November 20, 2023 • 42 mins
Simon Sebag Montefiore is a best-selling, prize-winning author, historian and broadcaster. In this episode, Ruthie talks to him about the food of Georgia, the Montefiore family tree and his most recent book, The World: A Family History of Humanity.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Next week is our hundredth episode of Ruthie's Table four,
and to celebrate, we thought we would turn it over
to you. If you have a question for me, a
food memory you'd like to share, or a recipe you
just need help with, Record a message and send it
in the phone numbers in the text below. Ask me anything.
Happy Birthday, Ruthie's Table four. I would like to think
(00:24):
that Simon sebag Montefiori and I have much in common.
We both had what he calls a loving and indulgent childhood.
We believe in trust, and openness and flexibility. Our families
fled the pogroms of Romanov Russia. We see food as
one of the focuses of our life. Simon and I
also love to tell and listen to stories, food and history,
(00:47):
food and fiction, food and exploring. I love the stories.
Simon has lived them his books and television programs. Katherine
the Great Potempkin, Stalin the Court of the Red Star, Erusalem,
The Biography Titans of History, the Romanovs sixteen thirteen to
nineteen eighteen, and most recently a fantastic book, The World
(01:10):
of Family. History of Humanity, educates, informs, and inspires us
who read, listen, and watch. Today we're here together on
a beautiful autumn day in the River cafe to discuss
this and more.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Lucky me, lucky me, too great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Thank you for coming. So Simon, you've chosen. You wrote
to me, you called me, We spoke about it that
of all the recipes in our twelve cookbooks, you wanted
to do the Canelini bean and jacorea soup. So you
could read the recipe and then we could discuss why
you chose this.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Of course, chaquaura and canelini bean soup. So this serves
six two hundred and fifty grams of cooked cannellini beans,
two hundred grams of chacorea leaves, half a garlic bulb,
fresh sagely, two garlic clothes chopped, three tablespoons olive oil,
(02:06):
and parsley leaves chopped with extra virgin olive oil. This
has been marked up by Ruthie herself. This is a
proper This feels like an archival document. It reminds me
of working in the archives. When you see Stalin or
Kafine the Great, I think in the grate.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Of restaurants, not to Stalin, you might ask the my stuff.
They might say, I'm the style.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'm not asking that question, Ruthie, because I might not
like the answer.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I don't know enough about it, but I'm happy to
take a woman over anybody over Starlin.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I think that you're a stalin, but anyway to cook it?
In a large salespan, Cook the garlic, then the olive
oil until soft but not brown. Stir in the parsley.
Add the checoria leaves to the oil and braize until
slightly soft before adding the beans. Put three quarters the
beans into a food process so with some of the
reserve cooking liquid, and the mixture should be thicker and thicker,
(03:08):
and return to the saucepan and season. Reheat if too thick,
add more cooking liquid, serve with a generous amount of
extra virgin olive oil. And I've already tried it. God,
am I going to be able to eat all that
looks delicious? I think I'm going to switch plates now
(03:30):
from the Sea Bass two. I'd say this is going
to River Cafe, Georgian lobbyo Beans because people always compare Georgia,
which is one of my favorite countries, to Italy, especially
to Sicily and the food there is a real mixer
of Lebanese, Ranium, Persian and Italian, and they're basically my
two favorite countries in terms of food. So this soup
(03:53):
is the ideal mix. Hi, I want to take it
home with me? Can I take you home? Remind Joseph?
It is absolutely delicious, absolutely delicious, cannot waste a single bead,
it's so good. And the thing you've got I'll take
thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I'm here with Joseph. This is a River Cafe classic recipes.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It really is.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
It's in the Yellow Books, in the book two of
our first books, and it's a real classic that we make.
Almost every portion of the suit that I've ever eaten.
Ruthy's made herself, and it really reminds me of her
and arriving here and learning how to cook.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
You know.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It's that is early days River Cafe for me. Anyway,
it's more than maybe a bit more wintry. It's one
of those recipes like many that it's just has few ingredients,
you know. So it's has this chequoia, which is a
wonderful green which gets labeled a kind of bitter green,
but really, when it's well cooked, loses an awful lot
of that bitterness and it's really rather sweet. And then
Chile and then if you've got really lovely cannellini beans,
(04:56):
and that's kind of all it is. But it's amazing
how those combination of a few things can be tweaked
in different ways and it can actually be rather different.
But it's you know, it's one of those rather hearty,
quite thick country suits.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I absolutely loved it. It's a delicious mixture. Italian hammer Smith.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Would you say?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Georgia your part? The River Cafe part? And I love
the way you've marked this up. Okay, well to keep
And because because I found out I liked it, say much,
I found out that they had a bigger pot of it.
So I'm taking that home with me if I'm allowed,
rather calf from the Great of the River Cafe.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So why did you choose it?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I chose it because bean soup has played a big
part in my life, because I started off in the
very early nineties with the fall of the Soviet Union,
and I was always in Georgia, and Georgia became my
favorite home from home. I was there for all its wars,
its coups, it's tragedies, but also I came to love
it's food, food, and the heart of its food. At
(06:02):
the heart of Georgian cuisine is the bean soup, and
lobbyer bean soup is the national Georgian dish, one of them,
along with satze, via, kadschapori and all these other delicious dishes.
But in Georgia they have the Georgian Supra, which is
a feast, and there's a tamada who's elected the toast master.
(06:22):
By the way, Stalin was always, of course toast master
at his feasts, but he was a Georgian. But of
course normally the toast masters are a little bit more
benign than that.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
What does a toastmaster do?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
He tells stories, He makes toasts quite often, he goes
around the table and clinks glasses with different people. Basically,
what's unique about the tamadam is that he's a storyteller
as well, which brings us back, which is why I
thought food and stories. But you know, I have many.
When I was there, the Soviet Union was falling apart.
(06:55):
This is nineteen ninety eighty nine, nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety
one to sort of ninety four, and I was very
lucky I've been an investment bank, I believe it or not.
And I left investment banking and I went out there
and I was in all the wars of the former
Soviet Union, but some of my favorite moments were in
Georgia eating lobbyo beans once. I remember in the Assetian
(07:18):
Warstias north of Tbilisi. It's a region that broke away
from Georgia and was backed by Putin and is still
backed by Putin. But I went up to the war
and I was with the Georgian side, and we were
up at the top on this kind of amazingly beautiful
mountain with these amazing Georgian churches on the mountaintops, and
(07:39):
the fighters all lent their guns against the tree and
a bit, so I was kind of imagining I was
a a hemming, you know, for whom the bell tolls.
It was a little bit like that. And there was
this huge table laid out for a Georgian.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's interesting that, during you know, the fighting, they had
a table for a while.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Three boys had been killed in the village, so this
was their funeral supper. So we all sat down and
the Tamada took control. We all made toasts and everyone
got drunk and drunk, and the food, more and more
food kept arriving. And then after a bit I said
to them, you know, you're gonna imagine we're on the top
of this mountain, the blue sky in the distance. And
I said to them, you know that I guess in
(08:18):
the funeral happened earlier, because you know the boys were
buried earlier. I guess this is their funeral supper. And
they said, no, they're with us, and they lifted up
the table cloth and their bodies were under the table.
So you can see why I have a visceral feeling
for Georgian feasts.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Would it be very regional the food? Did you find
that Georgia is very different from Chechna, which is different
from very.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
The Caucusus is fascinating because it's it's the sort of
borderland of empires. So there's a huge Persian influence. They
controlled it for a long time. There's a huge Ottoman
Turkish influence. They controlled it for a long time, and
then the Russians, and now of course it's three independent republics,
and Chechnya tried to break away. I was in the
Chechen War in nineteen ninety four, so I witnessed all
(09:04):
this amazing stuff happening. There's nothing like Georgian food and
Georgian food. It does have a touch of Lebanese food,
touch at the Persian food, Persian, Arab and Turkish, but
it's not like any other because it's filled with coriander
and tarragan and walnuts and a jeeka which is sort
of chilli sauce. It's very original, it's not like anything else.
(09:25):
I think you'd love it as.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
It was with me. He has a brother in law
based in Osborne and here's Georgian and he's actually doing
the Georgian Film Festival. He called me this morning and
has very very strong roots in Georgia and brought me
a cookbook with a chef who had written it. And
it was so interesting. It was beautifully done. First of all,
it had a sense of the culture, and then it
(09:47):
had the cooking, the dumplings, a lot of dumplings to which.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I forgot the name of. But all the dishes have
a sort of role, and in that way Geordian foot food.
It's almost like the a story behind many of the dishes.
It's not quite like a passover Sadan Knight, but the
Georgian super That's the thing it's most similar to him,
is a pass over dinner because of the storytelling. Yeah,
(10:13):
and of course Stalin used to sit up with his
cronies and have these Georgians.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I think you alluded to the fact that he was
a good that he was interested.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
He loved Georgian food. His real name was Joseph Dugashphili.
Many in Georgian names end in Adzi or Shwhili, which
means son of and he came from Gorri, which is
a small town in Georgia. Till it was about thirty
or forty, he was completely Georgian. He spoke Georgian. But
his mother was very ambitious for him and she wanted
(10:43):
him to be a bishop or an archbishop. She was
very religious. She got him into the seminary in Tibilisi,
which is where he was trained to be a priest.
There they were taught Russian, very good Russian, and if
he hadn't been taught Russian, he could never rule the
Russian Empire a Soviet Union.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Do you speak yeah, I can tell, well, I can
tell when you were naming the soups and the names.
If you speak Georgian, you have to learn what it's
nothing to do with, nothing to do with no.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It's nothing even has a different alphabet. And they have
an amazing history in the sort of twelve In the
eleventh twelve thirteenth century, Georgia was a huge kingdom and
at one point under the great Queen Tamara, who's another
great female ruler who I write all about in the
World Book. It ruled from the Black Sea to the
Caspian Sea and was one of the great powers of
(11:28):
the Near East under a female ruler, which is quite something.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So going back to Stalin and being a good eater,
when you were writing your book about him, what did
you find out about his food?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
He loved He loved lobbyo, and he loved kadjapori, and
he loved all the soups. He loved loved chakapouli, which
is the lamb stew. And he used to put Georgian
bread in it, soak it and eat it. He was
a great trenchman. One of his few winning features, I
should say. But the interesting about Stalin was he reinvented
himself several times. I mean, he became Stalin which means
(12:03):
man of steel in about nineteen twelve, and before then
he'd been basically Georgian and Stalin is a kind of
Russian style name, and so he really infented himself. He
was kind of always a Georgian in terms of kind
of eating and drinking. He loved Georgian wine, for example,
and the thing he really loved was Georgians singing. Because
(12:24):
Stalin surprisingly was the star choir boy of the seminary.
His full setto was supposed to be the most beautiful
full settle, very high and very pure. And when his
voice broke he became a tenor. And even when he
was dictator, even during the Terror, just after the war.
During the war he liked to sing to piano and
(12:45):
he used to sing that there's a very famous Georgian
song called Suliko, which he was his speciality was singing there.
So he was this rather sinister choir boy, a choir boy.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Going back to the beginning and tell me about growing
up in the Montafoury.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Father was a doctor who was also a psychiatrist. He
had a very fascinating practice, so we grew up in
a very kind of strange household because the surgery was
under the house in Kensington. He had all sorts of patients.
He was the sort of person that saw lots of
people for free. But also he had people like Peter
Seller's and Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. And they actually
did of sketch about him, did they. Yeah, because whatever
(13:22):
you said to my father, whatever terrible thing you'd done
as a child, he'd always say, don't worry, Simon, that's
perfectly normal.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
And that's what from a psychiatrist and a father.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Five Yeah, and a father. So their sketches, there's there's
a sketch where they where they go to a psychiatrist
based on my father and everything they say to him.
He says, don't worry. That's perfectly as it was the
connection between the Montefori hospital and the Monterefori family.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, go back, because I tried to do your family
treat I would say to Michael Ignatiev, who was a
mutual friend of ours, that his family killed my family probably. Yes,
they were very white Russians and my family were the
you know, the fiddle around the real family that came
from me. Tour No, but they don't have a hospital
named after our so there might be a diversion somewhere.
(14:11):
So just go back to the roots, because I think
it goes into the eighteenth century, so maybe I can
trace mine back to about nineteen six, so I think
it's quite different.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But tell me, well, my mom's family are from Lithuania
like yours, right, v are you from Kiev? So we were.
We were lit Vas and some of them for Odessa
and some of them from Galitzia and Galitzianas a notorious
which were dusd from Galicia which is sort of southern
Poland around and Levolv which is in Ukraine. And Galitzianas
(14:43):
were famous playboys, notorious womanizes and boulevardiers and food and
they loved food. They were set, they were, they were.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
They go together, don't they and you know.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Do you know what they were? They were Epicureans. Yeah, nice,
notorious and so that's my mother's family. But they were
interesting because they got out when all the programs begun
in three to four, just around the same time as
we may have been on the same boat.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, but you has got off in England and mine
went to you know, Ellis Island.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, mine were tricked. We bought tickets for Ellis Island.
But when week after about two days at sea. They said,
I'm afraid that you're getting off here, and so my
family said, but hang on. So we bought tickets for
New York and we haven't seen the Statue of Liberty,
and they said, sorry, look at your tickets. And they
looked at the tickets and they said, that's not New York.
(15:33):
It's New Cork. New Cork, yeah, which is Ireland. So
they got off there. But the Montafiis have a longer story.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So that's your father's family, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
My father's family, and they would come the sea banks.
Came from Morocco sebah Sebach, so that's an Arabic name.
And the Montafiories were originally called, we think called Carvio,
which was Spanish, and they were expelled from Spain in
fourteen ninety two. They went to Portage, and in Portugal
they were expelled in fourteen ninety eight. So they went
back to Spain and converted to Catholicism. But they were
(16:07):
only pretending they were crypto Jews. And when Philip the
second was trying to recruit governors to govern New Spain,
which was Mexico, he gave them the job of governing
a huge province. But there was a feud. They were
denounced by their servants who spied on them, and they
would announce for secretly being Jews, and most of the
(16:29):
family were burnt alive in Mexico City. It's very sinister
because when you read about these after Cortez, after this
is about sixteen hundred and one son got away and
went to Italy and adopted the name Montefiori because it ends.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
As sort of is yeah, yeah, So you grew up
in this household a mother from his families from Lithuania.
Your father felt did he identify very strongly with being Jewish,
and the.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The family was the very Jewish family. But my father's family,
Monte Seabag Montefuries were sort of fox hunting Jews. They
were very different. While my mother's family, she would kill
me for saying this, but they were stettle Jews from
Lithuania and Poland and so on.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And and your mother's mother then she would have been
born in Lithuania, and she took Lithuanian food.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
No, they didn't cook Lithanian, but they didn't really eat
lat kids and that because bagels and chicken soup was key.
I remember when I was a child, my parents had
a huge row once and my father was being impossible
and my mother just got a thing of chicken soup
and pored it over his head.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Was it hot?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It was not that hot, lucky, but then they started laughing.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
But it was a very good for a psychiatrist, Right,
did this a psychiatrist say that's not Do you say
that's normal?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I think he would. He would say that was perfectly
normal kitchen behavior. I don't know if that happens in
your kitchen, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
We stopped short of boring super people. So your father
would be downstairs with his patients. Would there be family meals?
Would there be would you say, how many siblings do
you have?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I've got three brothers. I'm the youngest of the whole family.
We were always aware that the surgery was going on downstairs,
and we were always told never repeat anything that you
see in this house because it would ruin your father.
But they were very open us, so we knew all
the stuff that was happening, and all sorts of crazy
stuff happened. People will kind of arrive in the middle
of the night with their sort of having had a
row with their wife, or you know, somebody was giving
(18:26):
birth to a baby or something. It was like growing
up in a theater. It was very exciting.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And then but she would have would he come up
for dinner?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And then you come up for dinner?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And who did the cooking?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
My mother did the cooking, and there'd be there would
always be delicious kind of food, but not really Jewish
food but actually very English food, like roast chickens, roast lambs.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah. So she was born and she.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Was born in h She was born and she was
born in Nottingham or Newcastle. Our grandfather was the first
Jewish Lord mayor elected in Newcastle and he ran for
He ran for Lord Mayor and when he was painting,
they used to say, we hear you you lie in
bed all day and he replied, so would you if
you were married to missus Wolfe, which was which was
(19:09):
which worked very well, the one in the election. One
on the election and I've got her picture in my
room and she does look.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Quite quite.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Campaigning.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It was food important, though, it was it the family
meal that was important.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Food, food was all important. We're absolutely epicurean ruth and
we absolutely live for food and we love delicious food
and hate bad food.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Did your father cook.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
No, you never cooked. You never cooked.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Did your mother have help? So that she did have
help domestic she.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Did have help. And it was all about meals, and
everything happened at meals, and I still live for eating.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And then your boarding school was that a shock?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
There was a shock? Was a shock. Well, the food
was appalling for a start, But on the other hand,
my parents were so kind of over indulgent. And I
think if I hadn't gone to boarding school, I'm not
sure I've ever been able to function at all in
the world. I mean, I was so close to my
parents because I was eight years youngers and after.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Mistake and then boarding school.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And because I was Jewish, I had to have special food.
I remember once go into the kitchen and there was
a very old lady plucking a chicken, and they said,
that's your food, because that's all you can eat.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
There are other Jewish.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
There were virtually no other Jewish children at my prep school,
and then at Harrow there were quite a lot of
Jewish children.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Thank you you are now historian. But in
(21:02):
the beginning, did you feel that sense that you had
to not just write about what was happening but livett.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, I wrote long letters about describing everything I saw
in the minds, the politics, and of course I worked
in a kibbutz as well in Israel, and that was
also fascinating. And I saw amazing things now as well,
because that was the beginning of the invasion of Lebanon,
which was appalling mistake on the Israeli's part. So both
of those things were good preparations. And the third adventure
(21:30):
I went on was going to visit Jewish Refuseniks in
Russia in the Soviet Union with my father.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Was that the first time you worked, Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
That was the beginning of my relationship with Russia. And
so all of these things kind of were good preparations.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
But year was that eighty four, As I say, I
went with Richard to Moscow. He was chairman of the
tape at the time, and the idea was to go
with the director to try and get an exchange of
turners that Britain would give them for the and I'm
in the hermitage that was in Leningrad, and we ate nothing.
(22:08):
I wanted to have the bors. I wanted to have Russian.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Food, but it was quite severe, it was it was miserable.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Really, did you discover good Russian food?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I didn't find any more food. I mean, I love
stirle at fish.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Sturgeon, surgeon.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, and that is there's are fish that sort of
mainly live in the Caspian and that they create caveat
of course, but Prince Potemkin loved sturgeon. He was obsessed
with sturgeon. He used to continually roast sturgeon wherever he went,
and he had it brought for him packed in ice,
of course, all for hundreds of miles. But we didn't
have any of that when we were there. But when
(22:48):
I went back later after farding school, I went to Cambridge.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Let's talk about that for a moment.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Did you live in rooms and did you eat? Again?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I live in rooms in the dining room sometimes, but
what I really loved doing was eating that. There was
a great Turkish kid bab house there and we lived
in there. It was called Omar and Ossy. Omar and
Ossie are very key figures in my university year. So
that was the sort of best food we had. We
used to go there every night and we lived on
(23:17):
that delicious food. And whenever I travel anywhere, I want
to experience the food. And you know, one of the
reasons why I've often written about family history. I mean,
all of these books, like the Romanovs All the World
is just because family is a way of writing, conveying
continuity but also depth and grit of life. And so
(23:40):
I always wanted my books people to know what people
were wearing, what music they listened to, and what food
they were eating. Hopefully, if I could find out food
is what families do together, even sort of families that
barely hang together still eat together normally, don't they.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Pre nineteen seventeen, that would be the Roman Macaractor.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, the Romanovs.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, was there a real sense of pleasure and food?
And for wealthy people. I mean would the Romans what
would the aristocracy have eaten?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Well, I mean they love French food. Of course, they
all had French chefs who they brought over. What they
would have eaten all these splendid proper Russian dishes borshed. Yeah,
let's talk about the very garlicy with beetroot.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Do you like it hot?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Ginger? I like it hot? You how do you like?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
My experience of Russian food was there was none of
none of that in our house. But my father is
a treat would drive us maybe once every couple of
months and we'd go down to New York City and
we'd see the big ships and then we would go
to the Russian tea room for love before seeing a musical.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
What would you eat that?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And so we would have the bleanies and I think
you could have the choice of cold or heart borsh.
I prefer it hot as well. You can really feel
the flavors.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I think it's delicious. And also there's cinnamon and it
isn't that ginger. And even in my time, we used
to have massive amounts of caveat and believing and it's
huge and that is delicious when it's done properly. And
that's course named after the Stroganov family, and they are
fascinating family. They were the conquistadors of Russia. They were
(25:18):
the they were the family that conquered Siberia because they
were called the Cortes of Russia other Strogovs, and they
were they rose from merchants who started off having sort
of salt farms and doing mining and training, and then
they i'ven the Terrible allowed them to expand into Siberia
and in just a few decades fifty years or a
(25:41):
little over fifty years, the Russians made it all the
way to the Pacific and conquered. They had to just
there was an amazing there was an amazing kingdom there called
the Karnate of Sibia, which was a Genghist rule by
Genghis Khans descendants, and they destroyed that, that Karnate, and
then they went unconquered Siberia, and the strong offs, of
(26:03):
course became very rich and became counts and aristocracy. But
they started off with their own private army of Cossacks
conquering Siberia. So that's my struggle. And they were the
ones who was invented, be strong enough invent it.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Because I always thought, how fabulous to have a have
a dish named after you, you know. So we used
to go to a restaurant in Paris that had the
Grand before and there was a big treat and they
would have a dish called pigeon, Prince Ranier whatever. Yeah,
I thought that would be quite bad. I didn't know
that beef struggle. There's a dessert, isn't it glass?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, I think it's very I'd love to have a dish.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Okay, we could we could name we can think of
a name.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well, that would be exciting.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
You're interested in history and food and culture and family.
Let's just take Prussia and you know, growing up in
Russia at a different period of the twentieth century or
the twenty first century, how would food explain some of
what you've seen the wealth of the nation, the poverty
of the nation, the Gorbachev period, the Oligarch period, the
Putin period. Do you see that kind of reading?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Food was Food was a hugely important part of world
history and Russian history. And it's interesting because until about
two hundred, one hundred and fifty years ago, it was
still massive famines the time around the world. But scientific
improvements in fertilizer and medical advances were the two things
that really enabled the explosion of world population and the
(27:39):
reason why most of the famines in the twentieth century
were actually man made famines. They weren't the sort of
famines that used to happen in the eighteen forties or
in India, and most of them were failures of supply
rather that or man made political policies. And an example
of that is that you know, is the other famines
in the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties were there was
a huge famine in Russia which the Tsar Alexander the
(28:01):
Third denied existed. Then, of course, after the Russian Civil War,
there was another huge famine in Russia. Then in the
late twenties stalin.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
The civil war do you meane.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Nineteen eighty nineteen eighteen to twenty one, do you call
it a civil war called the Russian Civil War? There
were two revolutions, one in February seventeen, one in October seventeen,
and for a while the Bolsheviks looked like they'd keep
power but lose most of the Russian Empire. And then
they launched a series of wars from the center, basing
themselves in Moscow again not Petersburg, and they reconquered. They
(28:36):
defeated the divided white powers who were trying to stop them,
and then they started to retake all the provinces and
the ethnic groups that have been part of the Tsarist Empire,
so that included Georgia we were talking about in Armenia,
Central Asia. They failed to take Poland, but they succeeded
in taking Ukraine, which was very decisive because Ukraine was
(28:57):
the bread basket of the Russian Empire and traditionally Ukrainian
grames exported out of Odessa and Nikolaiath to the world.
But when Stalin started to collectivize the farms in the
late twenties, he specially victimized the Ukrainians and other minority
peoples to the Kazakhs, like a million and a half
Kazakhs also died during collectivization, so there was a huge
(29:19):
famine while selling food abroad. So the creation of the
Soviet Union, the creation of the Stalin dictatorship, all really
was based around shortage of food. And that was how
Stalin broke the peasantry and broke the Ukrainians was by
starving them. Do you think one of the reasons why
Putin still gets so much support is that he has
managed to create a sort of secure food environment, unlike
(29:43):
his processors. Of course, Putin has a special connection to
food because his grandfather was a chef. I didn't know
as a cook, and he cooked at the store. He
was the chef at the Astoria Hotel which is now
owned by Rocco Forte Story Hotel Moscow in Petersburg in St.
Peter and he was the chef. The grandfather was the chef,
(30:04):
was one of the chefs there. And while he was there,
of course he cooked for everybody, but he cooked for
a Spoutin and then when there's where evolution happened, strap
father grandfather and he joined. He then joined the secret
police the nkv D as chef and cooked for Lenin
and Stalin was one of Stalin's chefs. So he's one
of the most world historic chefs in all of history
(30:25):
because he cooked for us boot In all sorts of
grand dukes of course in the Astoria Hotel. But then
Lenin and Stalin, of course Stalin chefs were all in
this all secret police. They were called the service staff
and they were within the n k v D.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I wonder if I have any in my kitchen put
is interested in food. Did you say, do you know
is he a good eater?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I don't think. I don't think he's an epicurean at all.
To be a very very unsympathetic, harsh somewhat joyless man.
I would have I would have said, not very interested
in culture, though he does readly.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Never you've never met I've never met him. Why not?
Did you before? He was before?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I'd like to like to have met him. But then
I'd like to have met everybody. Yeah, you know, as
a historian, you want to I'd like to have liked
to have met everybody.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And I've we all have our fans and are not fans,
and our detractors. But I know that Putin is a
fan of your work. Hey, how do you know that?
And also what's it like?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Well, you know, the bizarre thing about Putin was that,
as I said earlier, kaf from the Grade and Potemkin
and the Romanovs like Peter the Great were the people
who got Ukraine for Russia. And so when I wrote
my first book, Ka from the Grade and Petemkin, you know,
I was approached by the Minister of Culture and also
people in the President's office. They said to me, could
(31:48):
you write a little essay because the book isn't translated
into into Russian, could you write a little essay about
this subject? Which I did. They said to me, like,
we're very interested a certain important person is very interesting
in reading your book and finding out about the Crimea
and how Patenkin took Ukraine and the Crimea. This is
in nineteen ninety nine and two thousands, twenty three years ago.
(32:10):
We were all filled with hope about dad Emir Putin
and that he was a liberal, and Tony Blair raved
about him. And you may wonder why Russians don't have
their own books on this subject, but the reason is
because under Stalin and the Soviet Union, Catherine the Great
and Patenkin were very out of fashion and weren't studied
very much. Anyway, I did that, and then afterwards, when
(32:30):
the book was translated into Russian, I was approached again
by the Minister of Culture who said, a certain personage
has loved your book and he would like to give
you a present. So, of course, with Vladimir Putin was
always a little worried about what the present's going to be.
But the present was we're opening Stalin's archives. Would you
like to be the first to study to have access
(32:53):
to them. So that was the book Stalin The Call
of the Redsar but jumped twenty two years and when
Putin wrote his essay about how Ukraine didn't exist as
a state and as a people, and started quoting stuff
from the history books like mine. I realized that he
was going to invade Ukraine. And it's fascinating because when
(33:16):
he took Kierson, the city of Khison, one of Potemkin's cities,
that's where Petemkin is buried. And when he withdrew, which
was just over six months ago, he stole Patmkin's body.
So the historic well, we don't know where it is.
But what I think he's going to do is create
a sort of big tomb in mausoleum in Moscow for
(33:38):
Prince Potemkin. But Prince Potemkin and ca from the Great
were children of the Enlightenment. They'd have hated Putin and
his Russia today. But the full story is in my
books the Romanovs and Caa from the Great and Potemkin.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
The River Cafe is excited to announce the return of
our Italian in Christmas. Gift boxes are alternative to the
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Shop The River cafe dot co dot UK. When you
(34:33):
described Ukraine as the bread basket and the grain, I
mean that is something we read really since the war started.
What is happening with the food now? In the war
is the grain going that?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
This has really made Africa sotham more than anywhere right now.
Right now. Many African states like South Africa for example,
had very good relations with the Soviet Union and their
liberation movements were backed by the Soviet Union. They blamed
the West and the hypocrisy and in of the West,
even though it's the war of the Russian War and
Russian invasion of Ukraine that has actually caused the food shortages.
(35:08):
But such as human affairs, it doesn't always it is
not always based on reason. But you know, Ukraine became
independent when the Soviet Union broke up, and in some
ways Ukrainian sense of nation has intensified thanks to Putin's viciousness.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And food in Ukraine. Have you been during the what
have you been to Ukraine?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I haven't been since the war, but I was there
when I was in the late nineties and I traveled
to a death I loved. Odessa Do Desa is one
of the great cities in the world. One of my favorites.
And everyone there eats caviat and of course and sturgeon,
and sturgeon steak is the best food you have there.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
And that's a piece of sturgeon which you've grilled.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
You grill. Yeah, you can have it with some sort
of spicy Caucasian sauce like Adjiki sauce. It's delicious.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Tell me, so you are a writer, you have of
you work at home. I know that your studies in
your house and your wife, Santa also is a So
tell us about food in your house. Now, we've been
at your parents' house and boarding school and college and
traveling as an historian.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
We're very pescatarian. We eat a lot of fish, and
we love tuna. We love swordfish, and we grill a
lot of sortfish. We love fresh kind of Mediterranean style food.
But I also have various specialties. I do some of
the cooking. And my favorite dish is an amazing sort
of pasta filled with fresh tomatoes, fresh onions, fresh chili, garlic,
(36:40):
and fish. I often put sardines in it, or sea bass,
and it's quite spicy.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
I put a lot of chili, a Sicilian sardines. Yeah,
it's interesting about you because the Italians had this rule
of you never have an egg pasta with fish, but
we do crab an egg pasta and then and you
would never have all these kind of rules. You won't
have cheese with fish in a pasta, and we put
we do a langustine with peccorina and Parmesant's like a
(37:08):
fish that I actually ate in Verona, and so I think,
you know, fish pastas are.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Really Another thing I think is Italian rules are made
to be broken, Yeah, some of them, because they're quite
augmatic about what you can do with their food, and
sometimes you know, one has to break rules. Even though
this is heresy.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Of course, it's also a regional you know that somebody
in one town will do something and then the next
town they won't.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Well, it's the same even in small even in Georgia,
which we started off talking about. You know, there's that
they put eggs in everything in a Jaria, which is
on the coast a Jarian Akazo, which is the Black
Sea coast where Stalin had all his houses, by the way,
but they always put an egg on everything there, while
you know in land in that in the most of
Georgia they don't.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
As true writers. Do you have a routine for your writing?
Do you know that you started a certain time?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
It's total chaos, is it. I mean, when I'm not writing,
I don't. I just don't do anything. And I spend
the whole time sitting in cafes, phony people and texting
people and reading the paper, which is the best thing.
But when I am I'm writing, I live like a
Kohener bite, like a monk. I live in a very
sort of very disciplined way, and get up it really
(38:16):
early in the morning, like at six in the morning.
And I mean, writing The World, this is my Natus
book was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. It
almost killed me. I mean, obviously it's an insanely ambitious project.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
You tell us what it is, well, it's called it's
called The World a Family History, and it tells the
whole of world history from the Stone Age to the
Drone Age through families in a single narrative.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Some of the families you'd have heard of, you know,
the Robinovs, or the Habsburgs, the Rothchilds, the Kennedy's, and
many of them are quite unpleasant families like the Kim family,
of North Korea as a big family, we follow them
over five generations, or the Herold family of Judea who
built the temple, all the Ptolemys of Egypt. They are
some of the most vicious families. But another families you
(39:07):
won't have heard of. Some of them are enslaved families,
some are families of doctors. They're not all rulers in
other words, And the great thing about covering family is
that in terms of diversity, it's a great way you
can cover everywhere the same. And so this book is
probably the most diverse world history ever written. It covers
Europe is in its rightful place, but also there's Africa,
(39:27):
there's Asia, the South and North America in immense detail.
And of course the other great thing about family histories
it includes women. And we were talking Ruthie about about,
you know, the great women that are covered in this book.
And again some of them will be familiar Cleopatra Kafrom,
the Great Margaret Thatcher, and some of them you won't
have heard of, but are astonishing characters that we should
(39:49):
have heard of, like Queen Tamara of Georgia. But you know,
as the spectator said, it's succession meets Game of Thrones.
They has how the review described it, So I hope
that it's.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I read this and I thought it was a beautiful
ending to this book and kind of leading us to
the end of our really great conversation. In this book,
I've written of the fall of noble cities, the vanishing
of kingdoms, the rise and fall of dynasties, cruelty and cruelty,
folly upon folly, eruptions, massacres, famines, pandemics, and pollutions. Yet
(40:22):
again and again in these pages, the high spirits and
elevated thoughts, the capacity for joy and kindness, the variety
and eccentricity of humanity, the faces of love and the
devotion of family run through it all and remind me
why I started to write. And I thought, you know,
the optimism and the joy using the word joy and life.
(40:44):
And that is a very moving piece to read by
a writer whose work, as I said, informs tell stories,
takes us places. And so before we do say goodbye,
what food would you go to for comfort?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Or what I love is tar tatar, but sugar burnt,
so that there's it's burnt with a with a sort
of flat with a fire on top. And I love
eating sugar burns, tartta and you make it. I have
made it, but I prefer I prefer I prefer I'm
(41:20):
eating it in delicious restaurants.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Well, thank you so much for today, and thank you
for coming.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And thanks for having that. So lovely to be lucky me,
lucky me to thank you so much. Thanks.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atami Studios for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers. It's produced by williem Lensky.
Our executive producers are Zad Rodgers and Fay Stewart. Our
production coordinator is Bella Selini. Special thanks to everyone at
The River Cafe.
Next week is our hundredth episode of Ruthie's Table four,
and to celebrate, we thought we would turn it over
to you. If you have a question for me, a
food memory you'd like to share, or a recipe you
just need help with, Record a message and send it
in the phone numbers in the text below. Ask me anything.
Happy Birthday, Ruthie's Table four. I would like to think
(00:24):
that Simon sebag Montefiori and I have much in common.
We both had what he calls a loving and indulgent childhood.
We believe in trust, and openness and flexibility. Our families
fled the pogroms of Romanov Russia. We see food as
one of the focuses of our life. Simon and I
also love to tell and listen to stories, food and history,
(00:47):
food and fiction, food and exploring. I love the stories.
Simon has lived them his books and television programs. Katherine
the Great Potempkin, Stalin the Court of the Red Star, Erusalem,
The Biography Titans of History, the Romanovs sixteen thirteen to
nineteen eighteen, and most recently a fantastic book, The World
(01:10):
of Family. History of Humanity, educates, informs, and inspires us
who read, listen, and watch. Today we're here together on
a beautiful autumn day in the River cafe to discuss
this and more.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Lucky me, lucky me, too great to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Thank you for coming. So Simon, you've chosen. You wrote
to me, you called me, We spoke about it that
of all the recipes in our twelve cookbooks, you wanted
to do the Canelini bean and jacorea soup. So you
could read the recipe and then we could discuss why
you chose this.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Of course, chaquaura and canelini bean soup. So this serves
six two hundred and fifty grams of cooked cannellini beans,
two hundred grams of chacorea leaves, half a garlic bulb,
fresh sagely, two garlic clothes chopped, three tablespoons olive oil,
(02:06):
and parsley leaves chopped with extra virgin olive oil. This
has been marked up by Ruthie herself. This is a
proper This feels like an archival document. It reminds me
of working in the archives. When you see Stalin or
Kafine the Great, I think in the grate.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Of restaurants, not to Stalin, you might ask the my stuff.
They might say, I'm the style.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
I'm not asking that question, Ruthie, because I might not
like the answer.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I don't know enough about it, but I'm happy to
take a woman over anybody over Starlin.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I think that you're a stalin, but anyway to cook it?
In a large salespan, Cook the garlic, then the olive
oil until soft but not brown. Stir in the parsley.
Add the checoria leaves to the oil and braize until
slightly soft before adding the beans. Put three quarters the
beans into a food process so with some of the
reserve cooking liquid, and the mixture should be thicker and thicker,
(03:08):
and return to the saucepan and season. Reheat if too thick,
add more cooking liquid, serve with a generous amount of
extra virgin olive oil. And I've already tried it. God,
am I going to be able to eat all that
looks delicious? I think I'm going to switch plates now
(03:30):
from the Sea Bass two. I'd say this is going
to River Cafe, Georgian lobbyo Beans because people always compare Georgia,
which is one of my favorite countries, to Italy, especially
to Sicily and the food there is a real mixer
of Lebanese, Ranium, Persian and Italian, and they're basically my
two favorite countries in terms of food. So this soup
(03:53):
is the ideal mix. Hi, I want to take it
home with me? Can I take you home? Remind Joseph?
It is absolutely delicious, absolutely delicious, cannot waste a single bead,
it's so good. And the thing you've got I'll take
thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I'm here with Joseph. This is a River Cafe classic recipes.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
It really is.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
It's in the Yellow Books, in the book two of
our first books, and it's a real classic that we make.
Almost every portion of the suit that I've ever eaten.
Ruthy's made herself, and it really reminds me of her
and arriving here and learning how to cook.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
You know.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
It's that is early days River Cafe for me. Anyway,
it's more than maybe a bit more wintry. It's one
of those recipes like many that it's just has few ingredients,
you know. So it's has this chequoia, which is a
wonderful green which gets labeled a kind of bitter green,
but really, when it's well cooked, loses an awful lot
of that bitterness and it's really rather sweet. And then
Chile and then if you've got really lovely cannellini beans,
(04:56):
and that's kind of all it is. But it's amazing
how those combination of a few things can be tweaked
in different ways and it can actually be rather different.
But it's you know, it's one of those rather hearty,
quite thick country suits.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
What do you think.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
I absolutely loved it. It's a delicious mixture. Italian hammer Smith.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Would you say?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Georgia your part? The River Cafe part? And I love
the way you've marked this up. Okay, well to keep
And because because I found out I liked it, say much,
I found out that they had a bigger pot of it.
So I'm taking that home with me if I'm allowed,
rather calf from the Great of the River Cafe.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
So why did you choose it?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I chose it because bean soup has played a big
part in my life, because I started off in the
very early nineties with the fall of the Soviet Union,
and I was always in Georgia, and Georgia became my
favorite home from home. I was there for all its wars,
its coups, it's tragedies, but also I came to love
it's food, food, and the heart of its food. At
(06:02):
the heart of Georgian cuisine is the bean soup, and
lobbyer bean soup is the national Georgian dish, one of them,
along with satze, via, kadschapori and all these other delicious dishes.
But in Georgia they have the Georgian Supra, which is
a feast, and there's a tamada who's elected the toast master.
(06:22):
By the way, Stalin was always, of course toast master
at his feasts, but he was a Georgian. But of
course normally the toast masters are a little bit more
benign than that.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
What does a toastmaster do?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
He tells stories, He makes toasts quite often, he goes
around the table and clinks glasses with different people. Basically,
what's unique about the tamadam is that he's a storyteller
as well, which brings us back, which is why I
thought food and stories. But you know, I have many.
When I was there, the Soviet Union was falling apart.
(06:55):
This is nineteen ninety eighty nine, nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety
one to sort of ninety four, and I was very
lucky I've been an investment bank, I believe it or not.
And I left investment banking and I went out there
and I was in all the wars of the former
Soviet Union, but some of my favorite moments were in
Georgia eating lobbyo beans once. I remember in the Assetian
(07:18):
Warstias north of Tbilisi. It's a region that broke away
from Georgia and was backed by Putin and is still
backed by Putin. But I went up to the war
and I was with the Georgian side, and we were
up at the top on this kind of amazingly beautiful
mountain with these amazing Georgian churches on the mountaintops, and
(07:39):
the fighters all lent their guns against the tree and
a bit, so I was kind of imagining I was
a a hemming, you know, for whom the bell tolls.
It was a little bit like that. And there was
this huge table laid out for a Georgian.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's interesting that, during you know, the fighting, they had
a table for a while.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Three boys had been killed in the village, so this
was their funeral supper. So we all sat down and
the Tamada took control. We all made toasts and everyone
got drunk and drunk, and the food, more and more
food kept arriving. And then after a bit I said
to them, you know, you're gonna imagine we're on the top
of this mountain, the blue sky in the distance. And
I said to them, you know that I guess in
(08:18):
the funeral happened earlier, because you know the boys were
buried earlier. I guess this is their funeral supper. And
they said, no, they're with us, and they lifted up
the table cloth and their bodies were under the table.
So you can see why I have a visceral feeling
for Georgian feasts.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Would it be very regional the food? Did you find
that Georgia is very different from Chechna, which is different
from very.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
The Caucusus is fascinating because it's it's the sort of
borderland of empires. So there's a huge Persian influence. They
controlled it for a long time. There's a huge Ottoman
Turkish influence. They controlled it for a long time, and
then the Russians, and now of course it's three independent republics,
and Chechnya tried to break away. I was in the
Chechen War in nineteen ninety four, so I witnessed all
(09:04):
this amazing stuff happening. There's nothing like Georgian food and
Georgian food. It does have a touch of Lebanese food,
touch at the Persian food, Persian, Arab and Turkish, but
it's not like any other because it's filled with coriander
and tarragan and walnuts and a jeeka which is sort
of chilli sauce. It's very original, it's not like anything else.
(09:25):
I think you'd love it as.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
It was with me. He has a brother in law
based in Osborne and here's Georgian and he's actually doing
the Georgian Film Festival. He called me this morning and
has very very strong roots in Georgia and brought me
a cookbook with a chef who had written it. And
it was so interesting. It was beautifully done. First of all,
it had a sense of the culture, and then it
(09:47):
had the cooking, the dumplings, a lot of dumplings to which.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I forgot the name of. But all the dishes have
a sort of role, and in that way Geordian foot food.
It's almost like the a story behind many of the dishes.
It's not quite like a passover Sadan Knight, but the
Georgian super That's the thing it's most similar to him,
is a pass over dinner because of the storytelling. Yeah,
(10:13):
and of course Stalin used to sit up with his
cronies and have these Georgians.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I think you alluded to the fact that he was
a good that he was interested.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
He loved Georgian food. His real name was Joseph Dugashphili.
Many in Georgian names end in Adzi or Shwhili, which
means son of and he came from Gorri, which is
a small town in Georgia. Till it was about thirty
or forty, he was completely Georgian. He spoke Georgian. But
his mother was very ambitious for him and she wanted
(10:43):
him to be a bishop or an archbishop. She was
very religious. She got him into the seminary in Tibilisi,
which is where he was trained to be a priest.
There they were taught Russian, very good Russian, and if
he hadn't been taught Russian, he could never rule the
Russian Empire a Soviet Union.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
Do you speak yeah, I can tell, well, I can
tell when you were naming the soups and the names.
If you speak Georgian, you have to learn what it's
nothing to do with, nothing to do with no.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
It's nothing even has a different alphabet. And they have
an amazing history in the sort of twelve In the
eleventh twelve thirteenth century, Georgia was a huge kingdom and
at one point under the great Queen Tamara, who's another
great female ruler who I write all about in the
World Book. It ruled from the Black Sea to the
Caspian Sea and was one of the great powers of
(11:28):
the Near East under a female ruler, which is quite something.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
So going back to Stalin and being a good eater,
when you were writing your book about him, what did
you find out about his food?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
He loved He loved lobbyo, and he loved kadjapori, and
he loved all the soups. He loved loved chakapouli, which
is the lamb stew. And he used to put Georgian
bread in it, soak it and eat it. He was
a great trenchman. One of his few winning features, I
should say. But the interesting about Stalin was he reinvented
himself several times. I mean, he became Stalin which means
(12:03):
man of steel in about nineteen twelve, and before then
he'd been basically Georgian and Stalin is a kind of
Russian style name, and so he really infented himself. He
was kind of always a Georgian in terms of kind
of eating and drinking. He loved Georgian wine, for example,
and the thing he really loved was Georgians singing. Because
(12:24):
Stalin surprisingly was the star choir boy of the seminary.
His full setto was supposed to be the most beautiful
full settle, very high and very pure. And when his
voice broke he became a tenor. And even when he
was dictator, even during the Terror, just after the war.
During the war he liked to sing to piano and
(12:45):
he used to sing that there's a very famous Georgian
song called Suliko, which he was his speciality was singing there.
So he was this rather sinister choir boy, a choir boy.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Going back to the beginning and tell me about growing
up in the Montafoury.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Father was a doctor who was also a psychiatrist. He
had a very fascinating practice, so we grew up in
a very kind of strange household because the surgery was
under the house in Kensington. He had all sorts of patients.
He was the sort of person that saw lots of
people for free. But also he had people like Peter
Seller's and Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. And they actually
did of sketch about him, did they. Yeah, because whatever
(13:22):
you said to my father, whatever terrible thing you'd done
as a child, he'd always say, don't worry, Simon, that's
perfectly normal.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
And that's what from a psychiatrist and a father.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Five Yeah, and a father. So their sketches, there's there's
a sketch where they where they go to a psychiatrist
based on my father and everything they say to him.
He says, don't worry. That's perfectly as it was the
connection between the Montefori hospital and the Monterefori family.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah, go back, because I tried to do your family
treat I would say to Michael Ignatiev, who was a
mutual friend of ours, that his family killed my family probably. Yes,
they were very white Russians and my family were the
you know, the fiddle around the real family that came
from me. Tour No, but they don't have a hospital
named after our so there might be a diversion somewhere.
(14:11):
So just go back to the roots, because I think
it goes into the eighteenth century, so maybe I can
trace mine back to about nineteen six, so I think
it's quite different.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
But tell me, well, my mom's family are from Lithuania
like yours, right, v are you from Kiev? So we were.
We were lit Vas and some of them for Odessa
and some of them from Galitzia and Galitzianas a notorious
which were dusd from Galicia which is sort of southern
Poland around and Levolv which is in Ukraine. And Galitzianas
(14:43):
were famous playboys, notorious womanizes and boulevardiers and food and
they loved food. They were set, they were, they were.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
They go together, don't they and you know.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Do you know what they were? They were Epicureans. Yeah, nice,
notorious and so that's my mother's family. But they were
interesting because they got out when all the programs begun
in three to four, just around the same time as
we may have been on the same boat.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah, but you has got off in England and mine
went to you know, Ellis Island.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Well, mine were tricked. We bought tickets for Ellis Island.
But when week after about two days at sea. They said,
I'm afraid that you're getting off here, and so my
family said, but hang on. So we bought tickets for
New York and we haven't seen the Statue of Liberty,
and they said, sorry, look at your tickets. And they
looked at the tickets and they said, that's not New York.
(15:33):
It's New Cork. New Cork, yeah, which is Ireland. So
they got off there. But the Montafiis have a longer story.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So that's your father's family, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
My father's family, and they would come the sea banks.
Came from Morocco sebah Sebach, so that's an Arabic name.
And the Montafiories were originally called, we think called Carvio,
which was Spanish, and they were expelled from Spain in
fourteen ninety two. They went to Portage, and in Portugal
they were expelled in fourteen ninety eight. So they went
back to Spain and converted to Catholicism. But they were
(16:07):
only pretending they were crypto Jews. And when Philip the
second was trying to recruit governors to govern New Spain,
which was Mexico, he gave them the job of governing
a huge province. But there was a feud. They were
denounced by their servants who spied on them, and they
would announce for secretly being Jews, and most of the
(16:29):
family were burnt alive in Mexico City. It's very sinister
because when you read about these after Cortez, after this
is about sixteen hundred and one son got away and
went to Italy and adopted the name Montefiori because it ends.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
As sort of is yeah, yeah, So you grew up
in this household a mother from his families from Lithuania.
Your father felt did he identify very strongly with being Jewish,
and the.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
The family was the very Jewish family. But my father's family,
Monte Seabag Montefuries were sort of fox hunting Jews. They
were very different. While my mother's family, she would kill
me for saying this, but they were stettle Jews from
Lithuania and Poland and so on.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And and your mother's mother then she would have been
born in Lithuania, and she took Lithuanian food.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
No, they didn't cook Lithanian, but they didn't really eat
lat kids and that because bagels and chicken soup was key.
I remember when I was a child, my parents had
a huge row once and my father was being impossible
and my mother just got a thing of chicken soup
and pored it over his head.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Was it hot?
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It was not that hot, lucky, but then they started laughing.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
But it was a very good for a psychiatrist, Right,
did this a psychiatrist say that's not Do you say
that's normal?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I think he would. He would say that was perfectly
normal kitchen behavior. I don't know if that happens in
your kitchen, we don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
We stopped short of boring super people. So your father
would be downstairs with his patients. Would there be family meals?
Would there be would you say, how many siblings do
you have?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
I've got three brothers. I'm the youngest of the whole family.
We were always aware that the surgery was going on downstairs,
and we were always told never repeat anything that you
see in this house because it would ruin your father.
But they were very open us, so we knew all
the stuff that was happening, and all sorts of crazy
stuff happened. People will kind of arrive in the middle
of the night with their sort of having had a
row with their wife, or you know, somebody was giving
(18:26):
birth to a baby or something. It was like growing
up in a theater. It was very exciting.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And then but she would have would he come up
for dinner?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And then you come up for dinner?
Speaker 1 (18:36):
And who did the cooking?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
My mother did the cooking, and there'd be there would
always be delicious kind of food, but not really Jewish
food but actually very English food, like roast chickens, roast lambs.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah. So she was born and she.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Was born in h She was born and she was
born in Nottingham or Newcastle. Our grandfather was the first
Jewish Lord mayor elected in Newcastle and he ran for
He ran for Lord Mayor and when he was painting,
they used to say, we hear you you lie in
bed all day and he replied, so would you if
you were married to missus Wolfe, which was which was
(19:09):
which worked very well, the one in the election. One
on the election and I've got her picture in my
room and she does look.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Quite quite.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Campaigning.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It was food important, though, it was it the family
meal that was important.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Food, food was all important. We're absolutely epicurean ruth and
we absolutely live for food and we love delicious food
and hate bad food.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Did your father cook.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
No, you never cooked. You never cooked.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Did your mother have help? So that she did have
help domestic she.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Did have help. And it was all about meals, and
everything happened at meals, and I still live for eating.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
And then your boarding school was that a shock?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
There was a shock? Was a shock. Well, the food
was appalling for a start, But on the other hand,
my parents were so kind of over indulgent. And I
think if I hadn't gone to boarding school, I'm not
sure I've ever been able to function at all in
the world. I mean, I was so close to my
parents because I was eight years youngers and after.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Mistake and then boarding school.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
And because I was Jewish, I had to have special food.
I remember once go into the kitchen and there was
a very old lady plucking a chicken, and they said,
that's your food, because that's all you can eat.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
There are other Jewish.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
There were virtually no other Jewish children at my prep school,
and then at Harrow there were quite a lot of
Jewish children.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get
your podcasts. Thank you you are now historian. But in
(21:02):
the beginning, did you feel that sense that you had
to not just write about what was happening but livett.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
Yeah, I wrote long letters about describing everything I saw
in the minds, the politics, and of course I worked
in a kibbutz as well in Israel, and that was
also fascinating. And I saw amazing things now as well,
because that was the beginning of the invasion of Lebanon,
which was appalling mistake on the Israeli's part. So both
of those things were good preparations. And the third adventure
(21:30):
I went on was going to visit Jewish Refuseniks in
Russia in the Soviet Union with my father.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Was that the first time you worked, Yes, and.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
That was the beginning of my relationship with Russia. And
so all of these things kind of were good preparations.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
But year was that eighty four, As I say, I
went with Richard to Moscow. He was chairman of the
tape at the time, and the idea was to go
with the director to try and get an exchange of
turners that Britain would give them for the and I'm
in the hermitage that was in Leningrad, and we ate nothing.
(22:08):
I wanted to have the bors. I wanted to have Russian.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Food, but it was quite severe, it was it was miserable.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Really, did you discover good Russian food?
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I didn't find any more food. I mean, I love
stirle at fish.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Sturgeon, surgeon.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, and that is there's are fish that sort of
mainly live in the Caspian and that they create caveat
of course, but Prince Potemkin loved sturgeon. He was obsessed
with sturgeon. He used to continually roast sturgeon wherever he went,
and he had it brought for him packed in ice,
of course, all for hundreds of miles. But we didn't
have any of that when we were there. But when
(22:48):
I went back later after farding school, I went to Cambridge.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Let's talk about that for a moment.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Did you live in rooms and did you eat? Again?
Speaker 2 (22:56):
I live in rooms in the dining room sometimes, but
what I really loved doing was eating that. There was
a great Turkish kid bab house there and we lived
in there. It was called Omar and Ossy. Omar and
Ossie are very key figures in my university year. So
that was the sort of best food we had. We
used to go there every night and we lived on
(23:17):
that delicious food. And whenever I travel anywhere, I want
to experience the food. And you know, one of the
reasons why I've often written about family history. I mean,
all of these books, like the Romanovs All the World
is just because family is a way of writing, conveying
continuity but also depth and grit of life. And so
(23:40):
I always wanted my books people to know what people
were wearing, what music they listened to, and what food
they were eating. Hopefully, if I could find out food
is what families do together, even sort of families that
barely hang together still eat together normally, don't they.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
Pre nineteen seventeen, that would be the Roman Macaractor.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah, the Romanovs.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, was there a real sense of pleasure and food?
And for wealthy people. I mean would the Romans what
would the aristocracy have eaten?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Well, I mean they love French food. Of course, they
all had French chefs who they brought over. What they
would have eaten all these splendid proper Russian dishes borshed. Yeah,
let's talk about the very garlicy with beetroot.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Do you like it hot?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Ginger? I like it hot? You how do you like?
Speaker 1 (24:26):
My experience of Russian food was there was none of
none of that in our house. But my father is
a treat would drive us maybe once every couple of
months and we'd go down to New York City and
we'd see the big ships and then we would go
to the Russian tea room for love before seeing a musical.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
What would you eat that?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
And so we would have the bleanies and I think
you could have the choice of cold or heart borsh.
I prefer it hot as well. You can really feel
the flavors.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
I think it's delicious. And also there's cinnamon and it
isn't that ginger. And even in my time, we used
to have massive amounts of caveat and believing and it's
huge and that is delicious when it's done properly. And
that's course named after the Stroganov family, and they are
fascinating family. They were the conquistadors of Russia. They were
(25:18):
the they were the family that conquered Siberia because they
were called the Cortes of Russia other Strogovs, and they
were they rose from merchants who started off having sort
of salt farms and doing mining and training, and then
they i'ven the Terrible allowed them to expand into Siberia
and in just a few decades fifty years or a
(25:41):
little over fifty years, the Russians made it all the
way to the Pacific and conquered. They had to just
there was an amazing there was an amazing kingdom there called
the Karnate of Sibia, which was a Genghist rule by
Genghis Khans descendants, and they destroyed that, that Karnate, and
then they went unconquered Siberia, and the strong offs, of
(26:03):
course became very rich and became counts and aristocracy. But
they started off with their own private army of Cossacks
conquering Siberia. So that's my struggle. And they were the
ones who was invented, be strong enough invent it.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Because I always thought, how fabulous to have a have
a dish named after you, you know. So we used
to go to a restaurant in Paris that had the
Grand before and there was a big treat and they
would have a dish called pigeon, Prince Ranier whatever. Yeah,
I thought that would be quite bad. I didn't know
that beef struggle. There's a dessert, isn't it glass?
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, I think it's very I'd love to have a dish.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Okay, we could we could name we can think of
a name.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well, that would be exciting.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
You're interested in history and food and culture and family.
Let's just take Prussia and you know, growing up in
Russia at a different period of the twentieth century or
the twenty first century, how would food explain some of
what you've seen the wealth of the nation, the poverty
of the nation, the Gorbachev period, the Oligarch period, the
Putin period. Do you see that kind of reading?
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Food was Food was a hugely important part of world
history and Russian history. And it's interesting because until about
two hundred, one hundred and fifty years ago, it was
still massive famines the time around the world. But scientific
improvements in fertilizer and medical advances were the two things
that really enabled the explosion of world population and the
(27:39):
reason why most of the famines in the twentieth century
were actually man made famines. They weren't the sort of
famines that used to happen in the eighteen forties or
in India, and most of them were failures of supply
rather that or man made political policies. And an example
of that is that you know, is the other famines
in the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties were there was
a huge famine in Russia which the Tsar Alexander the
(28:01):
Third denied existed. Then, of course, after the Russian Civil War,
there was another huge famine in Russia. Then in the
late twenties stalin.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
The civil war do you meane.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Nineteen eighty nineteen eighteen to twenty one, do you call
it a civil war called the Russian Civil War? There
were two revolutions, one in February seventeen, one in October seventeen,
and for a while the Bolsheviks looked like they'd keep
power but lose most of the Russian Empire. And then
they launched a series of wars from the center, basing
themselves in Moscow again not Petersburg, and they reconquered. They
(28:36):
defeated the divided white powers who were trying to stop them,
and then they started to retake all the provinces and
the ethnic groups that have been part of the Tsarist Empire,
so that included Georgia we were talking about in Armenia,
Central Asia. They failed to take Poland, but they succeeded
in taking Ukraine, which was very decisive because Ukraine was
(28:57):
the bread basket of the Russian Empire and traditionally Ukrainian
grames exported out of Odessa and Nikolaiath to the world.
But when Stalin started to collectivize the farms in the
late twenties, he specially victimized the Ukrainians and other minority
peoples to the Kazakhs, like a million and a half
Kazakhs also died during collectivization, so there was a huge
(29:19):
famine while selling food abroad. So the creation of the
Soviet Union, the creation of the Stalin dictatorship, all really
was based around shortage of food. And that was how
Stalin broke the peasantry and broke the Ukrainians was by
starving them. Do you think one of the reasons why
Putin still gets so much support is that he has
managed to create a sort of secure food environment, unlike
(29:43):
his processors. Of course, Putin has a special connection to
food because his grandfather was a chef. I didn't know
as a cook, and he cooked at the store. He
was the chef at the Astoria Hotel which is now
owned by Rocco Forte Story Hotel Moscow in Petersburg in St.
Peter and he was the chef. The grandfather was the chef,
(30:04):
was one of the chefs there. And while he was there,
of course he cooked for everybody, but he cooked for
a Spoutin and then when there's where evolution happened, strap
father grandfather and he joined. He then joined the secret
police the nkv D as chef and cooked for Lenin
and Stalin was one of Stalin's chefs. So he's one
of the most world historic chefs in all of history
(30:25):
because he cooked for us boot In all sorts of
grand dukes of course in the Astoria Hotel. But then
Lenin and Stalin, of course Stalin chefs were all in
this all secret police. They were called the service staff
and they were within the n k v D.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
I wonder if I have any in my kitchen put
is interested in food. Did you say, do you know
is he a good eater?
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I don't think. I don't think he's an epicurean at all.
To be a very very unsympathetic, harsh somewhat joyless man.
I would have I would have said, not very interested
in culture, though he does readly.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Never you've never met I've never met him. Why not?
Did you before? He was before?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
I'd like to like to have met him. But then
I'd like to have met everybody. Yeah, you know, as
a historian, you want to I'd like to have liked
to have met everybody.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
And I've we all have our fans and are not fans,
and our detractors. But I know that Putin is a
fan of your work. Hey, how do you know that?
And also what's it like?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Well, you know, the bizarre thing about Putin was that,
as I said earlier, kaf from the Grade and Potemkin
and the Romanovs like Peter the Great were the people
who got Ukraine for Russia. And so when I wrote
my first book, Ka from the Grade and Petemkin, you know,
I was approached by the Minister of Culture and also
people in the President's office. They said to me, could
(31:48):
you write a little essay because the book isn't translated
into into Russian, could you write a little essay about
this subject? Which I did. They said to me, like,
we're very interested a certain important person is very interesting
in reading your book and finding out about the Crimea
and how Patenkin took Ukraine and the Crimea. This is
in nineteen ninety nine and two thousands, twenty three years ago.
(32:10):
We were all filled with hope about dad Emir Putin
and that he was a liberal, and Tony Blair raved
about him. And you may wonder why Russians don't have
their own books on this subject, but the reason is
because under Stalin and the Soviet Union, Catherine the Great
and Patenkin were very out of fashion and weren't studied
very much. Anyway, I did that, and then afterwards, when
(32:30):
the book was translated into Russian, I was approached again
by the Minister of Culture who said, a certain personage
has loved your book and he would like to give
you a present. So, of course, with Vladimir Putin was
always a little worried about what the present's going to be.
But the present was we're opening Stalin's archives. Would you
like to be the first to study to have access
(32:53):
to them. So that was the book Stalin The Call
of the Redsar but jumped twenty two years and when
Putin wrote his essay about how Ukraine didn't exist as
a state and as a people, and started quoting stuff
from the history books like mine. I realized that he
was going to invade Ukraine. And it's fascinating because when
(33:16):
he took Kierson, the city of Khison, one of Potemkin's cities,
that's where Petemkin is buried. And when he withdrew, which
was just over six months ago, he stole Patmkin's body.
So the historic well, we don't know where it is.
But what I think he's going to do is create
a sort of big tomb in mausoleum in Moscow for
(33:38):
Prince Potemkin. But Prince Potemkin and ca from the Great
were children of the Enlightenment. They'd have hated Putin and
his Russia today. But the full story is in my
books the Romanovs and Caa from the Great and Potemkin.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
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(34:33):
described Ukraine as the bread basket and the grain, I
mean that is something we read really since the war started.
What is happening with the food now? In the war
is the grain going that?
Speaker 2 (34:45):
This has really made Africa sotham more than anywhere right now.
Right now. Many African states like South Africa for example,
had very good relations with the Soviet Union and their
liberation movements were backed by the Soviet Union. They blamed
the West and the hypocrisy and in of the West,
even though it's the war of the Russian War and
Russian invasion of Ukraine that has actually caused the food shortages.
(35:08):
But such as human affairs, it doesn't always it is
not always based on reason. But you know, Ukraine became
independent when the Soviet Union broke up, and in some
ways Ukrainian sense of nation has intensified thanks to Putin's viciousness.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
And food in Ukraine. Have you been during the what
have you been to Ukraine?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
I haven't been since the war, but I was there
when I was in the late nineties and I traveled
to a death I loved. Odessa Do Desa is one
of the great cities in the world. One of my favorites.
And everyone there eats caviat and of course and sturgeon,
and sturgeon steak is the best food you have there.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
And that's a piece of sturgeon which you've grilled.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
You grill. Yeah, you can have it with some sort
of spicy Caucasian sauce like Adjiki sauce. It's delicious.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Tell me, so you are a writer, you have of
you work at home. I know that your studies in
your house and your wife, Santa also is a So
tell us about food in your house. Now, we've been
at your parents' house and boarding school and college and
traveling as an historian.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
We're very pescatarian. We eat a lot of fish, and
we love tuna. We love swordfish, and we grill a
lot of sortfish. We love fresh kind of Mediterranean style food.
But I also have various specialties. I do some of
the cooking. And my favorite dish is an amazing sort
of pasta filled with fresh tomatoes, fresh onions, fresh chili, garlic,
(36:40):
and fish. I often put sardines in it, or sea bass,
and it's quite spicy.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
I put a lot of chili, a Sicilian sardines. Yeah,
it's interesting about you because the Italians had this rule
of you never have an egg pasta with fish, but
we do crab an egg pasta and then and you
would never have all these kind of rules. You won't
have cheese with fish in a pasta, and we put
we do a langustine with peccorina and Parmesant's like a
(37:08):
fish that I actually ate in Verona, and so I think,
you know, fish pastas are.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Really Another thing I think is Italian rules are made
to be broken, Yeah, some of them, because they're quite
augmatic about what you can do with their food, and
sometimes you know, one has to break rules. Even though
this is heresy.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
Of course, it's also a regional you know that somebody
in one town will do something and then the next
town they won't.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Well, it's the same even in small even in Georgia,
which we started off talking about. You know, there's that
they put eggs in everything in a Jaria, which is
on the coast a Jarian Akazo, which is the Black
Sea coast where Stalin had all his houses, by the way,
but they always put an egg on everything there, while
you know in land in that in the most of
Georgia they don't.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
As true writers. Do you have a routine for your writing?
Do you know that you started a certain time?
Speaker 2 (37:55):
It's total chaos, is it. I mean, when I'm not writing,
I don't. I just don't do anything. And I spend
the whole time sitting in cafes, phony people and texting
people and reading the paper, which is the best thing.
But when I am I'm writing, I live like a
Kohener bite, like a monk. I live in a very
sort of very disciplined way, and get up it really
(38:16):
early in the morning, like at six in the morning.
And I mean, writing The World, this is my Natus
book was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done. It
almost killed me. I mean, obviously it's an insanely ambitious project.
Speaker 5 (38:29):
You tell us what it is, well, it's called it's
called The World a Family History, and it tells the
whole of world history from the Stone Age to the
Drone Age through families in a single narrative.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Some of the families you'd have heard of, you know,
the Robinovs, or the Habsburgs, the Rothchilds, the Kennedy's, and
many of them are quite unpleasant families like the Kim family,
of North Korea as a big family, we follow them
over five generations, or the Herold family of Judea who
built the temple, all the Ptolemys of Egypt. They are
some of the most vicious families. But another families you
(39:07):
won't have heard of. Some of them are enslaved families,
some are families of doctors. They're not all rulers in
other words, And the great thing about covering family is
that in terms of diversity, it's a great way you
can cover everywhere the same. And so this book is
probably the most diverse world history ever written. It covers
Europe is in its rightful place, but also there's Africa,
(39:27):
there's Asia, the South and North America in immense detail.
And of course the other great thing about family histories
it includes women. And we were talking Ruthie about about,
you know, the great women that are covered in this book.
And again some of them will be familiar Cleopatra Kafrom,
the Great Margaret Thatcher, and some of them you won't
have heard of, but are astonishing characters that we should
(39:49):
have heard of, like Queen Tamara of Georgia. But you know,
as the spectator said, it's succession meets Game of Thrones.
They has how the review described it, So I hope
that it's.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I read this and I thought it was a beautiful
ending to this book and kind of leading us to
the end of our really great conversation. In this book,
I've written of the fall of noble cities, the vanishing
of kingdoms, the rise and fall of dynasties, cruelty and cruelty,
folly upon folly, eruptions, massacres, famines, pandemics, and pollutions. Yet
(40:22):
again and again in these pages, the high spirits and
elevated thoughts, the capacity for joy and kindness, the variety
and eccentricity of humanity, the faces of love and the
devotion of family run through it all and remind me
why I started to write. And I thought, you know,
the optimism and the joy using the word joy and life.
(40:44):
And that is a very moving piece to read by
a writer whose work, as I said, informs tell stories,
takes us places. And so before we do say goodbye,
what food would you go to for comfort?
Speaker 2 (40:59):
Or what I love is tar tatar, but sugar burnt,
so that there's it's burnt with a with a sort
of flat with a fire on top. And I love
eating sugar burns, tartta and you make it. I have
made it, but I prefer I prefer I prefer I'm
(41:20):
eating it in delicious restaurants.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Well, thank you so much for today, and thank you
for coming.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And thanks for having that. So lovely to be lucky me,
lucky me to thank you so much. Thanks.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atami Studios for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers. It's produced by williem Lensky.
Our executive producers are Zad Rodgers and Fay Stewart. Our
production coordinator is Bella Selini. Special thanks to everyone at
The River Cafe.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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