of my you brothers, used to get a rake and
(13:03):
rake the pears off the streets into the garden. It
was quite a lot of paris. What would you do? Illegal?
P What would you I was illegal? Was it? Because
it wasn't your tree? Wasn't your tree? Okay? There? What
would you remember? What your mother would cook with the pears,
which is still them? What would you have? I think
she would, yes, I think she would. Student all we
(13:23):
just did them. You know, delicious fruit pears, aren't they?
Do you still like them? I like pears quite that pears. Yeah,
I've got picked a few in the garden actually recently.
What's your garden like? Did you have a garden? Yes?
I go trees, mostly trees. There are lots of different trees,
(13:44):
but we have some apples and one of them is
a rustic which is very nice. And and we have,
as I say, these pear trees. We had a wonderful
green gauge tree, but it came down in a storm
Yengauge is very very British green cages. So doing the
(14:13):
menus well, as I had a blank sheet of paper
which came in the morning, it's badther Like your house,
you go in the fridge, if you see what's there,
you see what's been ordered, you've sort of also, you know,
we're always thinking about what I always think, what would
I want to for lunch today? You're not coming to
my house, and I bet you are. I was so
(14:37):
excited to make this beautiful clam Taggarini, which I know
Ruthie is is one of Ruthie's favorite pastors, where we
cook the wong lee in advance with garlic and parsi
stalks in chili, and then we pick all the clams
out of their shells and reduced the white wine and
the olive oil and the butter, and then we toss
(14:58):
that through fresh hand Taggarini, which is one of my
favorite things that I've ever hade um. And we've also
got this amazing slow cooked pheasant and partridge sauce, which
is a ragou that we make with lots of different
wild birds at this time of year, and we put
chestnuts and mince pan chattering and that's really wonderful. Now
(15:20):
we're really talking. We do write our menu every day.
It makes it special and exciting, which is what a
restaurant should be and isn't very much. When you left
this Mother's wonderful family of theater and cooking goose and
(15:46):
sitting around the table and singing songs and having friends over,
it sounds so warm and so inclusive. What was it
like when you actually then came to Lendon and food
wise where you on a budget? Did you have to
cook it out? What? What did you never? Never? I
(16:08):
have to tell you a story when I was awarded
the O B E. And my agent at the time
had been in Central with me, Julian Belfridge. He came
down to lunch and I gave him lamb cutlets. I
made an enormous effort. He finished them and whatever I
(16:28):
gave him I can't remember m hm for a dessert.
And he sat back and he said, well, I'll tell
you something, Judy. He said, you didn't get the for
cooking nothing, nothing like having is supported. It's good to
be told, isn't it. It's good There wasn't so what
(16:51):
did you eat? And there you are going to when
we were old that when we got well, when we
got to central, Oh, it was it was glorious. We
used to go two it was somewhere in Kensington High Street.
But we used to also go to a restaurant called
a Cappanina in Soho and that was the greatest treat.
(17:15):
So that was Italian food. That was Italian field. That
was absolutely and it was affordable. You could do so
there on a student budget just about just about. But
it was nice to be taken there, I must that
was an enormous treat. Do you remember kind of multicultural restaurants?
You remember Indian because a lot of you know, the
cheapest food, certainly when I came in the sixties was Greek, Indian, Chinese.
(17:40):
I mean, that was a huge treat to be able
to eat, you know, to eat Chinese and as always
say Italian and it's a real luxury. And suddenly to
be able to go to go, will be taken to
somewhere and you have the luxury really the choice of
things to have to eat. And you know, I'll never
(18:03):
check that for granted, I don't think were you ever
hungry as a student? Did you were their days? Yeah,
I don't ever remember that. I probably had a grant
to do the days when they know I didn't have
a grant. I lived in QA Queen Alexandra's house, which
is right by the Aubert or where Central was, and
(18:25):
so all that was I don't know how my father
they did. They did, that's good. Yeah, so we were lucky, yeah,
and sou Then he started getting roles at the National
Theater by the old VIC. I went straight to the VIC.
But I mean, I've never been I've never been a
(18:49):
good cook or even any cook of any kind. So
you will have tried. I have tried. I can do toothings,
but I can make quite sauce, and I can make gravy.
Well that's pretty good. That's all I can do. But
I used to at the VIC. Alec McCowan was at
the VIC at the same time as me, and he
(19:11):
used to live in the King's Road but three minutes
from my flat. We used to have Sunday lunch together
and he used to cook and he used to always.
I mean, it would be a very usual thing. We
were in the importance together and you know we knew
each other, frank really, but he used to send me
little note saying, would the gravy Queen or the white
(19:33):
sauce Queen come on Sunday and have lunch? And he
did all the rest. You were at the Old Who
are the directors that you? Oh? Michael Bentell, Michael Bentall
at the VIC duges Seal and oh it was house
in days. I loved it. And I despite having had
(19:59):
not very good note as Ophelia, which is my first part,
I remember Michael Bentle said, he said, we'll just get
over these notices. He said you will get better. And
he said I'll go on employing you and you can
play small parts and walk on, but you can stay
at the You know that that was such. I was
(20:20):
so lucky. And then the National and then Nottingham Playhouse
with Johnny Neville whose Hamlet. When I went to the
VIC and we took he was we were the very
first company to ever go to West Africa. To remember
that very well. I remember it very well. Indeed, their
set plays were Twelfth Night, Macbeth and arms and the man.
(20:46):
What was the audience young children, young people at school?
And was that? And it was at the British Council.
Was actually was the British Council? And do you remember
the culture of food there? I do, like I do.
The food was what was the food that a kind
of stew probably are quite meat based, might well have
been which which actually is a question I also like
(21:07):
to ask when when you act, when you're in a play,
do you eat before? Do you know after? You need
to tell me about you You're in a play. You
might be doing a matenee and I'm trying to think
you're lucky. Do you get to eat in the play?
I know you have a story about that, but if
you if you might not be eating in the play.
So here's a day you're you're in a play in
(21:28):
the West End or with the National or at the
Old Vic, and you wake up in the morning and
you know you have a matenee and you have an
evening performance. Judy Den't what would you what would your
day be like? In terms of probably I probably I'd
have coffee in the morning or tea. I wouldn't eat
very much. I wouldn't eat much before I eat just
(21:52):
something before matterally not much, not lunch, um, and mostly
eat afterwards after the evening performance or after the matinee
after the evening before. That's a very I like going
to see a friend of friends I have for in
the theater and then going out. They always like to
(22:14):
go out for dinner afterwards, and there's a so giousness.
Isn't the dinner after He's wonderful as long as you
don't have a matine the next day, you know that's tricky. Um.
But I'm in the luxury of doing two shows and
knowing you're going after dinner afterwards. It's just glorious. And
then other nights you would just go home and crash
(22:35):
or did was there a kind of Probably? I always
say that there's sort of links between the theater of
a restaurant and the theater of the theater. You know
that we have a kind of curtain up at a
certain time, and then there's the performance, and then there's
after the performance, and I have I do an evening.
I can sometimes do a night where the curtain goes up.
(22:58):
I see somebody walks in and you're ready and you
know it's going to be a great night, or you
just know sometimes even just by the way the first
table sits down, or the way perhaps one are the
chefs is coming a bit late, or they seem a
bit tired, that maybe it's not going to go so well.
And then sometimes the one that the ones that you
think won't are the best nights, and sometimes the ones
(23:21):
who think won't are not the best nights. But there's
a kind of both a kind of feeling of energy
after the performance and also exhaustion. Do you think terribly similar?
It's very very similar. And some nights when you wanted
to go well, I don't know whether this applies to well,
(23:41):
it never applies to your restaurant. Does definitely not when
I've ever been here. But you know, it's the night
that it doesn't go with. Yeah, you don't know why
do you know? Sometimes we have the same script, you know,
the same the same actors, the same set say okay,
(24:02):
and there's no explanation for why. That's the excitement of it.
(24:25):
In two thousand and eight, the living room in our
home was transformed into a magical space, not by painting
the walls a different color or hanging a work of art,
but solely do to Dame Judy dench walking in for
two hours. She captivated a hundred people, telling stories, singing songs,
resigning Shakespeare, all in her unmistakable voice and beautiful demeanor.
(24:50):
We were all there to raise funds for the North
Wall and the Outreach Arts Lab project, close to Judy's heart.
I remember that when you did that performance at our house,
and it was part of a whole series that we
did of giving performances and then we chose a charity.
I think that night you chose the Arts Project and
(25:11):
I did med sant demand and we did one with
Ian McKellen and rap. But I remember, as I said,
was the magic in the room. But I also remember
that you found it kind of intimidating. We had to
I had to walk downstairs. Remember I had to come
upstairs and say okay, and then Richard Air had to
come upstairs, and I thought, I have Judy chepstairs. Was
(25:32):
performed in front of thousands of people in the nation,
and then and then you came down and there were
you know, a hundred people who are only there to
see you, maybe even fewer, maybe eighty or sixty, and
it was quite overwhelming. And remember that I do remember
walking down the stairs and George Fenton playing the fis
(25:53):
remember what I say? Okay, Well I found the invitation
and the title of the evening was These Foolish Things. Yes,
And I was wondering if you're saying that. I think
I know that song and the lip Street traces. These
things remind me of you, but something else, And I
(26:17):
can because I remembers seeing it a lot of books
with George. Yeah. Yeah. And we did some singing with
Richard Air. Do you remember used to sing And one
night we got a piano and we sang around the
piano and it was so it's something. It's one of
the great things to do in life, isn't it. Well,
singing around the piano evidence Should we do that? We should?
(26:39):
We really love Let's do it. I have a piano
in my house. I love it. We could have a
night and have something delicious, organize, really lovely. What is
the play when you said you had to cook on
your head on stage? Do you know when the paycock? Oh,
it's wonderful play, Shawn Case play. But one word. I
(27:02):
had to cook for Norman rod Away. She cooks a
sausage for him to eat and after people who say,
you know, he's eating that sausage and it's not cooked
by its simply there isn't time for to cook that sausage.
So you actually put a ras sausage in a frying pan? Yes? Oh, yes,
(27:26):
so then we pre cooked a sausage. Well we're cheating
a bit here, Yeah, Is that the only player? But
you've actually cooked on stage? Probably. We've talked about theater.
What about film sets? What about barned? What they feed?
You never sent me anywhere, kept me in a little
(27:47):
room at the back. And I once said to Barbara
and Michael, I said, you know you go to such
glamorous places, and all I am, I'm in that office
at the back all the time. So the next time,
the next film we've made, I can't remember which one
it was, we were at Stowe's School and they gave
me a trailer my makeup everything, which had Innsbruck written
(28:11):
across the side. And Barbara said to me, you can
never complain again. Every day you're going to every day
to inns book. Did you get to Panama? To Panama?
I wonder which one that was? Do you know which
barn takes place in Panama? Remember? There was I did
eight of them because specter, Yeah, I just did a
(28:31):
morning which was just me giving him the message on
the television or on his machine, So I can't remember
which one it was. What about did you ever do
you ever remember being on a set where you were
eight Well, they gave you something that you don't kind
of go in a way feel like, you know afterwards,
(28:52):
it's quite a different. Directors don't like stopping for lunch.
If you talk to people have made independent movies or
small moves, theyway say stopping for lunch stops the kind
of process. And you know it's even in the real
of any kind of rehearsal, it's not. The treat is
to know you're going in the evening. Sometimes something that's
(29:15):
the greatest treat look forward. You know. The question that
I asked everyone is the food is what we just
sustain ourselves, and food is what we cook when we
want to impress someone or share. It's also something we
find comfort in food. And so named Judy Dench, what
is your comfort food? Comfort food? Mashed potato and it's
(29:42):
really good, gravy, onion, gravy and mashed potato. I quite
that gap. Thank you. It's been a wonderful time with you,
and now we'll go have some lunch in the River Cafe.
The River Cafe Look Book is now available in bookshops
and online. It has over one hundred recipes beautifully illustrated
(30:06):
with photographs from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book
has fifty delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a
host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted
for new cooks. The River Cafe Look Book Recipes for
Cooks of all ages. M Ruthie's Table four is a
(30:29):
production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of I Heart
Radio and Adam I's Studios. Dame Judy Dench is not
just a national and international treasure, She's an interplanetary treasure
if there is life on Mars. They're talking about her
(00:22):
most recent performance. Judy is a woman of warmth, a
woman of wit. A friend tells a story than when
he mentioned to Judy hadn't seen the royal family. Judy replied,
tell me when you're coming, and I'll be sure to
overact for you. After record this conversation, Judy is having
(00:43):
lunch in the River Cafe. We are planning to definitely
overcook for this woman, a friend I admire, respect and adore. Yeah,
on the mains, while we've got these beautiful, really sweet
(01:05):
grapes at the moment which passed so well with the grouse,
and there's turbot and sea bass. Oh my wormish, you
can have everything. We have had people come in order
everything on the and did they stay for a month
or for a month? Yeah? A month? Yeah. I always
(01:28):
say a recipe is half science and have poetry, And
so we're going to skip the science and read the poetry.
How about that? Yes, well, I would love to have
read a recipe, or even given you a recipe, but
will come to that later. But you are talking to
the worst cooking in Britain, and I think it wasn't
(01:50):
a sonnet about food. But I just know this one poem.
But it's Hilaire Belloc, and it's about Henry King, Henry
King R King. Here he goes. The chief defect of
Henry King was chewing little bits of string. At last
he swallowed some that tied itself in ugly knots inside.
(02:12):
Physicians of the utmost fame were called at once, But
when they came, they answered, as they took their fees,
there is no cure for this disease. Henry will very
soon be dead. His parents stood about his bed, lamenting
his untimely death. When Henry cried with latest breath, Oh,
my friends, be warned by me that breakfast, dinner, lunch
(02:35):
and tea are all the human frame requires. With that,
the wretched child expires, the wretched child. So as he
work of this poem, he was quite a lectural Bellock,
wasn't he. He liked to tell everyone what to do,
and children how to be polite. It's not the sad.
He was rather grim. Might think bellock, Well, it's it's
(03:01):
you know, there's a message, right, don't snack, there's the message,
or you might don't snack. What was it like growing up?
He grew up in Yorkshire, are I did? I was
born in New York. My brothers were born in Lancashire.
My mother was from Dublin, my father from Dorset and
(03:21):
who went to Dublin. And recently in the last year
I found out that my mother's side of the family
is Danish and goes back to um somebody who worked
at the day at elsin or in fact Well and
was there when Shakespeare's first company went over there. I
(03:42):
was brought up during the war. I was five when
the war broke out, and we were very lucky because
my part was a doctor and he used to visit
all the farms all around York as well as York itself,
and everyone used to say, Oh, do have a chicken,
Do have goose? Do have a duck? We were really
(04:03):
lucky and that way we had we always had food
and things. And that's also where we had sixteen cats
because there was nobody else in the neighbors. Sixteen we
did sixteen, because nobody wanted that they all did them
or take them out, but they all came round to
our place. It was a triumph. And who would cook
(04:25):
the food? Would your mother? Would you sit down to
family meals? Yes? Or how many you have siblings? Who did?
Two brothers, two brothers older than me, but all and
we always had the house full of friends. Meals were
a great thing. I'm always trying to say. Now, you know,
do enjoy sitting down at the table and not looking
(04:45):
at the phone if possible? What was it like the
meal time at your house? Was there always a discussion
and always singing, singing, a lot of singing. My mom
playing the piano. My father could recite the whole of
and more Darthur. My brother Jeff, who was an actor
long before me and at Stratford, used to know realms
(05:07):
of Shakespeare and it was a kind of I think
that was in the family very much before that. People
used to be able to I mean I remember sitting
on the stairs and hearing friends who were invited around,
and somebody singing and playing the piano, and you know,
you couldn't miss the arts. So when you think of
(05:29):
your early meals, you think more of the performance. I
think only of family meals around the table, and it
was a a family thing that we we you wouldn't
miss because that's when you got to actually discuss things
and talk about things. Who would cook? Your mother? Did
(05:52):
my mother? Or we had a wonderful person called Sissy.
What did she cook? Because Yorkshire has a very definite
regional food when it was when it was course, it
was mostly what you could afford to get. And I
remember there was a market in New Yorker, wonderable market,
and you'd go around and people would come in and
they'd have a chicken in a basket, you know, all
(06:14):
prepared for cooking and things. And I mean I could
get the rations for five people when I was six.
I could easily go and carry the rations which were
so minimal for everybody. But I never remember Rucie being
hungry or or thinking, gosh, you know, I wish there
was more of this. I don't we read really lucky.
(06:38):
And your father didn't go away. He was he was
away in the First World War. He was he was
a hero. He got the military crossing bar, he got
do you know where he was? He was in Arras
And then because of a knee injury that he'd got
he was sent home to have and that way he
(07:02):
got he was not at Passiondale mhm. It was just
fantastically well lucky is not really the word. And so
for your father to have been in the war and
then come home must have it. It was an extraorbinary thing.
And I knew, I knew about his work up, but
(07:24):
I didn't know it was quite so illustrious. Switch And
do you think that? Do you think your parents wanted
to be actors or to be singers or part of
their nature? No, my father they there was an amateur
group in New York called the Settlement Players. My power
(07:45):
and mom were part of that. Mommy never want to
do it, but she was wonderful seamstress and could make
costumes and things like that. And then when it came
to the mystery plays, the miracle plays, when they were
done for the first time, Daddy played and asked the
High Priest and we were a lot of us were
auditioned by Martin Brown. We were to quake aboard in
(08:07):
school in New York, and we were, we made angels,
we were we had a wonderful time, wonderful time. You
remember the first auditions that would have been at what
age was your first It wasn't really an audition. They
just came and said you, you, you, you and you
and when when did you know that that's what you
wanted to But I wanted to do oh not ages
(08:30):
R not for not until fifty three, because I wanted
to be a designer, staged stage designer. But I was
taking to Stratford by my parents and saw Michael Redgrave
in Leah and I can remember seeing this set which
(08:52):
completely changed my idea. During the holidays at school, I'd
assisted Void, the designer your rep, painting sets for him,
and I only really understood plays by three acts. You know,
you designed one act and then the curtain would come down.
(09:13):
You change a few things and we'll go up. But
but for Lear, for the Stratford it was the most
phenomenal set that never changed. It was a huge flat
disc that revolved with a rock in the middle of
it was the throne or the cave or nothing had
to be changed, hopefully, it was kind of continuous. And
(09:36):
that right that I thought, no, good bye yourk art school,
I'm going to try for Central. When you went on
these theatrical journeys, with your parents, you went to Stratford,
you went to the theater in New York. Would you
go to a restaurant before or after? Was that part
of the evening? Was that part of the experience? Each
(09:56):
was partly, but probably we were always in a rush,
was in a rush to get things on time. But
there was a restaurant that we used to that used
to be the most enormous treat to go to outside York.
And we used to cycle there. This would be post war.
(10:20):
This would be that was post war. Yes, but we
all had bikes, so we that was the greatest. Was
it a treat go to a restaurant? Simply wonderful? It
was called the by do We and it was wonderful.
It was wonderful food. I mean not sophisticated in any way,
(10:42):
not in any way. And so what are the dishes
of your childhood that you remember that? Did you have
Yorkshire putting putting hair? I change something we used to
have at school. I used to try and stay away
on a Tuesday because they used to do Yorkshire pudding
with treacle the trickle. Now even now that's that was
(11:07):
really so it was a dessert or they served the
treacle Yorkshire pudding with people. It's so disgusting. But it
was always on a Tuesday. And I used to feign
illness on a Tuesday and gil on about the third
or fourth Tuesday. My mar said, this is something about school.
She said, this is not to do with illness. And
(11:29):
it was a Yorkshire pudding with a treat. That's at school.
That was at my prep school. But that's food was
important to you. Food matter. It didn't matter because of
course during the war, of course, it was just something
to sustain you. And as I say, because of my
path visiting right around in the country, we were just
(11:54):
so lucky that we had enough to eat, but so
many people didn't. I often think that when people are
very critical of food in Britain in the fifties or
even the sixties, Britain had come out of a war,
they came out of rationing, they came out of kitchen
gardens where people didn't have food. And to go from
(12:17):
that too, you know, grand cuisine or two cooking. It
seems so unfair to criticize a nation that had suffered
food wise, to being critical of you know, the way
they cooked, you know, So I feel it must have
been very tough because it was It was just a
question of giving you something that filled you. Yeah. Yeah,
(12:40):
But also I mean I love the idea of your
mother cooking a goose, or cooking duck, or cooking the
food that wasting. Were the vegetables grew the vegetables in
the garden and next door it was the most wonderful
pear tree. And my brother and I Jeff, the younger
of my you brothers, used to get a rake and
(13:03):
rake the pears off the streets into the garden. It
was quite a lot of paris. What would you do? Illegal?
P What would you I was illegal? Was it? Because
it wasn't your tree? Wasn't your tree? Okay? There? What
would you remember? What your mother would cook with the pears,
which is still them? What would you have? I think
she would, yes, I think she would. Student all we
(13:23):
just did them. You know, delicious fruit pears, aren't they?
Do you still like them? I like pears quite that pears. Yeah,
I've got picked a few in the garden actually recently.
What's your garden like? Did you have a garden? Yes?
I go trees, mostly trees. There are lots of different trees,
(13:44):
but we have some apples and one of them is
a rustic which is very nice. And and we have,
as I say, these pear trees. We had a wonderful
green gauge tree, but it came down in a storm
Yengauge is very very British green cages. So doing the
(14:13):
menus well, as I had a blank sheet of paper
which came in the morning, it's badther Like your house,
you go in the fridge, if you see what's there,
you see what's been ordered, you've sort of also, you know,
we're always thinking about what I always think, what would
I want to for lunch today? You're not coming to
my house, and I bet you are. I was so
(14:37):
excited to make this beautiful clam Taggarini, which I know
Ruthie is is one of Ruthie's favorite pastors, where we
cook the wong lee in advance with garlic and parsi
stalks in chili, and then we pick all the clams
out of their shells and reduced the white wine and
the olive oil and the butter, and then we toss
(14:58):
that through fresh hand Taggarini, which is one of my
favorite things that I've ever hade um. And we've also
got this amazing slow cooked pheasant and partridge sauce, which
is a ragou that we make with lots of different
wild birds at this time of year, and we put
chestnuts and mince pan chattering and that's really wonderful. Now
(15:20):
we're really talking. We do write our menu every day.
It makes it special and exciting, which is what a
restaurant should be and isn't very much. When you left
this Mother's wonderful family of theater and cooking goose and
(15:46):
sitting around the table and singing songs and having friends over,
it sounds so warm and so inclusive. What was it
like when you actually then came to Lendon and food
wise where you on a budget? Did you have to
cook it out? What? What did you never? Never? I
(16:08):
have to tell you a story when I was awarded
the O B E. And my agent at the time
had been in Central with me, Julian Belfridge. He came
down to lunch and I gave him lamb cutlets. I
made an enormous effort. He finished them and whatever I
(16:28):
gave him I can't remember m hm for a dessert.
And he sat back and he said, well, I'll tell
you something, Judy. He said, you didn't get the for
cooking nothing, nothing like having is supported. It's good to
be told, isn't it. It's good There wasn't so what
(16:51):
did you eat? And there you are going to when
we were old that when we got well, when we
got to central, Oh, it was it was glorious. We
used to go two it was somewhere in Kensington High Street.
But we used to also go to a restaurant called
a Cappanina in Soho and that was the greatest treat.
(17:15):
So that was Italian food. That was Italian field. That
was absolutely and it was affordable. You could do so
there on a student budget just about just about. But
it was nice to be taken there, I must that
was an enormous treat. Do you remember kind of multicultural restaurants?
You remember Indian because a lot of you know, the
cheapest food, certainly when I came in the sixties was Greek, Indian, Chinese.
(17:40):
I mean, that was a huge treat to be able
to eat, you know, to eat Chinese and as always
say Italian and it's a real luxury. And suddenly to
be able to go to go, will be taken to
somewhere and you have the luxury really the choice of
things to have to eat. And you know, I'll never
(18:03):
check that for granted, I don't think were you ever
hungry as a student? Did you were their days? Yeah,
I don't ever remember that. I probably had a grant
to do the days when they know I didn't have
a grant. I lived in QA Queen Alexandra's house, which
is right by the Aubert or where Central was, and
(18:25):
so all that was I don't know how my father
they did. They did, that's good. Yeah, so we were lucky, yeah,
and sou Then he started getting roles at the National
Theater by the old VIC. I went straight to the VIC.
But I mean, I've never been I've never been a
(18:49):
good cook or even any cook of any kind. So
you will have tried. I have tried. I can do toothings,
but I can make quite sauce, and I can make gravy.
Well that's pretty good. That's all I can do. But
I used to at the VIC. Alec McCowan was at
the VIC at the same time as me, and he
(19:11):
used to live in the King's Road but three minutes
from my flat. We used to have Sunday lunch together
and he used to cook and he used to always.
I mean, it would be a very usual thing. We
were in the importance together and you know we knew
each other, frank really, but he used to send me
little note saying, would the gravy Queen or the white
(19:33):
sauce Queen come on Sunday and have lunch? And he
did all the rest. You were at the Old Who
are the directors that you? Oh? Michael Bentell, Michael Bentall
at the VIC duges Seal and oh it was house
in days. I loved it. And I despite having had
(19:59):
not very good note as Ophelia, which is my first part,
I remember Michael Bentle said, he said, we'll just get
over these notices. He said you will get better. And
he said I'll go on employing you and you can
play small parts and walk on, but you can stay
at the You know that that was such. I was
(20:20):
so lucky. And then the National and then Nottingham Playhouse
with Johnny Neville whose Hamlet. When I went to the
VIC and we took he was we were the very
first company to ever go to West Africa. To remember
that very well. I remember it very well. Indeed, their
set plays were Twelfth Night, Macbeth and arms and the man.
(20:46):
What was the audience young children, young people at school?
And was that? And it was at the British Council.
Was actually was the British Council? And do you remember
the culture of food there? I do, like I do.
The food was what was the food that a kind
of stew probably are quite meat based, might well have
been which which actually is a question I also like
(21:07):
to ask when when you act, when you're in a play,
do you eat before? Do you know after? You need
to tell me about you You're in a play. You
might be doing a matenee and I'm trying to think
you're lucky. Do you get to eat in the play?
I know you have a story about that, but if
you if you might not be eating in the play.
So here's a day you're you're in a play in
(21:28):
the West End or with the National or at the
Old Vic, and you wake up in the morning and
you know you have a matenee and you have an
evening performance. Judy Den't what would you what would your
day be like? In terms of probably I probably I'd
have coffee in the morning or tea. I wouldn't eat
very much. I wouldn't eat much before I eat just
(21:52):
something before matterally not much, not lunch, um, and mostly
eat afterwards after the evening performance or after the matinee
after the evening before. That's a very I like going
to see a friend of friends I have for in
the theater and then going out. They always like to
(22:14):
go out for dinner afterwards, and there's a so giousness.
Isn't the dinner after He's wonderful as long as you
don't have a matine the next day, you know that's tricky. Um.
But I'm in the luxury of doing two shows and
knowing you're going after dinner afterwards. It's just glorious. And
then other nights you would just go home and crash
(22:35):
or did was there a kind of Probably? I always
say that there's sort of links between the theater of
a restaurant and the theater of the theater. You know
that we have a kind of curtain up at a
certain time, and then there's the performance, and then there's
after the performance, and I have I do an evening.
I can sometimes do a night where the curtain goes up.
(22:58):
I see somebody walks in and you're ready and you
know it's going to be a great night, or you
just know sometimes even just by the way the first
table sits down, or the way perhaps one are the
chefs is coming a bit late, or they seem a
bit tired, that maybe it's not going to go so well.
And then sometimes the one that the ones that you
think won't are the best nights, and sometimes the ones
(23:21):
who think won't are not the best nights. But there's
a kind of both a kind of feeling of energy
after the performance and also exhaustion. Do you think terribly similar?
It's very very similar. And some nights when you wanted
to go well, I don't know whether this applies to well,
(23:41):
it never applies to your restaurant. Does definitely not when
I've ever been here. But you know, it's the night
that it doesn't go with. Yeah, you don't know why
do you know? Sometimes we have the same script, you know,
the same the same actors, the same set say okay,
(24:02):
and there's no explanation for why. That's the excitement of it.
(24:25):
In two thousand and eight, the living room in our
home was transformed into a magical space, not by painting
the walls a different color or hanging a work of art,
but solely do to Dame Judy dench walking in for
two hours. She captivated a hundred people, telling stories, singing songs,
resigning Shakespeare, all in her unmistakable voice and beautiful demeanor.
(24:50):
We were all there to raise funds for the North
Wall and the Outreach Arts Lab project, close to Judy's heart.
I remember that when you did that performance at our house,
and it was part of a whole series that we
did of giving performances and then we chose a charity.
I think that night you chose the Arts Project and
(25:11):
I did med sant demand and we did one with
Ian McKellen and rap. But I remember, as I said,
was the magic in the room. But I also remember
that you found it kind of intimidating. We had to
I had to walk downstairs. Remember I had to come
upstairs and say okay, and then Richard Air had to
come upstairs, and I thought, I have Judy chepstairs. Was
(25:32):
performed in front of thousands of people in the nation,
and then and then you came down and there were
you know, a hundred people who are only there to
see you, maybe even fewer, maybe eighty or sixty, and
it was quite overwhelming. And remember that I do remember
walking down the stairs and George Fenton playing the fis
(25:53):
remember what I say? Okay, Well I found the invitation
and the title of the evening was These Foolish Things. Yes,
And I was wondering if you're saying that. I think
I know that song and the lip Street traces. These
things remind me of you, but something else, And I
(26:17):
can because I remembers seeing it a lot of books
with George. Yeah. Yeah. And we did some singing with
Richard Air. Do you remember used to sing And one
night we got a piano and we sang around the
piano and it was so it's something. It's one of
the great things to do in life, isn't it. Well,
singing around the piano evidence Should we do that? We should?
(26:39):
We really love Let's do it. I have a piano
in my house. I love it. We could have a
night and have something delicious, organize, really lovely. What is
the play when you said you had to cook on
your head on stage? Do you know when the paycock? Oh,
it's wonderful play, Shawn Case play. But one word. I
(27:02):
had to cook for Norman rod Away. She cooks a
sausage for him to eat and after people who say,
you know, he's eating that sausage and it's not cooked
by its simply there isn't time for to cook that sausage.
So you actually put a ras sausage in a frying pan? Yes? Oh, yes,
(27:26):
so then we pre cooked a sausage. Well we're cheating
a bit here, Yeah, Is that the only player? But
you've actually cooked on stage? Probably. We've talked about theater.
What about film sets? What about barned? What they feed?
You never sent me anywhere, kept me in a little
(27:47):
room at the back. And I once said to Barbara
and Michael, I said, you know you go to such
glamorous places, and all I am, I'm in that office
at the back all the time. So the next time,
the next film we've made, I can't remember which one
it was, we were at Stowe's School and they gave
me a trailer my makeup everything, which had Innsbruck written
(28:11):
across the side. And Barbara said to me, you can
never complain again. Every day you're going to every day
to inns book. Did you get to Panama? To Panama?
I wonder which one that was? Do you know which
barn takes place in Panama? Remember? There was I did
eight of them because specter, Yeah, I just did a
(28:31):
morning which was just me giving him the message on
the television or on his machine, So I can't remember
which one it was. What about did you ever do
you ever remember being on a set where you were
eight Well, they gave you something that you don't kind
of go in a way feel like, you know afterwards,
(28:52):
it's quite a different. Directors don't like stopping for lunch.
If you talk to people have made independent movies or
small moves, theyway say stopping for lunch stops the kind
of process. And you know it's even in the real
of any kind of rehearsal, it's not. The treat is
to know you're going in the evening. Sometimes something that's
(29:15):
the greatest treat look forward. You know. The question that
I asked everyone is the food is what we just
sustain ourselves, and food is what we cook when we
want to impress someone or share. It's also something we
find comfort in food. And so named Judy Dench, what
is your comfort food? Comfort food? Mashed potato and it's
(29:42):
really good, gravy, onion, gravy and mashed potato. I quite
that gap. Thank you. It's been a wonderful time with you,
and now we'll go have some lunch in the River Cafe.
The River Cafe Look Book is now available in bookshops
and online. It has over one hundred recipes beautifully illustrated
(30:06):
with photographs from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book
has fifty delicious and easy to prepare recipes, including a
host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted
for new cooks. The River Cafe Look Book Recipes for
Cooks of all ages. M Ruthie's Table four is a
(30:29):
production of I Heart Radio and Adam I Studios. For
more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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