October 19, 2021 • 24 mins
In this episode of Ruthie's Table 4, the artist and director Steve McQueen talks beautifully about the heritage, ethical values and social impact of food in his life, and ours.
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 River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sitting here in the River Cafe on a Sunday Monday morning,
with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli, with hiroles and
waiters laying tables in the garden, the uncertain world we
live in feels miles away. The artist and filmmaker Steve
McQueen does not separate the world of beauty and the
(00:33):
world of suffering in any of his work political oppression, slavery,
sexual inequality. Step and I met in nineteen ninety nine
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
(00:55):
in talking to with Steve McQueen, and he didn't want
to share him with anyone else else. Now, a few
years later, I finally have Steve McQueen all to myself,
and being a generous person, we'll share him with you.
Steve and I share a hero in Paul Robeson. We
(01:17):
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, Thank you for inviting me. Tell me
about growing up in London. You lived with your parents
in West London and what did you eat?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, we grew up. I grew up in the first
leship of Bush, West London. My relationship with food really
starts with the market. I was the kid who was
carrying the bags behind their mother, you know, because basically
I would have to go with her, because you know,
I was the sort of vext to bad hands.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
A shopping back home.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Food was a way of actually getting to know London
because if someone in I said to my mother this,
you know, you could get so and so sea based
in this market for this amount of money, she will
be there. So people used to talk about where can
they get particular kind of food and fresh produce yew.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Where was your mother born?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
My mother was.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Born in Trinidad, but she grew up in in Grenada,
and my father was born in Grenada.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How old were they when they came to London.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
My mother was about fourteen fifteen, I think you're about
fifteen when she came to London. I think in the
early sixties, and my father was a little bit older.
I think maybe it was about twenty one.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I don't know. When I think he came early sixties too,
but not not at the same time.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And so do you think her mother had taken her
to the market. As you say, the market does introduce
us to a culture, that introduces us to a city.
It's the first place I always go when I go
to any town in any city in any country. But
tell me more about the smells of the market and
what it looked like for you and your mother's experience
of the market.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, in fact, what happened was that a lot of
joity of people for coming from west in this headline,
and they grew their own food, you know, and look
after you know, the animals and so forth and whatnot.
And fishing was a big part of the culture too,
because obviously my mother lived on on the coast in
a place called Stears and was a very big fishing
spot there, you know, it's called a fishing village. Food
(03:16):
was very much directly sort of to do with who
they were. So when they came to London, of course
looking for good food was very important. And you know,
we used to go to all kinds of bloody markets
all over London.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I so, I said, I met up with it.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I said, missed my football focus on a sacle because
I had to go to the market with my mum.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
It was something which I remember.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
There was all different cultures, you know it was didn't
You had the sort of you know, the Londoners and
the white Londoners and the Indian, you're the Jewish. You
had all kinds of people. It was fabulous. It was
really kind of cool tone.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
When you would come home from the market. What would
you eat? What would they cook from the market?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh, if you get dashing, you know, spinage? You know again,
you know you cook? I mean my my my favorite
was like a nice stewed chicken. I'm not a special thing,
I'm roty, just you know, Oh my god, what was it?
A beautiful It's like a nice stew fish. And I
just to love.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
What was this? This one thing I used to not
very much was a vegetable? What was it? It was?
I love? I love?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It was all kinds of exotic stuff. I mean I
say exotic because it was familiar to me. But my friends,
my white first and what was that was this?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Was this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Who cooked in the house.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
My mother cooked, my father cooked. My father was a
good cook too.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
He took pride in the Christmas ham.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
That was his job.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
There was a particular way of cooking that came from
because his uncle was a butcher in the West Indies,
So there was a particular way of cooking the ham.
I can't even prescribe it now, but it's close, all
into indented in all everywhere.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
It was almost like sort of a ror movie marblous. Yeah,
great cooks, great cooks.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Did you cook with them? Was it a family affair?
Would you all cook together?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I mean I loved being with my mother in 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 shoe chef, a bit
of a neat and tidy person.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Would they entertain? Would friends come over? Did was there
that feeling.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
When people did come over? It was?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It was a lot of family and and what I
think most of the things I used to do when
the people's come up with them would just listen because
there was always boys that would come out that my
parents will never talk to us about, of course, but
always because adults will talk to adults, So therefore and
find out about sort of how what was going on
or when.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
You left this very comforting family meals where you were
cooked for and you ate together. What was that like
when you left home? Where did you live?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I was actually nearing you, guys. Actually I was in Fulham.
I was just around the corner from me. I was
with his girlfriend and she was great. She was a
very important girlfriend of mine.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Your name was a Nuke.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
She was a Swiss. And then she had discovered this restaurant,
this place called Malati, the Indonesian place and so, which
was delicious. It was gorgeous. And that was my first
restaurant and.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
She that was your first restaurant.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I think that was one of my first restaurants. Yeah,
I was. I think I was about nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
And after that the restaurants become part of your social life.
Did you love restaurants?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I mean, what's great about I mean now, I suppose
in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
we didn't have that was the world, I think. And
to be introduced to the world through food and of
course good company, that's always the main ingredient for going
to a restaurant. So that was wonderful and then we
got to know. So we've got a lot of restaurants
and so we got to know I remember during that time,
(06:47):
miss early nineties, early early nineties.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yeah, and also in the East then too.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, what about an arts school? Was that revelation?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Yeah? I mean, you know, Canon Bitter Cheese, Ladiel and Baget.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I mean that was that was kind of like interesting
because again there was an addition to waste in this cheese.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I mean no cheese. I was crappy cheese.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You know, can imagine a sort of a big block
of something which they called cheese. But getting to them
cheese was interesting during my time at Foundation at Chelsea.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I mean, it's a kind of interesting life change, isn't
it between this going to the market with your mother
and carrying the bag and coming home and cooking and
then sitting and down and eating and then having independence
and having to fend for yourself and discover life out there.
Did you go home? Would you return home for the
home cooked meal?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yes? I used to love going home for food.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
My goodness, I said, oh, oh, my goodness, I used
to love it. It's just it's just a sort of yeah,
it was difficult because at first it was how do
I cook?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
What do I cook? I was on the phone to
my mom, Mom, how do I do this? Mom? I
do this? My Mom, I do that.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So a lot of calls about me and sort of
soups and things like that, and how do I season
them because I can't. For granted, I said to be
the shoe chep, but I wasn't really looking. It wasn't
really studying. Yeah, so a lot of phone calls.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Basically back round, Welcome back to River Cafe, Table four.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
In each episode, my guest reads a recipe they have
chosen from one of our cookbooks. We chose spinach and peas,
So would you like to go for it and tell
the world how to make it?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
One kilogram fresh peas in their pods, extra virgin olive oil,
one garlic cloth peel and diced, one dried red chili crumbled,
one canogram of spinach, washed tough stalks, Removed.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
The piece and blanche them in plenty of boiling water.
In Italy, no one ever cooks vegetables.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Absolutely only past it.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So rather than blanching these peas, boil them so that
they almost melt together with spinach and the olive oil.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Gorgeous. So now Steve, here we are and we're going
to talk about the series that has just been on
television that we've all watched and been so moved by.
Small acts. You tell the story of a local restaurant
constantly harassed by the police. Is that a memory or
is that? Can you tell me about the restaurant, the
(09:41):
politics and the series.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, the Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank
Krischlow in Lambergrove on All Saints Road, and he opened
a restaurant in nineteen sixty eight and it was a
sort of home away from home restaurant. You can imagine,
as I said before, other people on the sort of
the taste of home and had a vibrancy of having
(10:04):
sort of like many people wanted to sort of come
to a place to eat and to sort of commune
with each other. So it was a place of refuge
in it in a way. You know, the vibe, the
vibes that came out of there, and it was just
one of those places which became very infectious if people
wanted to go. It was it was it was something
which was which was which was on the scene and
unfortunately the police and the authorities that be obviously didn't
(10:28):
like what was happening at this place because again it
was you know, it was people from the Western Ears,
it was working class people, it was the thinkers, it
was sort of activists were coming there and also the
whole eploy.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So all these people.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Coming to this spot and talking over food, having ideas,
and obviously that was something which the authorities didn't like,
and therefore they tried to disrupt disrupted as much as
they could. You know, it was a case of the
people not wanting certain ideas having a foothold in UK,
and they thought that the Mangrove was a place where
those ideas could sort of take root.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
There's something about doing that kind of discussion as well
over food. And one of the things that I see
in the restaurant is that somehow being out of your house,
being away from your domestic life, being looked after, gives
you the chance to really focus on a conversation. Do
you find that in a restaurant.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Absolutely absolutely, And there's a sense of, I don't know
what is it purpose, you're there, you're present, there's another
person there and present, but also actually just a listen.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It's just a case.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Of being in an environment where you are you know,
you feel comfortable in order to say things and listen.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And also I've talked to various people in business and
in film and creating movies or making deals. I mean
when I always quote is Michael Caine who said that
he never did a deal for a movie in America
that didn't take place in a restaurant. And he said
that was very Hollywood. Do you work in restaurants? Do
you'd like to meet people that you're going to work
(12:08):
with in a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (12:09):
First, I love it. That doesn't happen often.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I mean, I think it's sort of it's a classy
way to do anything, isn't it. And also I love
it because growing up in the art world. What was
wonderful about growing up in the art world is that
artists never paid for dinners, never because.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
You're the artist. And it was amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
In fact, I think that's how I grew up in
food in an interesting way. It was through the art world.
It's completely different to the film world. I mean, you
know the fact that you you know, you might get
crappy sang which you're you're you're lucky.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
But in the art world, it was always the best wines.
It was always the best.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Food, you know, if it was an opening or even
a meeting, it was always the best restaurant.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
And that was a huge education. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I was thinking about making movies and the movies you've made,
and of course here we are talking about food and
eat and the joy of being taken care of through food.
And then I think of the movie that you know,
was so earth shattering, which was Hunger, And so we're
talking about a movie called Hunger and the state of
(13:13):
hunger and somebody put their principles and politics above comfort
and as a political act actually starved themselves. So what
was it like making a movie that was the absence
of food as a political statement?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
He I mean, for me, it was again its food
is interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I related to that in a way, that of being
a child in the way that you know, the often
don'tly power a child has is frailing to eat his
or her mother saying you're not leaving the table until
you finish that plate, and the child sort of you know,
refusing to eat, and then you're sent off the bed,
(13:59):
you know. And it's interesting because you know what the
clothes you wear that as a as a child of
a certain age, what time you go to bed, what
food you eat is chosen by your parents, and the
whole idea that this child, the power this child has
is to refrain to eat. That was my relationship in
some ways to Bobby Sands and hunger strike, that the
power that person had was to refrain to eat.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Ever since it was a child.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I remembered asking my mom when I saw this image
of Bobby's Sands on on television with a number benderneath
his image, and asking my mother, what's what's what is that?
How old this person is? Because no, that how many
days this person has been a hunger strike. So there
was an immediate relationship with the story and it was yeah,
it was It was difficult, but I think Michael Fans
been there, you know why cass as Bobby Sands was
tremendous and that was a bond up you know we
(14:42):
have to this day. It was a real kind of
a labor of love and not what.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Other food scenes in your movies In twelve Years a Slave,
there's a scene, isn't there at the dinner table.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
I seem to remember, Yeah, there's lots of I think
there's lots of food in my films.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean you can see after that is shame the
two characters Brandon any sort of a possible girlfriend or
at this dinner table, and this waiter annoying way to
comes in every five seconds to interrupt them. I remember
that from having lots of dinners in New York and
every five seconds and what becomes in the middle of
something was getting bigger.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
You know how conversations are. They had to get to
that point.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
You know, it's always it was commercial buddy breaks every
five seconds. You have to start from scratch every five minutes.
So it didn't make for a good eating experience. So
I put that in the movie.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
What do you eat on a film?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
No?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
when I started filmmaking and Hunger and Sharing twelve is
it's like all the actors and all the crew will
eat together. We the people in their body trailers in
that crap, everyone lead together. There's something about communal eating
and it's about weed. It's such a unifying thing to see,
(15:54):
you know, the hear and makeup and the camera department,
and tubing up for food and sitting at the table
together and talking about the film or talking about things.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
There's a camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
It's only time often when you're sort of on set
together that you had that sort of times, you know,
when you're sitting together eating and it's fun.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
It's fun. I love it.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Year three is an exhibition that was at the Tate
and I went to see it three times because every
time I went back, I saw something, something different in
the expression of a child of a teacher. It really
told the story of the world we live in through
these photographs. And one of the issues that I think
(16:43):
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 of the day. And the idea that
we have a society that children depend on having their
(17:06):
food away from the home because of the poverty in
the home is appalling and shocking and distressing everything else.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yes, absolutely, I mean I had school, did this, which
I paid for by my mother. That's why even today.
I like hot meals, love hot lunches, I mean, and
they were vital.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
They were vital there were children.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
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 missus snatcher took it away from us.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Yeah. Yeah, I love school meals in that way. Also,
just because we are such a good laugh in the canteen,
you know, I associate food in school with good times
and I can even remember the smell of it, the
canteen and the noise and the cutlery banging together, and
it's so important. You know. Also people have to sort
(17:58):
of really tip.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
They had to Marcus Rashford and what he did in
the sense of, you know, getting the government to sort
of stand down twice about the school mill because you
know it can This is, you know, if we can't
look after people we can't afford to eat, then I
don't know who we are as human beings. That it
took a footballer to do that is kind of a bit,
you know. There you go, Everyone has got to step
up in your own way. I suppose if people aren't
(18:20):
doing their job properly, that meaning the government. And also
don't forget this again. It's just one of those things
I feel that you know, everyone is unfortunately not brought
into this world equally. But if you just give someone
the possibility a little bit of a shaft of life,
one doesn't know where that might lead them to. So, yeah,
the fact that people actually have a meal in the stomach,
you know in Britain, Yeah, it's more than important. One
(18:45):
thing I was very shocked by when I was shooting
in Chicago, shooting widows was how I didn't see a
grocery store in a black neighborhood. I didn't see any
greens in a black neighbor you know, there wasn't a
green grocer's, but there was always some sort of fast
food place where people eat.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
So people are losing this sort of heritage of food.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
People are not aware of food and nourishment and possibilities
within food.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
And food is politics in a way.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It reverts back to what we were talking about right
at the beginning 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 promarderate, a sense
of sort of love of food and love of each
(19:33):
other is being sort of erased in the sort of
you know, working class areas. I mean, you get these markets,
but they're so they're kind of like posh markets, aren't they.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
They're sort of farmers' markets, they call them.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And you know, the food is so expensive, so and
I can I feel that they're becoming kind of food
deserts in a way where kids are growing up on
fast food and not being introduced to sort of love
food in a way. So that's the which I'm a
bit sort of concerned about.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, food is a connection, and food is a memory,
and food is giving and sharing, and food is political
and social, and it's also comfort. It's something that we
go to and we need comfort. And so I suppose
Steve McQueen, what would you say is the food you
would go to if you needed comfort?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
For me, the comfort food that I very much love
and I appreciate is often the cold day, you know,
and you come in and it's my mum's chicken soups
West Indian chicken soup, which has the bones in it
and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones and
it's the sort of you know, it's the time, it's
the garlic. It's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
sugaret ingredient which you want, you still want, a toom,
(20:47):
the dumplings, a bit of potatoes, a bit of peas.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
So those are the kind of things I really love. Yeah,
And I could hear my dad sucking the bones right now. Wonderful,
you know, having those dinners together on those cold days.
I remember it was. It was beautiful. It was beautiful,
and lots of great memories. My dad's not anymore. So
when I often do think about him, I do think
(21:13):
about him, and that soup. I do think about him.
Christmas and the ham, of course, and Christmas. Christmas breakfast
was a big thing. Hot cocoa.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
My dad would make a bake. A bake is a.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Kind of a flat bread West Indian flat bread in
the morning, and oh.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
My god, how can I how can I not say this?
Fish cakes, my mother's fish cakes.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Oh my god, my mother's fish cakes on the Christmas morning,
and she's waiting these little bakes.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Which was sort of like a like a bread you'll
fry in oil. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
And even my daughterly when my mom comes up as yours,
ask Granny please make fish cakes for me because it's
a West Indian fishcakes such as it's gorgeous and of
course you know that there's never anything left for me
when I get home. But you know it's just a
I think, really, what you've done actually is actually given me.
I mean facts, what love is rock, not even love
is rock. That's what the whole of Small Acts was
(22:09):
based on. The foundation of all of that was based
on food and memory. Because it's what's so fascinating. I'm
rambling on it again myself. But the smell is the
most antaste is the most potent sources of memory, not
the photographs. Photographs is only tell you so much because
you know it cuts out what's beyond. The frame is
(22:31):
not present, it's not visible. When going on wrapping, I'll
stop myself.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
No doubt it's beautiful, but it is what it does.
There are people who say I never remembered that until
we started talking about the food, and that brought back
the memory. I had somebody whose father had left home
and he would when he saw his children on the weekends,
he would suddenly start cooking for them. And he said, oh,
I don't know. I don't think I've ever told anybody
(22:59):
that story. But now I remember my father actually is
a way of his guilt or his love just started cooking,
you know. And I think what you just when you
choose your comfort food, you start thinking about your father
and your mother, and you think about the memories and
that it's so potent, isn't it. I thought it would
be interesting, but what it really brings home over and
(23:21):
over again is the connection that food has for us
for memories.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah, forget about this. I'm telling you, Doug, you've done it, mate,
smell until you've done it.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Well, thank you, you've done it. It's all to do
with you. To visit the online shop of The River Cafe,
go to shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Sitting here in the River Cafe on a Sunday Monday morning,
with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli, with hiroles and
waiters laying tables in the garden, the uncertain world we
live in feels miles away. The artist and filmmaker Steve
McQueen does not separate the world of beauty and the
(00:33):
world of suffering in any of his work political oppression, slavery,
sexual inequality. Step and I met in nineteen ninety nine
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
(00:55):
in talking to with Steve McQueen, and he didn't want
to share him with anyone else else. Now, a few
years later, I finally have Steve McQueen all to myself,
and being a generous person, we'll share him with you.
Steve and I share a hero in Paul Robeson. We
(01:17):
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, Thank you for inviting me. Tell me
about growing up in London. You lived with your parents
in West London and what did you eat?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, we grew up. I grew up in the first
leship of Bush, West London. My relationship with food really
starts with the market. I was the kid who was
carrying the bags behind their mother, you know, because basically
I would have to go with her, because you know,
I was the sort of vext to bad hands.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
A shopping back home.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Food was a way of actually getting to know London
because if someone in I said to my mother this,
you know, you could get so and so sea based
in this market for this amount of money, she will
be there. So people used to talk about where can
they get particular kind of food and fresh produce yew.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Where was your mother born?
Speaker 4 (02:12):
My mother was.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Born in Trinidad, but she grew up in in Grenada,
and my father was born in Grenada.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
How old were they when they came to London.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
My mother was about fourteen fifteen, I think you're about
fifteen when she came to London. I think in the
early sixties, and my father was a little bit older.
I think maybe it was about twenty one.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
I don't know. When I think he came early sixties too,
but not not at the same time.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
And so do you think her mother had taken her
to the market. As you say, the market does introduce
us to a culture, that introduces us to a city.
It's the first place I always go when I go
to any town in any city in any country. But
tell me more about the smells of the market and
what it looked like for you and your mother's experience
of the market.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
Well, in fact, what happened was that a lot of
joity of people for coming from west in this headline,
and they grew their own food, you know, and look
after you know, the animals and so forth and whatnot.
And fishing was a big part of the culture too,
because obviously my mother lived on on the coast in
a place called Stears and was a very big fishing
spot there, you know, it's called a fishing village. Food
(03:16):
was very much directly sort of to do with who
they were. So when they came to London, of course
looking for good food was very important. And you know,
we used to go to all kinds of bloody markets
all over London.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
I so, I said, I met up with it.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
I said, missed my football focus on a sacle because
I had to go to the market with my mum.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
It was something which I remember.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
There was all different cultures, you know it was didn't
You had the sort of you know, the Londoners and
the white Londoners and the Indian, you're the Jewish. You
had all kinds of people. It was fabulous. It was
really kind of cool tone.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
When you would come home from the market. What would
you eat? What would they cook from the market?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Oh, if you get dashing, you know, spinage? You know again,
you know you cook? I mean my my my favorite
was like a nice stewed chicken. I'm not a special thing,
I'm roty, just you know, Oh my god, what was it?
A beautiful It's like a nice stew fish. And I
just to love.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
What was this? This one thing I used to not
very much was a vegetable? What was it? It was?
I love? I love?
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It was all kinds of exotic stuff. I mean I
say exotic because it was familiar to me. But my friends,
my white first and what was that was this?
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Was this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Who cooked in the house.
Speaker 4 (04:32):
My mother cooked, my father cooked. My father was a
good cook too.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
He took pride in the Christmas ham.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
That was his job.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
There was a particular way of cooking that came from
because his uncle was a butcher in the West Indies,
So there was a particular way of cooking the ham.
I can't even prescribe it now, but it's close, all
into indented in all everywhere.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
It was almost like sort of a ror movie marblous. Yeah,
great cooks, great cooks.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Did you cook with them? Was it a family affair?
Would you all cook together?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I mean I loved being with my mother in 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 shoe chef, a bit
of a neat and tidy person.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Would they entertain? Would friends come over? Did was there
that feeling.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
When people did come over? It was?
Speaker 3 (05:24):
It was a lot of family and and what I
think most of the things I used to do when
the people's come up with them would just listen because
there was always boys that would come out that my
parents will never talk to us about, of course, but
always because adults will talk to adults, So therefore and
find out about sort of how what was going on
or when.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
You left this very comforting family meals where you were
cooked for and you ate together. What was that like
when you left home? Where did you live?
Speaker 3 (05:52):
I was actually nearing you, guys. Actually I was in Fulham.
I was just around the corner from me. I was
with his girlfriend and she was great. She was a
very important girlfriend of mine.
Speaker 4 (06:01):
Your name was a Nuke.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
She was a Swiss. And then she had discovered this restaurant,
this place called Malati, the Indonesian place and so, which
was delicious. It was gorgeous. And that was my first
restaurant and.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
She that was your first restaurant.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I think that was one of my first restaurants. Yeah,
I was. I think I was about nineteen years old.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
And after that the restaurants become part of your social life.
Did you love restaurants?
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I mean, what's great about I mean now, I suppose
in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
we didn't have that was the world, I think. And
to be introduced to the world through food and of
course good company, that's always the main ingredient for going
to a restaurant. So that was wonderful and then we
got to know. So we've got a lot of restaurants
and so we got to know I remember during that time,
(06:47):
miss early nineties, early early nineties.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Yeah, and also in the East then too.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, what about an arts school? Was that revelation?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
Yeah? I mean, you know, Canon Bitter Cheese, Ladiel and Baget.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
I mean that was that was kind of like interesting
because again there was an addition to waste in this cheese.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
I mean no cheese. I was crappy cheese.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
You know, can imagine a sort of a big block
of something which they called cheese. But getting to them
cheese was interesting during my time at Foundation at Chelsea.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
I mean, it's a kind of interesting life change, isn't
it between this going to the market with your mother
and carrying the bag and coming home and cooking and
then sitting and down and eating and then having independence
and having to fend for yourself and discover life out there.
Did you go home? Would you return home for the
home cooked meal?
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yes? I used to love going home for food.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
My goodness, I said, oh, oh, my goodness, I used
to love it. It's just it's just a sort of yeah,
it was difficult because at first it was how do
I cook?
Speaker 4 (07:52):
What do I cook? I was on the phone to
my mom, Mom, how do I do this? Mom? I
do this? My Mom, I do that.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
So a lot of calls about me and sort of
soups and things like that, and how do I season
them because I can't. For granted, I said to be
the shoe chep, but I wasn't really looking. It wasn't
really studying. Yeah, so a lot of phone calls.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
Basically back round, Welcome back to River Cafe, Table four.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
In each episode, my guest reads a recipe they have
chosen from one of our cookbooks. We chose spinach and peas,
So would you like to go for it and tell
the world how to make it?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
One kilogram fresh peas in their pods, extra virgin olive oil,
one garlic cloth peel and diced, one dried red chili crumbled,
one canogram of spinach, washed tough stalks, Removed.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
The piece and blanche them in plenty of boiling water.
In Italy, no one ever cooks vegetables.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
Absolutely only past it.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
So rather than blanching these peas, boil them so that
they almost melt together with spinach and the olive oil.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Gorgeous. So now Steve, here we are and we're going
to talk about the series that has just been on
television that we've all watched and been so moved by.
Small acts. You tell the story of a local restaurant
constantly harassed by the police. Is that a memory or
is that? Can you tell me about the restaurant, the
(09:41):
politics and the series.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Well, the Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank
Krischlow in Lambergrove on All Saints Road, and he opened
a restaurant in nineteen sixty eight and it was a
sort of home away from home restaurant. You can imagine,
as I said before, other people on the sort of
the taste of home and had a vibrancy of having
(10:04):
sort of like many people wanted to sort of come
to a place to eat and to sort of commune
with each other. So it was a place of refuge
in it in a way. You know, the vibe, the
vibes that came out of there, and it was just
one of those places which became very infectious if people
wanted to go. It was it was it was something
which was which was which was on the scene and
unfortunately the police and the authorities that be obviously didn't
(10:28):
like what was happening at this place because again it
was you know, it was people from the Western Ears,
it was working class people, it was the thinkers, it
was sort of activists were coming there and also the
whole eploy.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
So all these people.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Coming to this spot and talking over food, having ideas,
and obviously that was something which the authorities didn't like,
and therefore they tried to disrupt disrupted as much as
they could. You know, it was a case of the
people not wanting certain ideas having a foothold in UK,
and they thought that the Mangrove was a place where
those ideas could sort of take root.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
There's something about doing that kind of discussion as well
over food. And one of the things that I see
in the restaurant is that somehow being out of your house,
being away from your domestic life, being looked after, gives
you the chance to really focus on a conversation. Do
you find that in a restaurant.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
Absolutely absolutely, And there's a sense of, I don't know
what is it purpose, you're there, you're present, there's another
person there and present, but also actually just a listen.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
It's just a case.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Of being in an environment where you are you know,
you feel comfortable in order to say things and listen.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
And also I've talked to various people in business and
in film and creating movies or making deals. I mean
when I always quote is Michael Caine who said that
he never did a deal for a movie in America
that didn't take place in a restaurant. And he said
that was very Hollywood. Do you work in restaurants? Do
you'd like to meet people that you're going to work
(12:08):
with in a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (12:09):
First, I love it. That doesn't happen often.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
I mean, I think it's sort of it's a classy
way to do anything, isn't it. And also I love
it because growing up in the art world. What was
wonderful about growing up in the art world is that
artists never paid for dinners, never because.
Speaker 4 (12:27):
You're the artist. And it was amazing.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
In fact, I think that's how I grew up in
food in an interesting way. It was through the art world.
It's completely different to the film world. I mean, you
know the fact that you you know, you might get
crappy sang which you're you're you're lucky.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
But in the art world, it was always the best wines.
It was always the best.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Food, you know, if it was an opening or even
a meeting, it was always the best restaurant.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
And that was a huge education. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I was thinking about making movies and the movies you've made,
and of course here we are talking about food and
eat and the joy of being taken care of through food.
And then I think of the movie that you know,
was so earth shattering, which was Hunger, And so we're
talking about a movie called Hunger and the state of
(13:13):
hunger and somebody put their principles and politics above comfort
and as a political act actually starved themselves. So what
was it like making a movie that was the absence
of food as a political statement?
Speaker 4 (13:28):
He I mean, for me, it was again its food
is interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
I related to that in a way, that of being
a child in the way that you know, the often
don'tly power a child has is frailing to eat his
or her mother saying you're not leaving the table until
you finish that plate, and the child sort of you know,
refusing to eat, and then you're sent off the bed,
(13:59):
you know. And it's interesting because you know what the
clothes you wear that as a as a child of
a certain age, what time you go to bed, what
food you eat is chosen by your parents, and the
whole idea that this child, the power this child has
is to refrain to eat. That was my relationship in
some ways to Bobby Sands and hunger strike, that the
power that person had was to refrain to eat.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
Ever since it was a child.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
I remembered asking my mom when I saw this image
of Bobby's Sands on on television with a number benderneath
his image, and asking my mother, what's what's what is that?
How old this person is? Because no, that how many
days this person has been a hunger strike. So there
was an immediate relationship with the story and it was yeah,
it was It was difficult, but I think Michael Fans
been there, you know why cass as Bobby Sands was
tremendous and that was a bond up you know we
(14:42):
have to this day. It was a real kind of
a labor of love and not what.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Other food scenes in your movies In twelve Years a Slave,
there's a scene, isn't there at the dinner table.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
I seem to remember, Yeah, there's lots of I think
there's lots of food in my films.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
I mean you can see after that is shame the
two characters Brandon any sort of a possible girlfriend or
at this dinner table, and this waiter annoying way to
comes in every five seconds to interrupt them. I remember
that from having lots of dinners in New York and
every five seconds and what becomes in the middle of
something was getting bigger.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
You know how conversations are. They had to get to
that point.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
You know, it's always it was commercial buddy breaks every
five seconds. You have to start from scratch every five minutes.
So it didn't make for a good eating experience. So
I put that in the movie.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
What do you eat on a film?
Speaker 4 (15:26):
So?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
No?
Speaker 3 (15:30):
I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
when I started filmmaking and Hunger and Sharing twelve is
it's like all the actors and all the crew will
eat together. We the people in their body trailers in
that crap, everyone lead together. There's something about communal eating
and it's about weed. It's such a unifying thing to see,
(15:54):
you know, the hear and makeup and the camera department,
and tubing up for food and sitting at the table
together and talking about the film or talking about things.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
There's a camaraderie.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
It's only time often when you're sort of on set
together that you had that sort of times, you know,
when you're sitting together eating and it's fun.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
It's fun. I love it.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Year three is an exhibition that was at the Tate
and I went to see it three times because every
time I went back, I saw something, something different in
the expression of a child of a teacher. It really
told the story of the world we live in through
these photographs. And one of the issues that I think
(16:43):
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 of the day. And the idea that
we have a society that children depend on having their
(17:06):
food away from the home because of the poverty in
the home is appalling and shocking and distressing everything else.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
Yes, absolutely, I mean I had school, did this, which
I paid for by my mother. That's why even today.
I like hot meals, love hot lunches, I mean, and
they were vital.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
They were vital there were children.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
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 missus snatcher took it away from us.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
Yeah. Yeah, I love school meals in that way. Also,
just because we are such a good laugh in the canteen,
you know, I associate food in school with good times
and I can even remember the smell of it, the
canteen and the noise and the cutlery banging together, and
it's so important. You know. Also people have to sort
(17:58):
of really tip.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
They had to Marcus Rashford and what he did in
the sense of, you know, getting the government to sort
of stand down twice about the school mill because you
know it can This is, you know, if we can't
look after people we can't afford to eat, then I
don't know who we are as human beings. That it
took a footballer to do that is kind of a bit,
you know. There you go, Everyone has got to step
up in your own way. I suppose if people aren't
(18:20):
doing their job properly, that meaning the government. And also
don't forget this again. It's just one of those things
I feel that you know, everyone is unfortunately not brought
into this world equally. But if you just give someone
the possibility a little bit of a shaft of life,
one doesn't know where that might lead them to. So, yeah,
the fact that people actually have a meal in the stomach,
you know in Britain, Yeah, it's more than important. One
(18:45):
thing I was very shocked by when I was shooting
in Chicago, shooting widows was how I didn't see a
grocery store in a black neighborhood. I didn't see any
greens in a black neighbor you know, there wasn't a
green grocer's, but there was always some sort of fast
food place where people eat.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
So people are losing this sort of heritage of food.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
People are not aware of food and nourishment and possibilities
within food.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
And food is politics in a way.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It reverts back to what we were talking about right
at the beginning 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 promarderate, a sense
of sort of love of food and love of each
(19:33):
other is being sort of erased in the sort of
you know, working class areas. I mean, you get these markets,
but they're so they're kind of like posh markets, aren't they.
Speaker 4 (19:43):
They're sort of farmers' markets, they call them.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And you know, the food is so expensive, so and
I can I feel that they're becoming kind of food
deserts in a way where kids are growing up on
fast food and not being introduced to sort of love
food in a way. So that's the which I'm a
bit sort of concerned about.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Yeah, food is a connection, and food is a memory,
and food is giving and sharing, and food is political
and social, and it's also comfort. It's something that we
go to and we need comfort. And so I suppose
Steve McQueen, what would you say is the food you
would go to if you needed comfort?
Speaker 3 (20:25):
For me, the comfort food that I very much love
and I appreciate is often the cold day, you know,
and you come in and it's my mum's chicken soups
West Indian chicken soup, which has the bones in it
and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones and
it's the sort of you know, it's the time, it's
the garlic. It's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
sugaret ingredient which you want, you still want, a toom,
(20:47):
the dumplings, a bit of potatoes, a bit of peas.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
It's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
So those are the kind of things I really love. Yeah,
And I could hear my dad sucking the bones right now. Wonderful,
you know, having those dinners together on those cold days.
I remember it was. It was beautiful. It was beautiful,
and lots of great memories. My dad's not anymore. So
when I often do think about him, I do think
(21:13):
about him, and that soup. I do think about him.
Christmas and the ham, of course, and Christmas. Christmas breakfast
was a big thing. Hot cocoa.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
My dad would make a bake. A bake is a.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Kind of a flat bread West Indian flat bread in
the morning, and oh.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
My god, how can I how can I not say this?
Fish cakes, my mother's fish cakes.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Oh my god, my mother's fish cakes on the Christmas morning,
and she's waiting these little bakes.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
Which was sort of like a like a bread you'll
fry in oil. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
And even my daughterly when my mom comes up as yours,
ask Granny please make fish cakes for me because it's
a West Indian fishcakes such as it's gorgeous and of
course you know that there's never anything left for me
when I get home. But you know it's just a
I think, really, what you've done actually is actually given me.
I mean facts, what love is rock, not even love
is rock. That's what the whole of Small Acts was
(22:09):
based on. The foundation of all of that was based
on food and memory. Because it's what's so fascinating. I'm
rambling on it again myself. But the smell is the
most antaste is the most potent sources of memory, not
the photographs. Photographs is only tell you so much because
you know it cuts out what's beyond. The frame is
(22:31):
not present, it's not visible. When going on wrapping, I'll
stop myself.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
No doubt it's beautiful, but it is what it does.
There are people who say I never remembered that until
we started talking about the food, and that brought back
the memory. I had somebody whose father had left home
and he would when he saw his children on the weekends,
he would suddenly start cooking for them. And he said, oh,
I don't know. I don't think I've ever told anybody
(22:59):
that story. But now I remember my father actually is
a way of his guilt or his love just started cooking,
you know. And I think what you just when you
choose your comfort food, you start thinking about your father
and your mother, and you think about the memories and
that it's so potent, isn't it. I thought it would
be interesting, but what it really brings home over and
(23:21):
over again is the connection that food has for us
for memories.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah, forget about this. I'm telling you, Doug, you've done it, mate,
smell until you've done it.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Well, thank you, you've done it. It's all to do
with you. To visit the online shop of The River Cafe,
go to shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Adami Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Ruth Rogers
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