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/
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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 Atomize Studios. Sitting here in the River Cafe
on a Sunday Monday morning, with chefs in the kitchen
making ravioli with Girol's and waiters laying tables in the garden,
(00:21):
the uncertain world we live in feels miles away. The
artist and filmmaker Steve mc queen 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 nineteen ninety nine when he won the
(00:44):
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
with Steve mc queen, and he didn't want to share
him with any one else. Now, a few years later,
I finally have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being
(01:07):
a generous person, will 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.
(01:27):
Thank you for inviting me. Tell me about growing up
in London. We lived with your parents in West London
and what did you eat? Yeah, we grew up. I
grew up in a firstly shoveled bush, West London. My
relationship with food really starts with the market. I was
the kid who was carrying the bags behind their mother
(01:49):
because basically I would have to go with her because
you know, I was a sort of extra bread hands
and carriacter. Shopping back home. Food was a way of
actually getting to go London because it's someone had said
to my mother, there's you know, you could get so
and so sea beast in this market for this amount
of money, she will be there. So people ushould talk
about where can they get particular kind of food and
(02:10):
fresh produce? Now, where was your mother born? My mother
was born in Trinidad, but she grew up in in Grenada,
and my father was born in Ingrenada. How old were
they when they came to London? But my mother was
about fourteen fifteen, and think about fifteen when she came
to London, I think in the early sixties, and my
father was a little bit older. I think maybe he
was about twenty one. I don't know when I think
(02:32):
he came early succeeds too, but not not at the
same time. And so do you think her mother had
taken her to the market. As you say, the market
does introduce us to a culture, It 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 and your
(02:53):
mother's experience of the market. Well, in fact, what happened
was that a lot of rijority of people coming from
the whey thin this headland, 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
on the coast in great a place course of tiers
and a very big fishing spot there, you know, it's
(03:15):
kind of fishing village. Food was very much directly sort
of to do who who they were. So when they
came to London, of course looking for good food was
very important. And um, you know, we used to go
to all kinds of bloody markets all over London. I
so I said, I head up with it, I said,
missed me football, focus on the satellite because that to
go to the market with my mom. It was something
(03:36):
which I remember. There was all different cultures, you know
it was, didn't you You had the sort of you know,
the Londoners and the white Londoners that the Indian, you have,
the Jewish, you had all kinds of people. Was fabulous.
It was really kind of cool. Tone. My knew would
come home from the market. What would you eat? What
would they cook from the market? Oh so if you
get dash in you know, spinache? You know again you
(03:59):
know you cook? I mean my my my favorite was
like a nice stew chicken and that special thing. I'm
roty just you know, oh my god, what was it?
A beautiful It's like a nice stewfish and I just
love what was this? There's one thing I used to
not very much. It was it was a vegetable? What
was it? It was? Ok? I love, ok, I love. Yeah.
(04:23):
It was all kinds of exonic stuff. I mean, I say,
he's on it because it was familiar to me. But
my friends, my white friends or what was that was this?
Was this? Yeah? Cooked in the house. My mother cooked
my father cooked. My father was a good cook too.
He took pride in the Christmas ham. That was his job.
There was a particular way of cooking came from because
(04:44):
he's uncle with a butcher in the West ind So
there was a particular way of cooking the ham. I
can't even prescribe it now, but it's close all into
indented in all everywhere. It was almost like sort of
it's never are a movie. Um gorgeous was his marvelous? Yeah?
Great cooks, great cooks. Did you cook with them? Was
it a family affair? Would you all cook together? I mean,
(05:04):
I love being with my mother in the kitchen because
somehow I love to help out. I love to sort
of be I don't know, I love to love that.
So I can't say that I'm a great cook, but
I was a very good shoes chef, a bit of
an eat and tidy person. What they entertained when friends
come over? Was there that feeling when people did come over,
it was it was a little of family and fat
(05:26):
and well. I think most of the things I used
to do when the people come up with them would
just listen because there was all the always that would
come out that my parents would never talk to us about,
of course, but always because adults will talk to adults.
So if we find out about sort of how what
was going on on when you left this very comforting
family meals where you were cooked for and you ate together.
(05:48):
What was that like when you left home? Where did
you live? I was actually nearing you, guys, Actually I was.
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
a new She was a Swiss and then she had
discovered this restaurant, this place called Malati, the Indonesian place
(06:10):
and so, which was delicious, was gorgeous, and that was
my first restaurant, and she that was your first restaurant.
That was one of my first restaurants. Yeah, I was.
I was about nineteen years old. And after that the
restaurants become part of your social life. Did you love restaurants? Absolutely?
I mean what's great about I mean now, I suppose
in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
(06:30):
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 for
going to a restaurant. So that was wonderful. And then
we got to know. So we've got a lot of
restaurants in so we got to know. I remember during
that time its early nineties, early early nineties. Yeah, and
(06:51):
also in the East End too. Yeah, what about an
arts school? Was that revelation? Yeah? I mean, you know,
cannon bit of cheese, bah the and b gets. I
mean that was that was kind of like interesting because
again there was an additional west in this cheese. I
mean those cheese. I it was crappy cheese. You know,
you can imagine a sort of a big block of
(07:12):
something which they called cheese. But getting to them cheese
was interesting during my time foundation at Chelsea. 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
and down and eating and then having independence and having
to fend for yourself and discover life out there. Did
(07:35):
you go home? Would you return home for the home
cooked meal? Yes? I used to love going home for food.
My goodness, I said, oh well, my goodness, I still
love it. It's just it's just a sort of Yeah.
It was difficult because at first it was how do
I cook? What do I cook? I was on the
phone with my mom. How do I do this? My mother?
(07:56):
I do this? My moth, I do that. So a
lot of colls of up making sort of soups and
things like that, and how do I season? And because
I can't. For granted, I said to be the shoe ship,
but I wasn't really looking, it wasn't really studying. Yeah,
so yeah, a lot of phone calls. Basically back onund Ye,
(08:21):
Welcome 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? One kilogram fresh peas in their pods,
(08:42):
extra virgin olive oil, one garlic clothes peel and diced,
one dried red chili crumbled, one kind of grammar spinach,
washed tough storks, removed hard the piece and blanched them
at plenty of boiling water. In Italy, no one ever
(09:04):
cooks vegetables out, only past it, So rather than blanching
these peas, boiled them so that they almost melt together
with spinach and the olive oil. Gorgeous. So now, Steve,
here we are and we're going to talk about the
(09:25):
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? Is that story? Can you tell
me about the restaurant, the politics and the series. Sure? Well,
the Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank Krislow
(09:49):
in Lambra Grove on All Saints Row and he opened
a restaurant in and it was a sort of home
away from home restaurant. You can imagine, as I said before,
all the pe wanting the sort of the taste of home,
and that had a vibrancy of having sort of like
many people wanting to sort of come to a place
to eat and the sort of commune with each other.
(10:10):
So it was a place of refuge in it in
a way. You know, the vibe that 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 some English was
which was which was on the scene, and unfortunately the
police and the authorities that be obviously didn't like what
was happening at this place because again it was you know,
(10:33):
it was people from the west Inndiers, it was working
class people, it was the thinkers, it was sort of
activists were coming there. And also the why ploy so
all these people 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 disruptive as
(10:54):
much as they could. Know. It was a case of
the people not wanting certain ideas having a foot old
in UK and they thought that the Mangrove was a
place where those ideas could sort of take root. There's
something about doing that kind of discussion as well over food,
and one of the things that I see in the
restaurant as that somehow being out of your house, being
(11:15):
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, Absolutely absolutely, And there's a
sense of I don't know what is it purpose, you're there,
you're pregnant, there's another person there in present. But also
(11:36):
actually just to listen. It's just a case of being
in an environment where you are, you know, you feel
comfortable in order to say things and and and listen.
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
(11:57):
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'd like to meet people that you're going to work
with in a restaurant? First, I love it, but that
doesn't happen often. I mean, I think it's sort of
it's a classy way to do anything, isn't it. And
(12:18):
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. And it was amazing. In fact, I think
that's how I grew up in food and in in
interesting way, it was through the art world. It's completely
different in the film world. I mean, you know the
(12:39):
fact that you you know, you might get a crappy sandwich,
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. 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
(13:02):
taken care of through food. And then I think of
the movie that you know, it was so earth shattering,
which was Hunger, And so we're talking about a movie
called Hunger and the state of 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
(13:24):
movie that was the absence of food as a political statement? Um,
I mean for me, it was again it's though, is
interesting thing, you know, I related to that in a
way that of being a child, in the way that
you know, often the only power a child has is
(13:45):
refraining to eat his or her mother saying you're not
leaving the table until you finished that plate, and the
child sort of refusing to eat, and then you're sent
off to bed, you know. And it's interesting because you
know what the clothes you wear that as as a sid,
as a child of a sertain nature, what time you
(14:06):
go to bed, what food you eat is chosen by
your parents. And the whole idea that this child power
this child has is to refrain to eat. That was
my relationship in some ways to Bobby Sends and hunger strike,
that the power that person had was to refrain to eat.
Ever since there was a child. I remember asking my
mom when I saw this image of Bobby's hands on
television with a number and his image, and asking my mother, what,
(14:27):
what's what's what is the how old this person is?
Because non that so 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 Fan has been the you know
right cast is what we said was tremendous, and that
was a bond of you know we have to this day.
It was a real kind of a labor of love
and of what are the food scenes in your movies?
(14:49):
In twelve years of slave, there's a scene, isn't there
at the dinner table. I sen to remember there's lots
of I think there's lots of food in my films.
I mean you can see after that his shame of
the two characters Brandon and and he's sort of a
possible girlfriend at this dinner table, and there's way to annoying.
Way too comes in every five seconds to interrupt them.
I remember that from having a lots of dinners in
New York and every five seconds one becomes in the
(15:11):
middle of something was getting bigger. You know how converlations are.
They had to get to that point. You know, it's
always it was commercial Boody breaks every five seconds. You
have to start from the scratch every five minutes. So
you didn't make for good eating experience. So I put
that in the movie What do you eat on a film? So?
Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming? No?
I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
(15:33):
when I started filmmaking and they were hunger and shame
to obvious. It's like all the actors on all the
crewel eat together. We did the people in their body
trailers and in that crap everyone wat together. There's something
about communal eating and it's about we It's such a
unifying thing to see, you know, the hair and makeup
(15:56):
and the camera department, and to student sitting at table
together and talking about the film or talking about things,
and there's a camaraderie. It's many time often when you're
sort of on set together that you had that sort
of times, you know, is when you when you're sidn't
get the eating and it's fun. It's it's fun. I
(16:18):
love it. 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
(16:40):
in through these photographs. And one of the issues that
I think 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
(17:02):
the idea that we have a society that children depend
on having their food away from the home because of
the poverty in the home is appalling and shocking and
distressing everything else. Yes, absolutely, I mean I had school didns,
which I paid for by my mother. That's why even
today I like hot meals and hot lunches. I mean,
(17:24):
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 morning before Mrs Snatcher took it away from us. Yeah,
I love school meals in that way. Also, just because
we're such a good laugh in the canteen, you know,
(17:45):
I associate food in school with good times and I
can't remember the smell of it, the canteen and the
noise and the cutlery banging together, and it's so important.
You know. Also people have to look really tip the
hat to Markus Rashford and what he did in the
sense of, you know, getting the government to sort of
stand out twice about the school mills, because you know,
(18:08):
again this is you know, if you can't look after people,
we can't afford to either. 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, there
you go. Everyone has got a 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 it's one of those things I feel that, you know,
everyone is unfortunately not brought into this world equally. But
(18:30):
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 mid in the stomach, you know in Britain. Yeah,
it's it's 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
(18:52):
a black neighborhood. I didn't see any greens in a
black neighborhood. You know, there wasn't a green grocers, but
there was always some sort of fast food place where
people eat. So people are losing the sort of heritage
of food. People are not aware of food and nourishment
and possibilities within food and food is politics in a way.
(19:13):
It reverts back to what we were talking about right
at the beginning of of our 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 this sense of community, sense of comradery, sense of
sort of love of food and love of each other
(19:34):
is being sort of erased in the sort of you know,
working classed areas. I mean, you get these markets, but
there's so it's kind of like posh markets, aren't they
the sort of farmers markets they call them. And you know,
the food is so expensive, so and and I can
I feel that they're becoming kind of food deserts in
a way where kids are growing up on fast food
(19:55):
and not being introduced to sort of love food in
a way, so that stomach, which I'm a bit sort
of concerned about. Yeah, food is a connection and food
is a memory, and food is giving and sharing, and
food is political and social and and it's also comfort.
It's something that we go to and we need comfort.
(20:18):
And so I suppose Steve McQueen, what would you say
is the food you would go to if you needed comfort?
For me? The comfort food that I I very much
love and I appreciate is often a cold day, you know,
and you come in and it's my mom's chicken soups.
Wasting your chicken soup, which has the bones in it
and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones. And
(20:40):
it's the sort of you know, it's the time, it's
the garlic. It's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
secret ingredients she wants still want stomach. The dumplings takes
a bit of peas. It's wonderful. So those are the
kind of things that I really love. Yeah, And I
could hear my dad's sucking the bones all right now.
My head was. It was a wonderful, you know, having
(21:01):
those dinners together on those cold days. I remember it was.
It was beautiful. It was beautiful. And that's of great memories.
My Dad's not it anymore. So when I often do
think about him, I do think about him, and at
what I do think about him. Christmas in the ham, oh,
of course, and Christmas Christmas breakfast was a big thing.
Hot poco. My dad would make a bake. A bake
(21:24):
is a kind of a flat bread west in your
flat bread in the morning, and oh my god, how
can I how can I not say this? Um um
fish cakes, my mother's fishcakes. Oh my god, my mother's
fish cakes on the Christmas morning and she's making these
little bakes which was sort of like a like a
bread but you'll fry in oil. Oh my god. And
(21:46):
even my daughter is stu. When my mom comes outlays asked, Cranny,
please make fishcakes for me, because it's a west in
your fishcakes. It's gorgeous. And of course you know that
there's never anything left for me when I get home.
But you know, it's just I think with you, what
you've done actually is actually given me. I mean fact,
that's what love was rock, not even love is rock.
That's what the whole of Small Acts was based on.
(22:10):
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 taste,
is the most otent sources of memory, not the photographs.
Photographs does only tell you so much because you know,
it cuts out what's beyond the frame is not present,
(22:32):
it's not visible and going on wrapping on. 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,
(22:53):
he would suddenly start cooking for them. And and he said, oh,
I don't know, I don't think 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
(23:14):
that It's so potent, isn't it. I had I thought
it would be interesting, but what it really brings home
over and over again, it's a connection that food has
for us, for memories. Forget about this. Tell's it's done.
You've done it, mate, Smell and take. You've done it. Well,
thank you, you've done it. It's it's all to do
(23:36):
with you. To visit the online shop of The River Cafe,
go to shop The River Cafe dot co dot uk.
Ruthie's Table four is a production of I Heart Radio
Anatomize Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
(24:00):
I Heard 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 Atomize Studios. Sitting here in the River Cafe
on a Sunday Monday morning, with chefs in the kitchen
making ravioli with Girol's and waiters laying tables in the garden,
(00:21):
the uncertain world we live in feels miles away. The
artist and filmmaker Steve mc queen 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 nineteen ninety nine when he won the
(00:44):
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
with Steve mc queen, and he didn't want to share
him with any one else. Now, a few years later,
I finally have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being
(01:07):
a generous person, will 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.
(01:27):
Thank you for inviting me. Tell me about growing up
in London. We lived with your parents in West London
and what did you eat? Yeah, we grew up. I
grew up in a firstly shoveled bush, West London. My
relationship with food really starts with the market. I was
the kid who was carrying the bags behind their mother
(01:49):
because basically I would have to go with her because
you know, I was a sort of extra bread hands
and carriacter. Shopping back home. Food was a way of
actually getting to go London because it's someone had said
to my mother, there's you know, you could get so
and so sea beast in this market for this amount
of money, she will be there. So people ushould talk
about where can they get particular kind of food and
(02:10):
fresh produce? Now, where was your mother born? My mother
was born in Trinidad, but she grew up in in Grenada,
and my father was born in Ingrenada. How old were
they when they came to London? But my mother was
about fourteen fifteen, and think about fifteen when she came
to London, I think in the early sixties, and my
father was a little bit older. I think maybe he
was about twenty one. I don't know when I think
(02:32):
he came early succeeds too, but not not at the
same time. And so do you think her mother had
taken her to the market. As you say, the market
does introduce us to a culture, It 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 and your
(02:53):
mother's experience of the market. Well, in fact, what happened
was that a lot of rijority of people coming from
the whey thin this headland, 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
on the coast in great a place course of tiers
and a very big fishing spot there, you know, it's
(03:15):
kind of fishing village. Food was very much directly sort
of to do who who they were. So when they
came to London, of course looking for good food was
very important. And um, you know, we used to go
to all kinds of bloody markets all over London. I
so I said, I head up with it, I said,
missed me football, focus on the satellite because that to
go to the market with my mom. It was something
(03:36):
which I remember. There was all different cultures, you know
it was, didn't you You had the sort of you know,
the Londoners and the white Londoners that the Indian, you have,
the Jewish, you had all kinds of people. Was fabulous.
It was really kind of cool. Tone. My knew would
come home from the market. What would you eat? What
would they cook from the market? Oh so if you
get dash in you know, spinache? You know again you
(03:59):
know you cook? I mean my my my favorite was
like a nice stew chicken and that special thing. I'm
roty just you know, oh my god, what was it?
A beautiful It's like a nice stewfish and I just
love what was this? There's one thing I used to
not very much. It was it was a vegetable? What
was it? It was? Ok? I love, ok, I love. Yeah.
(04:23):
It was all kinds of exonic stuff. I mean, I say,
he's on it because it was familiar to me. But
my friends, my white friends or what was that was this?
Was this? Yeah? Cooked in the house. My mother cooked
my father cooked. My father was a good cook too.
He took pride in the Christmas ham. That was his job.
There was a particular way of cooking came from because
(04:44):
he's uncle with a butcher in the West ind So
there was a particular way of cooking the ham. I
can't even prescribe it now, but it's close all into
indented in all everywhere. It was almost like sort of
it's never are a movie. Um gorgeous was his marvelous? Yeah?
Great cooks, great cooks. Did you cook with them? Was
it a family affair? Would you all cook together? I mean,
(05:04):
I love being with my mother in the kitchen because
somehow I love to help out. I love to sort
of be I don't know, I love to love that.
So I can't say that I'm a great cook, but
I was a very good shoes chef, a bit of
an eat and tidy person. What they entertained when friends
come over? Was there that feeling when people did come over,
it was it was a little of family and fat
(05:26):
and well. I think most of the things I used
to do when the people come up with them would
just listen because there was all the always that would
come out that my parents would never talk to us about,
of course, but always because adults will talk to adults.
So if we find out about sort of how what
was going on on when you left this very comforting
family meals where you were cooked for and you ate together.
(05:48):
What was that like when you left home? Where did
you live? I was actually nearing you, guys, Actually I was.
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
a new She was a Swiss and then she had
discovered this restaurant, this place called Malati, the Indonesian place
(06:10):
and so, which was delicious, was gorgeous, and that was
my first restaurant, and she that was your first restaurant.
That was one of my first restaurants. Yeah, I was.
I was about nineteen years old. And after that the
restaurants become part of your social life. Did you love restaurants? Absolutely?
I mean what's great about I mean now, I suppose
in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
(06:30):
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 for
going to a restaurant. So that was wonderful. And then
we got to know. So we've got a lot of
restaurants in so we got to know. I remember during
that time its early nineties, early early nineties. Yeah, and
(06:51):
also in the East End too. Yeah, what about an
arts school? Was that revelation? Yeah? I mean, you know,
cannon bit of cheese, bah the and b gets. I
mean that was that was kind of like interesting because
again there was an additional west in this cheese. I
mean those cheese. I it was crappy cheese. You know,
you can imagine a sort of a big block of
(07:12):
something which they called cheese. But getting to them cheese
was interesting during my time foundation at Chelsea. 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
and down and eating and then having independence and having
to fend for yourself and discover life out there. Did
(07:35):
you go home? Would you return home for the home
cooked meal? Yes? I used to love going home for food.
My goodness, I said, oh well, my goodness, I still
love it. It's just it's just a sort of Yeah.
It was difficult because at first it was how do
I cook? What do I cook? I was on the
phone with my mom. How do I do this? My mother?
(07:56):
I do this? My moth, I do that. So a
lot of colls of up making sort of soups and
things like that, and how do I season? And because
I can't. For granted, I said to be the shoe ship,
but I wasn't really looking, it wasn't really studying. Yeah,
so yeah, a lot of phone calls. Basically back onund Ye,
(08:21):
Welcome 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? One kilogram fresh peas in their pods,
(08:42):
extra virgin olive oil, one garlic clothes peel and diced,
one dried red chili crumbled, one kind of grammar spinach,
washed tough storks, removed hard the piece and blanched them
at plenty of boiling water. In Italy, no one ever
(09:04):
cooks vegetables out, only past it, So rather than blanching
these peas, boiled them so that they almost melt together
with spinach and the olive oil. Gorgeous. So now, Steve,
here we are and we're going to talk about the
(09:25):
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? Is that story? Can you tell
me about the restaurant, the politics and the series. Sure? Well,
the Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank Krislow
(09:49):
in Lambra Grove on All Saints Row and he opened
a restaurant in and it was a sort of home
away from home restaurant. You can imagine, as I said before,
all the pe wanting the sort of the taste of home,
and that had a vibrancy of having sort of like
many people wanting to sort of come to a place
to eat and the sort of commune with each other.
(10:10):
So it was a place of refuge in it in
a way. You know, the vibe that 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 some English was
which was which was on the scene, and unfortunately the
police and the authorities that be obviously didn't like what
was happening at this place because again it was you know,
(10:33):
it was people from the west Inndiers, it was working
class people, it was the thinkers, it was sort of
activists were coming there. And also the why ploy so
all these people 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 disruptive as
(10:54):
much as they could. Know. It was a case of
the people not wanting certain ideas having a foot old
in UK and they thought that the Mangrove was a
place where those ideas could sort of take root. There's
something about doing that kind of discussion as well over food,
and one of the things that I see in the
restaurant as that somehow being out of your house, being
(11:15):
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, Absolutely absolutely, And there's a
sense of I don't know what is it purpose, you're there,
you're pregnant, there's another person there in present. But also
(11:36):
actually just to listen. It's just a case of being
in an environment where you are, you know, you feel
comfortable in order to say things and and and listen.
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
(11:57):
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'd like to meet people that you're going to work
with in a restaurant? First, I love it, but that
doesn't happen often. I mean, I think it's sort of
it's a classy way to do anything, isn't it. And
(12:18):
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. And it was amazing. In fact, I think
that's how I grew up in food and in in
interesting way, it was through the art world. It's completely
different in the film world. I mean, you know the
(12:39):
fact that you you know, you might get a crappy sandwich,
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. 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
(13:02):
taken care of through food. And then I think of
the movie that you know, it was so earth shattering,
which was Hunger, And so we're talking about a movie
called Hunger and the state of 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
(13:24):
movie that was the absence of food as a political statement? Um,
I mean for me, it was again it's though, is
interesting thing, you know, I related to that in a
way that of being a child, in the way that
you know, often the only power a child has is
(13:45):
refraining to eat his or her mother saying you're not
leaving the table until you finished that plate, and the
child sort of refusing to eat, and then you're sent
off to bed, you know. And it's interesting because you
know what the clothes you wear that as as a sid,
as a child of a sertain nature, what time you
(14:06):
go to bed, what food you eat is chosen by
your parents. And the whole idea that this child power
this child has is to refrain to eat. That was
my relationship in some ways to Bobby Sends and hunger strike,
that the power that person had was to refrain to eat.
Ever since there was a child. I remember asking my
mom when I saw this image of Bobby's hands on
television with a number and his image, and asking my mother, what,
(14:27):
what's what's what is the how old this person is?
Because non that so 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 Fan has been the you know
right cast is what we said was tremendous, and that
was a bond of you know we have to this day.
It was a real kind of a labor of love
and of what are the food scenes in your movies?
(14:49):
In twelve years of slave, there's a scene, isn't there
at the dinner table. I sen to remember there's lots
of I think there's lots of food in my films.
I mean you can see after that his shame of
the two characters Brandon and and he's sort of a
possible girlfriend at this dinner table, and there's way to annoying.
Way too comes in every five seconds to interrupt them.
I remember that from having a lots of dinners in
New York and every five seconds one becomes in the
(15:11):
middle of something was getting bigger. You know how converlations are.
They had to get to that point. You know, it's
always it was commercial Boody breaks every five seconds. You
have to start from the scratch every five minutes. So
you didn't make for good eating experience. So I put
that in the movie What do you eat on a film? So?
Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming? No?
I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
(15:33):
when I started filmmaking and they were hunger and shame
to obvious. It's like all the actors on all the
crewel eat together. We did the people in their body
trailers and in that crap everyone wat together. There's something
about communal eating and it's about we It's such a
unifying thing to see, you know, the hair and makeup
(15:56):
and the camera department, and to student sitting at table
together and talking about the film or talking about things,
and there's a camaraderie. It's many time often when you're
sort of on set together that you had that sort
of times, you know, is when you when you're sidn't
get the eating and it's fun. It's it's fun. I
(16:18):
love it. 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
(16:40):
in through these photographs. And one of the issues that
I think 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
(17:02):
the idea that we have a society that children depend
on having their food away from the home because of
the poverty in the home is appalling and shocking and
distressing everything else. Yes, absolutely, I mean I had school didns,
which I paid for by my mother. That's why even
today I like hot meals and hot lunches. I mean,
(17:24):
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 morning before Mrs Snatcher took it away from us. Yeah,
I love school meals in that way. Also, just because
we're such a good laugh in the canteen, you know,
(17:45):
I associate food in school with good times and I
can't remember the smell of it, the canteen and the
noise and the cutlery banging together, and it's so important.
You know. Also people have to look really tip the
hat to Markus Rashford and what he did in the
sense of, you know, getting the government to sort of
stand out twice about the school mills, because you know,
(18:08):
again this is you know, if you can't look after people,
we can't afford to either. 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, there
you go. Everyone has got a 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 it's one of those things I feel that, you know,
everyone is unfortunately not brought into this world equally. But
(18:30):
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 mid in the stomach, you know in Britain. Yeah,
it's it's 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
(18:52):
a black neighborhood. I didn't see any greens in a
black neighborhood. You know, there wasn't a green grocers, but
there was always some sort of fast food place where
people eat. So people are losing the sort of heritage
of food. People are not aware of food and nourishment
and possibilities within food and food is politics in a way.
(19:13):
It reverts back to what we were talking about right
at the beginning of of our 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 this sense of community, sense of comradery, sense of
sort of love of food and love of each other
(19:34):
is being sort of erased in the sort of you know,
working classed areas. I mean, you get these markets, but
there's so it's kind of like posh markets, aren't they
the sort of farmers markets they call them. And you know,
the food is so expensive, so and and I can
I feel that they're becoming kind of food deserts in
a way where kids are growing up on fast food
(19:55):
and not being introduced to sort of love food in
a way, so that stomach, which I'm a bit sort
of concerned about. Yeah, food is a connection and food
is a memory, and food is giving and sharing, and
food is political and social and and it's also comfort.
It's something that we go to and we need comfort.
(20:18):
And so I suppose Steve McQueen, what would you say
is the food you would go to if you needed comfort?
For me? The comfort food that I I very much
love and I appreciate is often a cold day, you know,
and you come in and it's my mom's chicken soups.
Wasting your chicken soup, which has the bones in it
and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones. And
(20:40):
it's the sort of you know, it's the time, it's
the garlic. It's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
secret ingredients she wants still want stomach. The dumplings takes
a bit of peas. It's wonderful. So those are the
kind of things that I really love. Yeah, And I
could hear my dad's sucking the bones all right now.
My head was. It was a wonderful, you know, having
(21:01):
those dinners together on those cold days. I remember it was.
It was beautiful. It was beautiful. And that's of great memories.
My Dad's not it anymore. So when I often do
think about him, I do think about him, and at
what I do think about him. Christmas in the ham, oh,
of course, and Christmas Christmas breakfast was a big thing.
Hot poco. My dad would make a bake. A bake
(21:24):
is a kind of a flat bread west in your
flat bread in the morning, and oh my god, how
can I how can I not say this? Um um
fish cakes, my mother's fishcakes. Oh my god, my mother's
fish cakes on the Christmas morning and she's making these
little bakes which was sort of like a like a
bread but you'll fry in oil. Oh my god. And
(21:46):
even my daughter is stu. When my mom comes outlays asked, Cranny,
please make fishcakes for me, because it's a west in
your fishcakes. It's gorgeous. And of course you know that
there's never anything left for me when I get home.
But you know, it's just I think with you, what
you've done actually is actually given me. I mean fact,
that's what love was rock, not even love is rock.
That's what the whole of Small Acts was based on.
(22:10):
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 taste,
is the most otent sources of memory, not the photographs.
Photographs does only tell you so much because you know,
it cuts out what's beyond the frame is not present,
(22:32):
it's not visible and going on wrapping on. 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,
(22:53):
he would suddenly start cooking for them. And and he said, oh,
I don't know, I don't think 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
(23:14):
that It's so potent, isn't it. I had I thought
it would be interesting, but what it really brings home
over and over again, it's a connection that food has
for us, for memories. Forget about this. Tell's it's done.
You've done it, mate, Smell and take. You've done it. Well,
thank you, you've done it. It's it's all to do
(23:36):
with you. To visit the online shop of The River Cafe,
go to shop The River Cafe dot co dot uk.
Ruthie's Table four is a production of I Heart Radio
Anatomize Studios. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
(24:00):
I Heard Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows,
Host
Ruth Rogers
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