October 28, 2024 • 36 mins
We return with our guest this week, former Prime Minister Tony Blair. In the second episode of the new series, Tony Blair reminisces about food in politics, from the 'memorable’ meals he made his children at Chequers to dining with Heads of State, including the late Queen Elizabeth II.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:48):
I'm often asked about the quality I look for when
interviewing a chef. Is it the way they make an
omelet own a fish, or perform under stress? For me,
the answer is easy. The quality I look for is
quite simply curiosity. The world knows Tony Blair as a
visionary leader prime Minister. I know him as a close
(01:10):
and loyal friend, but most of all, he is curious
and the first dinner we had for him in our
home in nineteen ninety six, he went straight into the
kitchen to talk to a young, inexperienced chef, Jamie Oliver,
asking how he was making the rottolo di spinacci. Tony
Blair has been interviewed countless times, but tonight on Ruthie's
(01:32):
table before, we're going to look at his life and
his career through memories of food, food in politics, food
and family, And tonight the curiosity is all mine.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you, Bolle.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So the recipe that you chose is grilled and roasted
wild sea bass. Would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sure a lot could have chosen fifteen different things. I'm
just delighted on this because I like it's kind of simplicity.
Grilled and rose did wild sea bass serves four to
six one three kilogram wild sea bass. Two tablespoons fennyl seeds,
two lemons, sliced parsley stalks, fresh fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced,
(02:17):
juice of one lemon, seventy five mil white wine, and
extra virgin olive oil. Preheat oven to two hundred degrees.
Season the inside of the fish with fennel seeds and
season well. Brush the skin with olive oil, and grill
on a cast iron, ridged or oven grill for five
(02:37):
to six minutes on each side. Put the lemon, parsley,
remaining fennel seeds in a roasting tin and lay the
sea bass over. Drizzle the lemon juice, olive oil, white wine,
and the remaining herbs and vegetables. Bait for thirty minutes
or until the fish is firm to the touch. Delicious
with salsa verdi.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Thank you. I was really really pleased that you chose
this recipe because it's two methods. It's grilled, so you
have the chargrill on the outside, but then you have
the juiciness of actually taking it. Was there a reason
you chose it or did you just?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I often if I'm in a restaurant, will order fish,
just simple fish, and especially when when you if you
get a nice white fish, which I've just been in
Greece recently and they do that very well. You know,
take it from the sea and it's it's a white fish.
You add a little bit of olive oil and lemon
and it's it's it's very simple, but it's beautiful and tasty.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, that's I mean, that is the difference I think
between Greek, Mediterranean food Italian of the South of France
is that there's not a lot of sauce. You know,
you just have the great ingredient and then you trust
it to be It's.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like, yeah, and I think it's it's you know, it's
fantastic when you're the food is just very simple but
well cooked, well prepared, and you know, it's things like
if you even if you're like a tomato salad, it's
a very simple thing. But if the tomatoes are really
nice and it's done with a nice dressing on it,
(04:13):
I mean it's beautiful. So I'm I'm not a great
one for very fancy sources, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Although sometimes to go to Paris and have a delicious,
well kind of turbot with the bourblog not that.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And by the way, one thing I always say to
people because sometimes people say to me, what's your favorite
type of cooking? Yeah, and I say I don't have one. Yeah,
I mean I like good food. I appreciate good food.
And I could eat Thai, I could eat Japanese and
eat French, I could eat Italian, I could eat Greek,
and I could eat English or Scottish.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So Downing Street is in office, it's a public space,
it's a governmental space, but it's also a home. And
you were there with young children and you presumably they
came home from school and you sat down to me
or did you not. Did you have a certain way
that this was work and then you would have family
(05:05):
time at the weekends. Was there a sort of routine
or structure for being a family.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Or before going into Downing Street. I mean, we did
have a much more structured life, but then once you
become premnise to frankly, your schedules just packed, and so
at the weekends, usually when we were through in checkers,
we would eat all together and that would be great,
But otherwise it was pretty hand to mouth. When my
(05:31):
kids knew I was coming on this podcast, they said
to me, are you going to tell them that you
used to cook for us and that your cooking was terrible?
And I said, well, now, what I might just do
is just say that the meals I cooked for my
children were memorable. Memorable, believe it at that? So yeah,
(05:51):
I mean no, Downing Street was just too busy.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
There wasn't a maybe there still isn't a Downing Street
chef that hooks markfast lunch, and there wasn't. I know,
at the White House they have the residents, and I
know that the State Department is very careful with ambassadors
about what they can spend on parties and food. But
to have the Office of the Prime Minister, you would
think that there was a yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And by the way, in our embassies you can eat
very well in British embassies abroad in the Elisa you get.
I think it's a high quality for n actually and
very traditional French cooking.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
You didn't give very many state dinners at Downing Street
that you would know. I didn't be at the Palace.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I almost took the view with we didn't. I mean,
occasionally I would do it and if someone really wanted
to have a dinner. But I with other political leaders,
I mean, I just know what I feel like. You know,
when you're engaged with the political leader, I mean, you know,
maybe you have a drink together and so on, and
maybe you do have a meal together occasionally, but you
want to do business. You want to sort out the
(06:55):
business of the day. And then if you're a foreign
leader and you're visiting and you're in London, and you know,
maybe Franklin would like to go out and spend some
time with you, your friends or colleagues, and rather than
be within the formality of these dinners, which on the
whole I never felt yielded a great deal.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Was there any in your memory that wasn't in China
or in Russia, or in Germany or France? Was there
a steak dinner that really well brings in memory?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
There wasn't a state dinners where the head of state,
So the only state dinner in the UK would be
the Queen obviously giving the dinner, and where again the
food is pretty good actually, but I do remember one
really memorable meal. So France and the UK and Germany
(07:44):
we were all together in this consort HM to build
the airbus three eighty okay, and we visited Toulouse, which
is where part of the plane was being built, and
so the leaders all went there, and she actually was
the president at the time. And I remember we after
we visited the plant and saw the plane and so on,
(08:07):
we sat down and we had a I think they
called it a cas.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, it was completed. What was it like? What was was.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Just with with the beans and the beans yeah, and
the sausage and it was unbelievably good. And the funny
thing was, so Jacques Shiaq, who's you know, a big,
big figure and someone I actually, despite our disagreements politically
from time to time, I liked greatly. But the strange
thing about Jacques was he didn't drink wine. He's a
French president, didn't drink wine wine, And I don't think
(08:39):
it was very interested in food. I mean, I'm and
so I was saying to it this. He was talking
to me about the airbus three eighteen. I was saying
to him, Jacques, you gotta understand this food is absolutely unbelievable.
And I think he's always a bit eccentric after a time,
because I was calling the chef over and talking to
him and saying like, okay, that is a memorable.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I went to Richard and I were living in Paris
and David Owen was given a dinner at the k
Doors and we were invited. We've been to various dinners here,
but that one was there was a footman behind every plasma.
Everyone had their own liveried footman behind you in the service,
(09:23):
and the grandeur of the palace was it was something
to behold. What about in Buckingham Palace? Was that more?
Did you ever have to have the Queen to Downing
Street or would you always go to the palace?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, we did once at the Queen to Downing Street
when all myself and the other prime ministers people have
been prime minister, we all had a dinner with her.
She said, well you all know each other anyway, But yeah,
that was I don't remember the details of it.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And now on your travels, you know, coming up to now,
do you have a kind of ROUTINEO Do you have
a way that you eat when you're traveling When you
know you're taking a long flight, do you eat on
the flight or.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Do you mean will I mean I will eat on
the flight. But I think if I go to anywhere,
I mean, you know, for example, in the Middle East,
I will try and if I've got some spare time,
then I would try and have a dinner in a
good restaurant.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And what is it like the food is it?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I mean a lot of the restaurants you get in
the in the Middle East will be restaurants where they're
serving international food, if you like. But I think one
thing that's happening around the world is a lot of
you know, you get emerging new cooks and chefs cooking
traditional food from their culture, but they're doing it in
a much more innovative and exciting and interesting way. I
(10:48):
had a actually a great meal not so long ago.
Because my institute now works in over forty different countries,
we're very busy around the different parts of the world,
and we've we have project in Guyana and there was
a restaurant there that it was suggested I went to
because I said, I knew I had an evening free
(11:08):
in the capital city, and so I said, it's a
really good restaurant eating And they said, well, you know,
there's this place in the place, but the very best
food is this place the backyard. But it's not suitable
for you because it is literally a backyard. I mean
it's someone's it's a small house and it's the backyard.
It was a backyard. But the chef was fantastic. There
(11:29):
were fruits that I'd literally never tasted before, and the
food was just exceptional. And I think wherever you are
in the in the world, you can today you will
find people who are innovating in food. And I think
it's a very you know it's a very good and
healthy thing. And I often say to the leaders I'm
dealing with, if you are giving a dinner for visiting
(11:52):
foreign leaders, serve your local produce and your local cuisine,
don't you know. I remember when I first went to China.
Used to go there and they would serve you Western food.
They'd serve you a very sad looking lamb chop, and
I in the conversation with him, saying, you've got one
of the great cuisines of the world. Serve that, which
I think they do far more now. But it's an
(12:15):
important thing if you want to showcase your country. The
cuisine is an important part of the culture.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just
steps away from the restaurant is now open in the
morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and crostada from
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(12:46):
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the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar.
No need to book see you here. You grew up
in Edinburgh, right, Well.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I went to I was born in Edinburgh, I went
to school in Edinburgh. My family came from Ireland, but
we spent a lot of time in Glasgow, so it
was and then Durham in the northeast. So we were
kind of a bit of a mix.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And what was the food your memories of food in
your house? Who cooked?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So my mother cooked? And I mean I knew it
was coming on the podcast and going to speak to you.
I could remember some things. And then I asked my
brother and my sister for the any of their memories,
and oh, my good as a whole there was a
whole explosion of yeah, yeah, so and I completely forgotten
(13:44):
things like my mum cooked curries, which is quite unusual
for British people to do in the nineteen sixties. She
introduced me to cachery. She did a wonderful toad in
the hole sausage with round it. Yeah, you know, the
classics she had.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
She did she have a career, did she work?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
No? But she was actually a super good cook. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Sounds like in your house, what would you do? Come
home and start doing your homework and then have dinner
around the table or every night. You'd have to know
pretty much.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
And I always remember when we would go in the
seaside was not so far away from us, in the
northeast of England, and we'd occasionally go up to from
Durham to Northumberland and go by the seaside and the
great treat was to stab fish and chips in the
in the car at the end of a of a
day when usually it was too cold to swim. But yeah,
(14:41):
but she was interested in food, and all sorts of
memories came back about tell me pineapple upside down cake,
baked Alaska she did, which is actually quite I think
quite difficult to do probably, But.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
What would that be? What year? What decade was that?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's all been the sixties, early seventies.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And would she have come from a home that cared
about food or.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Well, she came from her father who died when she
was quite young, was a farmer, actually a Protestant farmer
in the south of Ireland or in the Republic of Isoland.
And then when he died, her mother remarried a butcher
in Glasgow. So we always had you know.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Good that was your step grandfather.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, that was my step grandfather. And I remember he'd
had an accident when he was young, so he was
he had hit a limp and walk with a stick.
And some of my earliest memories were going down to
the Glasgow meat market with him when he would go
and you know, you go down these great rows of
carcasses hung up and he would tap them with his
stick and decide which ones he wanted to take his business. So, yeah,
(15:52):
they say, and my grandmother cooked as well. You know,
she cooked stews, roasts, I mean, very traditional stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
But to grab in a house where one night you
had bachel ask and one night you heard pineapple offside
down cake and tone the whole and a curry so
it was a currie. Do you think that was just
from her ambition to cook or.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Did she Yeah, and I think it was because she
was I mean, I mean I think at the time
not many people were making curries. I mean obviously later
it became completely different. I think she had the funny
credit cookbook. Yes that's mine.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I have a chef here who has said that she
was from Wales. In her she and her mother entertained
she had to do those kind of rolls of butter
and there was a kind of I think there was
probably a resurgence you know, of cooking maybe in the
sixties after also probably after the terribleness of rationing.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, they were rationing the war. Yeah, but people people did.
The great leap forward in Britain I think came later
the late days nineties. It really started then and then yeah,
because I mean Britain say you can eat well. But
there was a time when Franklin it was a struggle.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But I never come down hard on British for that
because they did come from a war and they came
from rushing, and so I always say cut them some
slack when people say how food bad food was until.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, it was also I think there was this thing
at the time. I remember I used to have this
debate quite often because I represented then a Northeast constituency
near to where I was brought up. And you know,
now it is much much better, by the way, but
at the time when I first came there, I mean,
the food was poor. And I used to have this
debate with people where they'd say, yeah, but you know,
(17:37):
working class people, they're not so interested in fancy food
and all the rest of it. And I was just
say I can't believe anyone's my interest in food. And
you know, it's a ridiculous piece of snobbery to think
that if you come from working class background, Okay, maybe
you can't afford some of the fancy dishes, but why
would you want to eat bad food rather than good.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
For And it's very patronizing and as you say.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And it turns out it's wrong because now a lot
of these places have got good, good pubs and restaurants
and do.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well, did you go out to restaurants as a child?
Would your parents take you out occasionally? They for special
occasions or would.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
You but yeah, it we'd have to be pretty special occasion.
And then when we would go on a holiday to France,
for example, we would we would eat in restaurants there
and that was that was great.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
That So your parents took you to Europe? Did you
as a child? Well? Three of you?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, well three of us and we would drive down
there and usually rent a little place. And certainly then
in a lot of the small villages. We used to
go to the Pyrenees a lot, and the small villages
there you would you would go to a restaurant that
wouldn't really be a menu. You just sometimes you sit
at a long table and they'll just be whatever they had,
But it was always good.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
What did your father do? What was his? What was his?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So my father was a lawyer. He was also an
aspiring politician, and he was a conservative in fact, and
he was head of the local Conservative association. And then
just before the nineteen sixty four election he was going
to become an MP. He'd been selected for a good
Conservative seat and unfortunately he had a very serious stroke
(19:11):
that kind of ended his career all together. How old
was he was forty?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Now he had a stroke when he was forty. How
old are you ten?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So it was quite a big moment for our family, obviously,
because all our circumstances changed overnight. But I know he
then lived for another almost half century.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Actually, I was able to travel to and take you
on trips.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yes, I mean he never fully recovered, but he recovered
enough to better work again and so on. But I
remember conversations around the table. My earliest political conversations were
around that table where they have aspiring conservative politicians would
come and pay him a visit because they would want
nominations in the local constituencies and so on. Usually young
(19:58):
conservative those who wanted to be MPs. So some of
my earliest conversations around politics, which is absorbing that, I guess.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, as a child to be around the table. I
did an interview with Valerie Biden, President Biden's sister, and
she described having that that was orchestrated in a very
There were I think six children, there was a very
Catholic Irish family, you know, and that every night there
was a conversation about a political issue. Did that meals
(20:28):
around the table? Did that matter to you?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, I mean it was, it was. I guess my
earliest political memories were doing that. I mean I wasn't
particularly part of the conversation that I was just listening
to it, but I was aware of it, and I
remember things from it. And I remember some of the people.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
That came and your mother would cook them and the
children would be there'd be present.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I mean, I was sort of feeling that my mum
was not fully signed up to the conservative course. Actually yeah,
I mean she never sort of expressed a view particularly
on it, but that was always my impression. But you know,
the food to which you cook the food.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Obviously, when you were young, we went to boarding school
at what age thirteen? Was that a big change for
you to go from these very domestic, cozy dinners, family
dinners to a boarding school.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I mean the absence of good food was only one
of the changes, as it were, it was quite a
I mean, look, I always say to be like, I
got a good education at the school, so I'm grateful
to the school for that. But the food was awful.
I'm afraid. The only thing they could get just about
got right was the breakfast because you got porridge because
it was a Scottish school. And the one thing I
(21:40):
do remember is that the bread rolls that they would
have would usually be fresh. The breakfast went too bad,
but some of the other meals.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Did they force you to eat as well?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Did you have to did you have to finish for
you when you're a young teenager growing up hungry? So
in the annual eat pretty much enery, which we did,
you know during holiday times of course, I'd come back home,
so yeah, and you'd have half terms and I remember
I also had This is interesting, So my father was
(22:09):
actually brought up as a foster child. He was he
was his real mother left him with someone because she
was on the stage. She was an actress and anyways,
a long story, but he never got given back, so
he stayed with my foster grandmother. But we used to
(22:32):
go through because the schools in Edinbury used to go
through to Glasgow where she would live. And she lived
in one of the corporation flats in Glasgow, and I
remember it was always a treat with her Scotch pie.
It's kind of like a mutton insider inside a crusty pie,
and you'd have it with baked beans and Scotch pries.
I mean it's years since I've had one, but they
(22:53):
actually really good, and I remember that you'd have it
hot hot, they'd make you know, it's like the Scottish loads.
I remember as well. They had a different type of
loaf in Scotland where the outside of it would be
much the crust would be much firmer and stronger, and
(23:13):
it was very good bread to toast.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
From fatties coming home and going to that school. You
then took a gap year or what did you do?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I took a gap year. I came down to London
and I did various things, you know, with music.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
But well, tell me what did you do?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Well? For a time I worked in Barker's food store
down in the basement, and then I.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Was that in Kensington High School.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
It was in Kensington High Street. And then I we
myself and a few friends used to manage some groups
and put on some gigs and things, and we started
to make enough money so I could give up the
Barker's job and did that for a year.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And you had your own flat. And do you remember
any of the food sperience as your head as a
young adventurer in London.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I do remember that.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
I can remember a meal.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Remember was that I had a girlfriend whose mum was
a fantastic cook. That's good, Yeah, that was good because
I wasn't eating a very well during that I wasn't
eating there. I wasn't really eating much at all.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Do you remember what you ate? What she cooked?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
What I remember is that for the first time in
my life I had spinach and broccoli and liked it
because we used to do this strange thing back in
the old days in Britain where you just boil these things.
You just boil them and they just be there boiled
(24:42):
and usually over boiled. So it was not a pleasant experience.
And I remember the first time thinking it is really tasty.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
End of mine was talking about how now that women
had careers, this is a long time ago, they didn't
have time to cook and they thought what a sad
thing that is. But actually vegetables would be better because
they wouldn't have the time to boil for an hour.
Hurry up, we only have an hour to dinner. Get
the cabbage on.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Boil them disintegration. Yeah, cabbage was the other thing I remember. Yeah,
that's right. I remember she did the cabbage in her
I didn't didn't like cabbage either, and this was the
first time it was done with her. I can't remember
exactly what was in it, but I remember tasting and thinking,
because I've been school, cabbage up to them have been
(25:28):
my experience.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Did you but did you ever? We were ever attempted
to cook at all? When you were?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
When I went to university and for my first period
I was it was in the hall, and then I
shared a house with one of my friends and myself
and my my friend who was a guy, and three women.
And I remember, you know, when we all sat down
(25:54):
and said, right, everyone's taking turns and cooking. And I
said said, wow, I can't cook, And so the women
said we're going to show you. So they did. I
remember making stews, the traditional kind of spaghetti, boligneers type stuff,
maybe the odd roast, but I needed a lot of
supervision to be to be absolute frank, it was, I
(26:14):
should say that I went to We just joined the
European Union in the UK is in the seventies, and
one of the great things was you could just go
and work in any European country. So I decided to
go to Paris. And I just decided to go there.
I literally went there. I knew someone who was there.
I mean a bit live when I came down to London.
(26:34):
I never really been to London before. I just turned
up and thought, you know, let's get on with it.
And so I went to Paris. I worked in a
restaurant there, in a hotel.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Do you remember the name.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
The hotel was called the Hotel Superindu La tour was
just by the Eiffel Tower. And I was just I
was a comedy du bar. I was just a you know, waiter.
But in Paris you had well virtually any anywhere and
even in the in the cheapest of restaurants. And then
at the end of my time, because I then did
some sorry, this had been nineteen seventy six, I think.
(27:06):
And then I worked for a time for an organization
called the Group DISASSINOLSNACNL, which is which was a nationalized
insurance company. And I remember the great thing was every
morning I was I was this young guy in the
office and it was just me. I was just a
gopher in the office, and there would be all I
(27:27):
think there was mean about twenty women in this office.
I don't think. I think I was the only man
who was in there. But every morning, before we settled
down to work, they would discuss the meals they'd had
the night before. I'm just thinking, this is, this is wonderful.
And I would be sent off to the local patisserie
to get in a croissant, cakes for everyone. And then
(27:47):
when I finished that I spent a few weeks, they
gave me a bonus and I took a bite. You
used to have this thing which you would hire a
bike and have a train ticket at the same time.
And I went down to the door doin and I
cycled round it. And I remember going to places right
up in the in the hills and having these fantastic meals,
(28:07):
really really great French, very simple French cooking and I
think that was when I I've always been interested in
but that's when I decided this is something I like,
so something that matters to me.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I think they except, you know, as you say,
to be able to arrive in a small town in
the middle of France and have a meal that's care,
it's part of the culture. Always say that Melbourne has
a great food culture. But then when you go to
Paris and the taxi curfer can tell you how to
poach a seabars or they will tell you in the patisserie,
there's no your point about fresh bread that if you
(28:42):
want bread for lunch, you go in the morning, and
you can want bread for dinner you go in the afternoon.
That was the bigetts. Yeah, and you can have a
big gette which was crusty or non crusty. You could
have a croissant that had butter or no butter. It's
just so imbued when you travel, do you do you
think about what you're going to eat when you go to.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
So with Si, I mean we it was It's always
been important to us and when we would go on
holiday particularly, we would always trying to used to go
a lot to France and we get out that Michelin
Guide with the the restaurants that were not the Michelin
Star ones, but they used to have this thing called
(29:24):
Redar which was good food of reasonable prices, and it
was my job was to plan out the itinerary for
eating out.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
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, O, wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you. We would be a missed opportunity if we
(30:02):
didn't talk about food and politics, and we were talking
about Jamie Oliver and his campaign for school food. You
know that there's a great poster saying today four hundred
thousand children in Britain will have the same thing for dinner.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
And we found out during COVID when kids didn't go
to school, that they weren't being fed and that we
live in a country, or we live in a world
where we know that there is food inequality. And I
know you're dealing a lot with climate. Is that a
concern of yours?
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yes, I mean I think one of the reasons why
when I was in government we did a lot on
early years education. Sure start and school meals indeed with
Jamie is because could you not go to school and
be hungry, because they won't learn so well, And to
give them an appreciation of good food early and healthy
(30:56):
food is important. It's going to be important for their
later life. And I think we know much more about
nutrition today than we ever used to, so I think
there's a lot you can do there, and then on
a more kind of global scale with some of the
work we do with governments. For example, the new president
in Indonesia, his principal program is all around school meals
(31:18):
for children, and I think there's a recognition in countries
where previously there wasn't of the importance of this. But
I also think there's a whole set of policies around
famine and agriculture which we can develop with the use
of technology to a much much better degree today. And
there are still many of the countries we work in
(31:38):
in Africa, because we're in roughly twenty different countries in
Africa and we work with the governments there. But I
would say large numbers of those countries will import a
lot of basic food stuffs when they've got a large
amount of arable land. And then one thing that's in
a way almost worse because it deprives them of income.
And it's something we work on with some kind of tries,
(32:00):
is how you add value to the food that you create.
So you will have countries that, for example, will produce
the raw commodity of nuts, but then they will be
sent to Vietnam or to India to process and then
come back into that country. And obviously then it's not
merely that you're losing the income from that, but you're
losing the higher value added skills that come with that,
(32:23):
and thatfore your economy really suffers. So there's a whole
series of things I think we need to do today
around food, how we grow it, where we grow it.
I think there'll be a lot of work done on
drought resistant crops, which are going to be necessary for
the future because of climate is changing. And how you
raise productivity when you look at different countries equal potential,
(32:45):
but one country will be producing from the same land
four or five times the amount of crops.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
And so this brings us to your book on leadership,
Tony Blair, Lessons for the twenty first Century. So this
is a book that was published in September. I would
love you to tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, So it's an unusual book in a wait because
when I said to the publishers, I want to write
a book about the lessons I've learned from governing and leadership,
not just in my time as Prime Minister, but in
the work that i've been doing now for the last
seventeen years with governments around the world. And I think
they struggled at first to think of whether a book
(33:24):
on governing could be of any interest to anyone. But
I've tried to write it therefore, in a style that
is short chapters, just about what I think of the
lessons of leadership and really apply whether you're in government
or you're running a country, a company, a community center. Family, Yeah, parenting, parenting. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
I was reading it and I thought these are.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Someone else said that to me.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Actually, yeah, about listening, about being honest, this is about family,
to be about friends.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Well, most of the learnings have come through mistakes. I
have to say. When you come into a position of leadership,
when you first come in, you know you know nothing,
so you're very open to learning. The second stage of
leadership is you've then got your feet under the table.
You've been doing a whole lot of stuff. And the
risk is you think you know everything and you stop listening.
(34:16):
The thing that you should aspire to is to get
to the third stage of leadership, where you realize what
you do know and you realize what you don't know,
you understand the difference, and you're back to listening again.
And it's the dangerous when you get stuck on two.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I have to say that when we knew that we
had to close the restaurant for COVID, and we didn't
know where to know how we do it, and I thought,
we have to get all the staff together, it's about
leadership and tell them that they're not going to come
to work. We don't know for how long weeks or
months or this was such a serious thing that what
we were going to do and how are we going
to do it? And so we said, okay, get everyone
(34:52):
to come in at four o'clock and we'll sit down.
And I went, I googled how to tell yourself bad news.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, I guess what.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Harvard Business School. I told you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Of course, how to give your staff bad news.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
You know, the first thing you do is tell them
what's going to happen. Then you tell them step two
is how it will affect them, and then number three
was what you're going to do to help them. It
was just but as you say, I've been working in
this restaurant for a long time, and you say, the
first step is to know that you know, and then
the second one is to know that you don't know,
and the third one is to get some help. So
(35:29):
I think it's a very very important book and everybody
listening should buy it and read it and write to
me and tell me how much you like it. When
we're going to eat in the River Cuffet have dinner,
but before you do go, we do have a question
that we do ask everyone, and it is about food.
(35:50):
Is teaching about the culture. If food is feeding your
children or going to a state dinner, or entertaining the queen,
it's also comfort when you do need comfort for it.
Is there a food that you would actually go to.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I would go for something very simple. I still can
cook a decent omelet. I would do that
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Probably tell me that and the bread would be fresh,
The bread would definitely be Thank you, Jim
This episode is brought to you by Me and M,
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(00:22):
It's my go to for styles that are comfortable enough
to wear in the kitchen or the restaurant, also polished
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its stores across London, Edinburgh, New York. If you're in London,
I'd really recommend heading to their beautiful, brand new flagship
store in Marlevin, which opens on the twenty ninth of October.
(00:48):
I'm often asked about the quality I look for when
interviewing a chef. Is it the way they make an
omelet own a fish, or perform under stress? For me,
the answer is easy. The quality I look for is
quite simply curiosity. The world knows Tony Blair as a
visionary leader prime Minister. I know him as a close
(01:10):
and loyal friend, but most of all, he is curious
and the first dinner we had for him in our
home in nineteen ninety six, he went straight into the
kitchen to talk to a young, inexperienced chef, Jamie Oliver,
asking how he was making the rottolo di spinacci. Tony
Blair has been interviewed countless times, but tonight on Ruthie's
(01:32):
table before, we're going to look at his life and
his career through memories of food, food in politics, food
and family, And tonight the curiosity is all mine.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Thank you, Bolle.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So the recipe that you chose is grilled and roasted
wild sea bass. Would you like to read the recipe?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Sure a lot could have chosen fifteen different things. I'm
just delighted on this because I like it's kind of simplicity.
Grilled and rose did wild sea bass serves four to
six one three kilogram wild sea bass. Two tablespoons fennyl seeds,
two lemons, sliced parsley stalks, fresh fennel bulbs, trimmed and sliced,
(02:17):
juice of one lemon, seventy five mil white wine, and
extra virgin olive oil. Preheat oven to two hundred degrees.
Season the inside of the fish with fennel seeds and
season well. Brush the skin with olive oil, and grill
on a cast iron, ridged or oven grill for five
(02:37):
to six minutes on each side. Put the lemon, parsley,
remaining fennel seeds in a roasting tin and lay the
sea bass over. Drizzle the lemon juice, olive oil, white wine,
and the remaining herbs and vegetables. Bait for thirty minutes
or until the fish is firm to the touch. Delicious
with salsa verdi.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Thank you. I was really really pleased that you chose
this recipe because it's two methods. It's grilled, so you
have the chargrill on the outside, but then you have
the juiciness of actually taking it. Was there a reason
you chose it or did you just?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I often if I'm in a restaurant, will order fish,
just simple fish, and especially when when you if you
get a nice white fish, which I've just been in
Greece recently and they do that very well. You know,
take it from the sea and it's it's a white fish.
You add a little bit of olive oil and lemon
and it's it's it's very simple, but it's beautiful and tasty.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, that's I mean, that is the difference I think
between Greek, Mediterranean food Italian of the South of France
is that there's not a lot of sauce. You know,
you just have the great ingredient and then you trust
it to be It's.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like, yeah, and I think it's it's you know, it's
fantastic when you're the food is just very simple but
well cooked, well prepared, and you know, it's things like
if you even if you're like a tomato salad, it's
a very simple thing. But if the tomatoes are really
nice and it's done with a nice dressing on it,
(04:13):
I mean it's beautiful. So I'm I'm not a great
one for very fancy sources, to be honest.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Although sometimes to go to Paris and have a delicious,
well kind of turbot with the bourblog not that.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
And by the way, one thing I always say to
people because sometimes people say to me, what's your favorite
type of cooking? Yeah, and I say I don't have one. Yeah,
I mean I like good food. I appreciate good food.
And I could eat Thai, I could eat Japanese and
eat French, I could eat Italian, I could eat Greek,
and I could eat English or Scottish.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
So Downing Street is in office, it's a public space,
it's a governmental space, but it's also a home. And
you were there with young children and you presumably they
came home from school and you sat down to me
or did you not. Did you have a certain way
that this was work and then you would have family
(05:05):
time at the weekends. Was there a sort of routine
or structure for being a family.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Or before going into Downing Street. I mean, we did
have a much more structured life, but then once you
become premnise to frankly, your schedules just packed, and so
at the weekends, usually when we were through in checkers,
we would eat all together and that would be great,
But otherwise it was pretty hand to mouth. When my
(05:31):
kids knew I was coming on this podcast, they said
to me, are you going to tell them that you
used to cook for us and that your cooking was terrible?
And I said, well, now, what I might just do
is just say that the meals I cooked for my
children were memorable. Memorable, believe it at that? So yeah,
(05:51):
I mean no, Downing Street was just too busy.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
There wasn't a maybe there still isn't a Downing Street
chef that hooks markfast lunch, and there wasn't. I know,
at the White House they have the residents, and I
know that the State Department is very careful with ambassadors
about what they can spend on parties and food. But
to have the Office of the Prime Minister, you would
think that there was a yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And by the way, in our embassies you can eat
very well in British embassies abroad in the Elisa you get.
I think it's a high quality for n actually and
very traditional French cooking.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
You didn't give very many state dinners at Downing Street
that you would know. I didn't be at the Palace.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I almost took the view with we didn't. I mean,
occasionally I would do it and if someone really wanted
to have a dinner. But I with other political leaders,
I mean, I just know what I feel like. You know,
when you're engaged with the political leader, I mean, you know,
maybe you have a drink together and so on, and
maybe you do have a meal together occasionally, but you
want to do business. You want to sort out the
(06:55):
business of the day. And then if you're a foreign
leader and you're visiting and you're in London, and you know,
maybe Franklin would like to go out and spend some
time with you, your friends or colleagues, and rather than
be within the formality of these dinners, which on the
whole I never felt yielded a great deal.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Was there any in your memory that wasn't in China
or in Russia, or in Germany or France? Was there
a steak dinner that really well brings in memory?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
There wasn't a state dinners where the head of state,
So the only state dinner in the UK would be
the Queen obviously giving the dinner, and where again the
food is pretty good actually, but I do remember one
really memorable meal. So France and the UK and Germany
(07:44):
we were all together in this consort HM to build
the airbus three eighty okay, and we visited Toulouse, which
is where part of the plane was being built, and
so the leaders all went there, and she actually was
the president at the time. And I remember we after
we visited the plant and saw the plane and so on,
(08:07):
we sat down and we had a I think they
called it a cas.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Yeah, it was completed. What was it like? What was was.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Just with with the beans and the beans yeah, and
the sausage and it was unbelievably good. And the funny
thing was, so Jacques Shiaq, who's you know, a big,
big figure and someone I actually, despite our disagreements politically
from time to time, I liked greatly. But the strange
thing about Jacques was he didn't drink wine. He's a
French president, didn't drink wine wine, And I don't think
(08:39):
it was very interested in food. I mean, I'm and
so I was saying to it this. He was talking
to me about the airbus three eighteen. I was saying
to him, Jacques, you gotta understand this food is absolutely unbelievable.
And I think he's always a bit eccentric after a time,
because I was calling the chef over and talking to
him and saying like, okay, that is a memorable.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
I went to Richard and I were living in Paris
and David Owen was given a dinner at the k
Doors and we were invited. We've been to various dinners here,
but that one was there was a footman behind every plasma.
Everyone had their own liveried footman behind you in the service,
(09:23):
and the grandeur of the palace was it was something
to behold. What about in Buckingham Palace? Was that more?
Did you ever have to have the Queen to Downing
Street or would you always go to the palace?
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Well, we did once at the Queen to Downing Street
when all myself and the other prime ministers people have
been prime minister, we all had a dinner with her.
She said, well you all know each other anyway, But yeah,
that was I don't remember the details of it.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
And now on your travels, you know, coming up to now,
do you have a kind of ROUTINEO Do you have
a way that you eat when you're traveling When you
know you're taking a long flight, do you eat on
the flight or.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Do you mean will I mean I will eat on
the flight. But I think if I go to anywhere,
I mean, you know, for example, in the Middle East,
I will try and if I've got some spare time,
then I would try and have a dinner in a
good restaurant.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And what is it like the food is it?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I mean a lot of the restaurants you get in
the in the Middle East will be restaurants where they're
serving international food, if you like. But I think one
thing that's happening around the world is a lot of
you know, you get emerging new cooks and chefs cooking
traditional food from their culture, but they're doing it in
a much more innovative and exciting and interesting way. I
(10:48):
had a actually a great meal not so long ago.
Because my institute now works in over forty different countries,
we're very busy around the different parts of the world,
and we've we have project in Guyana and there was
a restaurant there that it was suggested I went to
because I said, I knew I had an evening free
(11:08):
in the capital city, and so I said, it's a
really good restaurant eating And they said, well, you know,
there's this place in the place, but the very best
food is this place the backyard. But it's not suitable
for you because it is literally a backyard. I mean
it's someone's it's a small house and it's the backyard.
It was a backyard. But the chef was fantastic. There
(11:29):
were fruits that I'd literally never tasted before, and the
food was just exceptional. And I think wherever you are
in the in the world, you can today you will
find people who are innovating in food. And I think
it's a very you know it's a very good and
healthy thing. And I often say to the leaders I'm
dealing with, if you are giving a dinner for visiting
(11:52):
foreign leaders, serve your local produce and your local cuisine,
don't you know. I remember when I first went to China.
Used to go there and they would serve you Western food.
They'd serve you a very sad looking lamb chop, and
I in the conversation with him, saying, you've got one
of the great cuisines of the world. Serve that, which
I think they do far more now. But it's an
(12:15):
important thing if you want to showcase your country. The
cuisine is an important part of the culture.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
The River Cafe Cafe are all day space and just
steps away from the restaurant is now open in the
morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti, chiambella and crostada from
our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon ice creamed coops and
River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates Slumi misti, mozzarella, briusquetto,
(12:46):
red and yellow peppers, Fortello, tonato and more. Come in
the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar.
No need to book see you here. You grew up
in Edinburgh, right, Well.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I went to I was born in Edinburgh, I went
to school in Edinburgh. My family came from Ireland, but
we spent a lot of time in Glasgow, so it
was and then Durham in the northeast. So we were
kind of a bit of a mix.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
And what was the food your memories of food in
your house? Who cooked?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So my mother cooked? And I mean I knew it
was coming on the podcast and going to speak to you.
I could remember some things. And then I asked my
brother and my sister for the any of their memories,
and oh, my good as a whole there was a
whole explosion of yeah, yeah, so and I completely forgotten
(13:44):
things like my mum cooked curries, which is quite unusual
for British people to do in the nineteen sixties. She
introduced me to cachery. She did a wonderful toad in
the hole sausage with round it. Yeah, you know, the
classics she had.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
She did she have a career, did she work?
Speaker 2 (14:04):
No? But she was actually a super good cook. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Sounds like in your house, what would you do? Come
home and start doing your homework and then have dinner
around the table or every night. You'd have to know
pretty much.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
And I always remember when we would go in the
seaside was not so far away from us, in the
northeast of England, and we'd occasionally go up to from
Durham to Northumberland and go by the seaside and the
great treat was to stab fish and chips in the
in the car at the end of a of a
day when usually it was too cold to swim. But yeah,
(14:41):
but she was interested in food, and all sorts of
memories came back about tell me pineapple upside down cake,
baked Alaska she did, which is actually quite I think
quite difficult to do probably, But.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
What would that be? What year? What decade was that?
Speaker 2 (14:59):
It's all been the sixties, early seventies.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
And would she have come from a home that cared
about food or.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
Well, she came from her father who died when she
was quite young, was a farmer, actually a Protestant farmer
in the south of Ireland or in the Republic of Isoland.
And then when he died, her mother remarried a butcher
in Glasgow. So we always had you know.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
Good that was your step grandfather.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Yeah, that was my step grandfather. And I remember he'd
had an accident when he was young, so he was
he had hit a limp and walk with a stick.
And some of my earliest memories were going down to
the Glasgow meat market with him when he would go
and you know, you go down these great rows of
carcasses hung up and he would tap them with his
stick and decide which ones he wanted to take his business. So, yeah,
(15:52):
they say, and my grandmother cooked as well. You know,
she cooked stews, roasts, I mean, very traditional stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
But to grab in a house where one night you
had bachel ask and one night you heard pineapple offside
down cake and tone the whole and a curry so
it was a currie. Do you think that was just
from her ambition to cook or.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Did she Yeah, and I think it was because she
was I mean, I mean I think at the time
not many people were making curries. I mean obviously later
it became completely different. I think she had the funny
credit cookbook. Yes that's mine.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
I have a chef here who has said that she
was from Wales. In her she and her mother entertained
she had to do those kind of rolls of butter
and there was a kind of I think there was
probably a resurgence you know, of cooking maybe in the
sixties after also probably after the terribleness of rationing.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
Yeah, they were rationing the war. Yeah, but people people did.
The great leap forward in Britain I think came later
the late days nineties. It really started then and then yeah,
because I mean Britain say you can eat well. But
there was a time when Franklin it was a struggle.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
But I never come down hard on British for that
because they did come from a war and they came
from rushing, and so I always say cut them some
slack when people say how food bad food was until.
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, it was also I think there was this thing
at the time. I remember I used to have this
debate quite often because I represented then a Northeast constituency
near to where I was brought up. And you know,
now it is much much better, by the way, but
at the time when I first came there, I mean,
the food was poor. And I used to have this
debate with people where they'd say, yeah, but you know,
(17:37):
working class people, they're not so interested in fancy food
and all the rest of it. And I was just
say I can't believe anyone's my interest in food. And
you know, it's a ridiculous piece of snobbery to think
that if you come from working class background, Okay, maybe
you can't afford some of the fancy dishes, but why
would you want to eat bad food rather than good.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
For And it's very patronizing and as you say.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
And it turns out it's wrong because now a lot
of these places have got good, good pubs and restaurants
and do.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well, did you go out to restaurants as a child?
Would your parents take you out occasionally? They for special
occasions or would.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
You but yeah, it we'd have to be pretty special occasion.
And then when we would go on a holiday to France,
for example, we would we would eat in restaurants there
and that was that was great.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
That So your parents took you to Europe? Did you
as a child? Well? Three of you?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
Yeah, well three of us and we would drive down
there and usually rent a little place. And certainly then
in a lot of the small villages. We used to
go to the Pyrenees a lot, and the small villages
there you would you would go to a restaurant that
wouldn't really be a menu. You just sometimes you sit
at a long table and they'll just be whatever they had,
But it was always good.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
What did your father do? What was his? What was his?
Speaker 2 (18:50):
So my father was a lawyer. He was also an
aspiring politician, and he was a conservative in fact, and
he was head of the local Conservative association. And then
just before the nineteen sixty four election he was going
to become an MP. He'd been selected for a good
Conservative seat and unfortunately he had a very serious stroke
(19:11):
that kind of ended his career all together. How old
was he was forty?
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Now he had a stroke when he was forty. How
old are you ten?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So it was quite a big moment for our family, obviously,
because all our circumstances changed overnight. But I know he
then lived for another almost half century.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
Actually, I was able to travel to and take you
on trips.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Yes, I mean he never fully recovered, but he recovered
enough to better work again and so on. But I
remember conversations around the table. My earliest political conversations were
around that table where they have aspiring conservative politicians would
come and pay him a visit because they would want
nominations in the local constituencies and so on. Usually young
(19:58):
conservative those who wanted to be MPs. So some of
my earliest conversations around politics, which is absorbing that, I guess.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Yeah, as a child to be around the table. I
did an interview with Valerie Biden, President Biden's sister, and
she described having that that was orchestrated in a very
There were I think six children, there was a very
Catholic Irish family, you know, and that every night there
was a conversation about a political issue. Did that meals
(20:28):
around the table? Did that matter to you?
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, I mean it was, it was. I guess my
earliest political memories were doing that. I mean I wasn't
particularly part of the conversation that I was just listening
to it, but I was aware of it, and I
remember things from it. And I remember some of the people.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
That came and your mother would cook them and the
children would be there'd be present.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I mean, I was sort of feeling that my mum
was not fully signed up to the conservative course. Actually yeah,
I mean she never sort of expressed a view particularly
on it, but that was always my impression. But you know,
the food to which you cook the food.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Obviously, when you were young, we went to boarding school
at what age thirteen? Was that a big change for
you to go from these very domestic, cozy dinners, family
dinners to a boarding school.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I mean the absence of good food was only one
of the changes, as it were, it was quite a
I mean, look, I always say to be like, I
got a good education at the school, so I'm grateful
to the school for that. But the food was awful.
I'm afraid. The only thing they could get just about
got right was the breakfast because you got porridge because
it was a Scottish school. And the one thing I
(21:40):
do remember is that the bread rolls that they would
have would usually be fresh. The breakfast went too bad,
but some of the other meals.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Did they force you to eat as well?
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Did you have to did you have to finish for
you when you're a young teenager growing up hungry? So
in the annual eat pretty much enery, which we did,
you know during holiday times of course, I'd come back home,
so yeah, and you'd have half terms and I remember
I also had This is interesting, So my father was
(22:09):
actually brought up as a foster child. He was he
was his real mother left him with someone because she
was on the stage. She was an actress and anyways,
a long story, but he never got given back, so
he stayed with my foster grandmother. But we used to
(22:32):
go through because the schools in Edinbury used to go
through to Glasgow where she would live. And she lived
in one of the corporation flats in Glasgow, and I
remember it was always a treat with her Scotch pie.
It's kind of like a mutton insider inside a crusty pie,
and you'd have it with baked beans and Scotch pries.
I mean it's years since I've had one, but they
(22:53):
actually really good, and I remember that you'd have it
hot hot, they'd make you know, it's like the Scottish loads.
I remember as well. They had a different type of
loaf in Scotland where the outside of it would be
much the crust would be much firmer and stronger, and
(23:13):
it was very good bread to toast.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
From fatties coming home and going to that school. You
then took a gap year or what did you do?
Speaker 2 (23:24):
I took a gap year. I came down to London
and I did various things, you know, with music.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
But well, tell me what did you do?
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Well? For a time I worked in Barker's food store
down in the basement, and then I.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Was that in Kensington High School.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
It was in Kensington High Street. And then I we
myself and a few friends used to manage some groups
and put on some gigs and things, and we started
to make enough money so I could give up the
Barker's job and did that for a year.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And you had your own flat. And do you remember
any of the food sperience as your head as a
young adventurer in London.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I do remember that.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
I can remember a meal.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Remember was that I had a girlfriend whose mum was
a fantastic cook. That's good, Yeah, that was good because
I wasn't eating a very well during that I wasn't
eating there. I wasn't really eating much at all.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Do you remember what you ate? What she cooked?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
What I remember is that for the first time in
my life I had spinach and broccoli and liked it
because we used to do this strange thing back in
the old days in Britain where you just boil these things.
You just boil them and they just be there boiled
(24:42):
and usually over boiled. So it was not a pleasant experience.
And I remember the first time thinking it is really tasty.
Speaker 1 (24:50):
End of mine was talking about how now that women
had careers, this is a long time ago, they didn't
have time to cook and they thought what a sad
thing that is. But actually vegetables would be better because
they wouldn't have the time to boil for an hour.
Hurry up, we only have an hour to dinner. Get
the cabbage on.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Boil them disintegration. Yeah, cabbage was the other thing I remember. Yeah,
that's right. I remember she did the cabbage in her
I didn't didn't like cabbage either, and this was the
first time it was done with her. I can't remember
exactly what was in it, but I remember tasting and thinking,
because I've been school, cabbage up to them have been
(25:28):
my experience.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Did you but did you ever? We were ever attempted
to cook at all? When you were?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
When I went to university and for my first period
I was it was in the hall, and then I
shared a house with one of my friends and myself
and my my friend who was a guy, and three women.
And I remember, you know, when we all sat down
(25:54):
and said, right, everyone's taking turns and cooking. And I
said said, wow, I can't cook, And so the women
said we're going to show you. So they did. I
remember making stews, the traditional kind of spaghetti, boligneers type stuff,
maybe the odd roast, but I needed a lot of
supervision to be to be absolute frank, it was, I
(26:14):
should say that I went to We just joined the
European Union in the UK is in the seventies, and
one of the great things was you could just go
and work in any European country. So I decided to
go to Paris. And I just decided to go there.
I literally went there. I knew someone who was there.
I mean a bit live when I came down to London.
(26:34):
I never really been to London before. I just turned
up and thought, you know, let's get on with it.
And so I went to Paris. I worked in a
restaurant there, in a hotel.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Do you remember the name.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
The hotel was called the Hotel Superindu La tour was
just by the Eiffel Tower. And I was just I
was a comedy du bar. I was just a you know, waiter.
But in Paris you had well virtually any anywhere and
even in the in the cheapest of restaurants. And then
at the end of my time, because I then did
some sorry, this had been nineteen seventy six, I think.
(27:06):
And then I worked for a time for an organization
called the Group DISASSINOLSNACNL, which is which was a nationalized
insurance company. And I remember the great thing was every
morning I was I was this young guy in the
office and it was just me. I was just a
gopher in the office, and there would be all I
(27:27):
think there was mean about twenty women in this office.
I don't think. I think I was the only man
who was in there. But every morning, before we settled
down to work, they would discuss the meals they'd had
the night before. I'm just thinking, this is, this is wonderful.
And I would be sent off to the local patisserie
to get in a croissant, cakes for everyone. And then
(27:47):
when I finished that I spent a few weeks, they
gave me a bonus and I took a bite. You
used to have this thing which you would hire a
bike and have a train ticket at the same time.
And I went down to the door doin and I
cycled round it. And I remember going to places right
up in the in the hills and having these fantastic meals,
(28:07):
really really great French, very simple French cooking and I
think that was when I I've always been interested in
but that's when I decided this is something I like,
so something that matters to me.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And I think they except, you know, as you say,
to be able to arrive in a small town in
the middle of France and have a meal that's care,
it's part of the culture. Always say that Melbourne has
a great food culture. But then when you go to
Paris and the taxi curfer can tell you how to
poach a seabars or they will tell you in the patisserie,
there's no your point about fresh bread that if you
(28:42):
want bread for lunch, you go in the morning, and
you can want bread for dinner you go in the afternoon.
That was the bigetts. Yeah, and you can have a
big gette which was crusty or non crusty. You could
have a croissant that had butter or no butter. It's
just so imbued when you travel, do you do you
think about what you're going to eat when you go to.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
So with Si, I mean we it was It's always
been important to us and when we would go on
holiday particularly, we would always trying to used to go
a lot to France and we get out that Michelin
Guide with the the restaurants that were not the Michelin
Star ones, but they used to have this thing called
(29:24):
Redar which was good food of reasonable prices, and it
was my job was to plan out the itinerary for
eating out.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
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, O, wherever you get your podcasts.
Thank you. We would be a missed opportunity if we
(30:02):
didn't talk about food and politics, and we were talking
about Jamie Oliver and his campaign for school food. You
know that there's a great poster saying today four hundred
thousand children in Britain will have the same thing for dinner.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Nothing.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
And we found out during COVID when kids didn't go
to school, that they weren't being fed and that we
live in a country, or we live in a world
where we know that there is food inequality. And I
know you're dealing a lot with climate. Is that a
concern of yours?
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Yes, I mean I think one of the reasons why
when I was in government we did a lot on
early years education. Sure start and school meals indeed with
Jamie is because could you not go to school and
be hungry, because they won't learn so well, And to
give them an appreciation of good food early and healthy
(30:56):
food is important. It's going to be important for their
later life. And I think we know much more about
nutrition today than we ever used to, so I think
there's a lot you can do there, and then on
a more kind of global scale with some of the
work we do with governments. For example, the new president
in Indonesia, his principal program is all around school meals
(31:18):
for children, and I think there's a recognition in countries
where previously there wasn't of the importance of this. But
I also think there's a whole set of policies around
famine and agriculture which we can develop with the use
of technology to a much much better degree today. And
there are still many of the countries we work in
(31:38):
in Africa, because we're in roughly twenty different countries in
Africa and we work with the governments there. But I
would say large numbers of those countries will import a
lot of basic food stuffs when they've got a large
amount of arable land. And then one thing that's in
a way almost worse because it deprives them of income.
And it's something we work on with some kind of tries,
(32:00):
is how you add value to the food that you create.
So you will have countries that, for example, will produce
the raw commodity of nuts, but then they will be
sent to Vietnam or to India to process and then
come back into that country. And obviously then it's not
merely that you're losing the income from that, but you're
losing the higher value added skills that come with that,
(32:23):
and thatfore your economy really suffers. So there's a whole
series of things I think we need to do today
around food, how we grow it, where we grow it.
I think there'll be a lot of work done on
drought resistant crops, which are going to be necessary for
the future because of climate is changing. And how you
raise productivity when you look at different countries equal potential,
(32:45):
but one country will be producing from the same land
four or five times the amount of crops.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
And so this brings us to your book on leadership,
Tony Blair, Lessons for the twenty first Century. So this
is a book that was published in September. I would
love you to tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Yeah, So it's an unusual book in a wait because
when I said to the publishers, I want to write
a book about the lessons I've learned from governing and leadership,
not just in my time as Prime Minister, but in
the work that i've been doing now for the last
seventeen years with governments around the world. And I think
they struggled at first to think of whether a book
(33:24):
on governing could be of any interest to anyone. But
I've tried to write it therefore, in a style that
is short chapters, just about what I think of the
lessons of leadership and really apply whether you're in government
or you're running a country, a company, a community center. Family, Yeah, parenting, parenting. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
I was reading it and I thought these are.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Someone else said that to me.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Actually, yeah, about listening, about being honest, this is about family,
to be about friends.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Well, most of the learnings have come through mistakes. I
have to say. When you come into a position of leadership,
when you first come in, you know you know nothing,
so you're very open to learning. The second stage of
leadership is you've then got your feet under the table.
You've been doing a whole lot of stuff. And the
risk is you think you know everything and you stop listening.
(34:16):
The thing that you should aspire to is to get
to the third stage of leadership, where you realize what
you do know and you realize what you don't know,
you understand the difference, and you're back to listening again.
And it's the dangerous when you get stuck on two.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
I have to say that when we knew that we
had to close the restaurant for COVID, and we didn't
know where to know how we do it, and I thought,
we have to get all the staff together, it's about
leadership and tell them that they're not going to come
to work. We don't know for how long weeks or
months or this was such a serious thing that what
we were going to do and how are we going
to do it? And so we said, okay, get everyone
(34:52):
to come in at four o'clock and we'll sit down.
And I went, I googled how to tell yourself bad news.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah, I guess what.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Harvard Business School. I told you.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Of course, how to give your staff bad news.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
You know, the first thing you do is tell them
what's going to happen. Then you tell them step two
is how it will affect them, and then number three
was what you're going to do to help them. It
was just but as you say, I've been working in
this restaurant for a long time, and you say, the
first step is to know that you know, and then
the second one is to know that you don't know,
and the third one is to get some help. So
(35:29):
I think it's a very very important book and everybody
listening should buy it and read it and write to
me and tell me how much you like it. When
we're going to eat in the River Cuffet have dinner,
but before you do go, we do have a question
that we do ask everyone, and it is about food.
(35:50):
Is teaching about the culture. If food is feeding your
children or going to a state dinner, or entertaining the queen,
it's also comfort when you do need comfort for it.
Is there a food that you would actually go to.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
I would go for something very simple. I still can
cook a decent omelet. I would do that
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Probably tell me that and the bread would be fresh,
The bread would definitely be Thank you, Jim
Host
Ruth Rogers
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