Speaker 1: Welcome to Ruthie's Table for a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios. Sitting here in the River Cafe on a
Speaker 1: Sunday Monday morning, with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli,
Speaker 1: with hiroles and waiters laying tables in the garden, the
Speaker 1: uncertain world we live in feels miles away. The artist
Speaker 1: and filmmaker step mc queen does not separate the world
Speaker 1: of beauty and the world of suffering in any of
Speaker 1: his work political oppression, slavery, sexual inequality. Steph and I
Speaker 1: met in nineteen ninety nine when he won the Turner
Speaker 1: Prize for his radical video art, and we once had
Speaker 1: dinner together with President Obama. It was clear that the
Speaker 1: only person President Obama was interested in talking to with
Speaker 1: Steve mc queen, and he didn't want to share him
Speaker 1: with anyone else. Now, a few years later, I finally
Speaker 1: have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being a generous person,
Speaker 1: we'll share him with you. Steve and I share a
Speaker 1: hero in Paul Robeson. We share the same concerns for
Speaker 1: equality and justice and food, and today we're going to
Speaker 1: talk all about that and more. Thank you, Steve.
Speaker 2: Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1: Tell me about growing up in London. You lived with
Speaker 1: your parents in West London and what did you eat?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we grew up. I grew up in the first
Speaker 3: leship with Bush, West London. My relationship with food really
Speaker 3: starts with the market. I was the kid who was
Speaker 3: carrying the bags behind their mother, you know, because basically
Speaker 3: I would have to go with her, because you know,
Speaker 3: I was the sort of textra pad hands a character.
Speaker 2: Shopping back home.
Speaker 3: Food was a way of actually getting to do London
Speaker 3: because it's someone had said to my mother this, you know,
Speaker 3: you could get so and so sea based in this
Speaker 3: market for this amount of money, she will be there.
Speaker 3: So people used to talk about where can they get
Speaker 3: particularly kind of food and fresh produce.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Where was your mother born?
Speaker 3: My mother was born in Trinidad, but she grew up
Speaker 3: in in Grenada, and my father was born in Grenado.
Speaker 1: How old were they when they came to London.
Speaker 3: My mother was about fourteen fifteen. I think she's about
Speaker 3: fifteen when she came to London. I think in the
Speaker 3: early sixties, and my father was a little bit older.
Speaker 3: I think maybe it was about twenty one. I don't
Speaker 3: know when I think he came early sixties too, but
Speaker 3: not not at the same time.
Speaker 1: And so do you think her mother had taken her
Speaker 1: to the market. As you say, the market does introduce
Speaker 1: us to a culture, that introduces us to a city.
Speaker 1: It's the first place I always go when I go
Speaker 1: to any town in any city in any country. But
Speaker 1: tell me more about the smells of the market and
Speaker 1: what it looked like for you and your mother's experience
Speaker 1: of the market.
Speaker 3: Well, in fact, what happened was that a lot of
Speaker 3: majority of people for coming from way did this headline,
Speaker 3: and they grew their own food, you know, and look
Speaker 3: after you know, the animals and so forth and whatnot.
Speaker 3: And fishing was a big part of the culture too,
Speaker 3: because obviously my mother lived on the coast in a
Speaker 3: place called Stears and was a very big fishing spot there,
Speaker 3: you know, it's called a fishing village.
Speaker 2: Food was very.
Speaker 3: Much directly sort of to do with who they were.
Speaker 3: So when they came to London, of course looking for
Speaker 3: good food was very important. And you know, we used
Speaker 3: to go to all kinds of bloody markets all over London.
Speaker 2: I so, I said, I met up with it.
Speaker 3: I said, missed my football focus on the sacle because
Speaker 3: I had to go to the market with my mum.
Speaker 2: It was something which I remember.
Speaker 3: There was all different cultures, you know, it was didn't
Speaker 3: You had the sort of you know, the.
Speaker 2: Londoners and the white Londoners and the Indian, you're the Jewish.
Speaker 2: You had all kinds of people. It was fabulous. It
Speaker 2: was really kind of cool, Tobe.
Speaker 1: When you would come home from the market. What would
Speaker 1: you eat? What would they cook from the market?
Speaker 3: Oh, if you get dashing, you know spinage? You know again,
Speaker 3: you know you cook? I mean my my my favorite
Speaker 3: was like a nice stewed chicken. I'm not a special thing,
Speaker 3: I'm roty, just you know, Oh my god, what was it?
Speaker 3: A beautiful It's like a nice stew fish. And I
Speaker 3: used to love what was this? This one thing I
Speaker 3: used to love very much was a vegetable?
Speaker 2: What was it? It was? I love? I love?
Speaker 3: It was all kinds of exotic stuff. I mean I
Speaker 3: say exotic because it was familiar to me. But my friends,
Speaker 3: my wife, friends, and what was that was this?
Speaker 2: Was this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Who cooked in the house.
Speaker 2: My mother cooked, my father cooked. My father was a
Speaker 2: good cook too.
Speaker 3: He took pride in the Christmas Ham.
Speaker 2: That was his job.
Speaker 3: There was a particular way of cooking that came from
Speaker 3: because he's uncle was a butcher in the West Indies,
Speaker 3: so there was a particular way of cooking the ham.
Speaker 3: I can't even prescribe it now, but it's all close,
Speaker 3: all into indented in all everywhere.
Speaker 2: It was almost like sort of a ror movie. Marvelous. Yeah,
Speaker 2: great cooks, great cooks.
Speaker 1: Did you cook with them? Was it a family affair?
Speaker 1: Would you all cook together?
Speaker 3: I mean I loved being with my mother in a
Speaker 3: kitchen because somehow I love to help out.
Speaker 2: I love to sort of be I don't know, I
Speaker 2: love to love that.
Speaker 3: So I can't say that I'm a great cook, but
Speaker 3: I was a very good shoe chef, a bit of
Speaker 3: a neat and tidy person.
Speaker 1: Would they entertain? Would friends come over? Did was there
Speaker 1: that feeling.
Speaker 2: When people did come over? It was? It was a
Speaker 2: lot of family and fair and well.
Speaker 3: I think most of the things I used to do
Speaker 3: when the people's come up with them would just listen
Speaker 3: because there was always always that would come out that
Speaker 3: my parents will never talk to us about, of course,
Speaker 3: but always because adults will talk to adults, so therefore
Speaker 3: them find out about sort of how what was going on?
Speaker 1: Or when you left this very comforting family meals where
Speaker 1: you were cooked for and you ate together. What was
Speaker 1: that like when you left home? Where did you live?
Speaker 3: I was actually near you, guys. Actually I was in Fulham.
Speaker 3: I was just around the corner from me. I was
Speaker 3: with his girlfriend and she was great, was a very
Speaker 3: important girlfriend of mine. Her name was Anuke. She was
Speaker 3: a Swiss. And then she had discovered this restaurant, this
Speaker 3: place called Malati, the Indonesian place and so, which was delicious,
Speaker 3: It was gorgeous, and that was my first restaurant.
Speaker 1: And she that was your first restaurant.
Speaker 3: I think that was one of my first restaurants. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I was about nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: And after that the restaurants become part of your social life.
Speaker 1: Did you love restaurants?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: I mean, what's great about I mean now, I suppose
Speaker 3: in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: we didn't have that was the world, I think, and
Speaker 3: to be introduced to the world through food and of
Speaker 3: course good company, that's always the main ingredient for going
Speaker 3: to a restaurant. So that was wonderful and then we
Speaker 3: got to know. So we've got a lot of restaurants
Speaker 3: and so we got to know. I remember during that time,
Speaker 3: miss early nineties, early early nineties. Yeah, and also in
Speaker 3: the East then too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what about an arts school? Was that revelation?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, canon bitter cheese and bag it.
Speaker 3: I mean that was that was kind of like interesting
Speaker 3: because again there was an addition to waste in this cheese.
Speaker 3: I mean the cheese.
Speaker 2: I was crappy cheese.
Speaker 3: You know, you can imagine a sort of a big block
Speaker 3: of something which they called cheese. But getting to them
Speaker 3: cheese was interesting during my time at Foundation at Chelsea.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a kind of interesting life change, isn't
Speaker 1: it between this going to the market with your mother
Speaker 1: and carrying the bag and coming home and cooking and
Speaker 1: then sitting down and eating and then having independence and
Speaker 1: having to fend for yourself and discover life out there.
Speaker 1: Did you go home? Would you return home for the
Speaker 1: home cooked meal?
Speaker 2: Yes? I used to love going home for food.
Speaker 3: My goodness, I said, oh, oh, my goodness, I used
Speaker 3: to love it. It's just it's just the sort of yeah,
Speaker 3: it was difficult because at first it was how do
Speaker 3: I cook? What do I cook? I was on the
Speaker 3: phone to my mom, Mom, how do I do this?
Speaker 2: Mom? I do this? My Mom, I do that. So
Speaker 2: a lot of coals up.
Speaker 3: Making sort of soups and things like that, and how
Speaker 3: do I season them? Because I can't. For granted, I
Speaker 3: said to be a shoe shop, but I wasn't really looking.
Speaker 3: It wasn't really studying, yea, So a lot of phone
Speaker 3: calls basically back round, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Back to River Cafe, Table four. In each episode, my
Speaker 1: guest reads a recipe they have chosen from one of
Speaker 1: our cookbooks. We chose spinach and peas, So would you
Speaker 1: like to go for it and tell the world how
Speaker 1: to make it?
Speaker 3: One kilogram fresh peas in their pods, extra virgin olive oil,
Speaker 3: one garlic cloth peel and diced, one dried red chili crumbled,
Speaker 3: one knogram of spinach, washed tough sports, removed.
Speaker 1: Pid the piece and blanche them in plenty of boily water.
Speaker 1: In Italy, no one ever cooks vegetables.
Speaker 2: Absolutely only past it.
Speaker 3: So rather than blenching these peas, boil them so that
Speaker 3: they almost melt together with spinach and the olive oil.
Speaker 1: Gorgeous. So now Steve, here we are and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the series that has just been on
Speaker 1: television that we've all watched and been so moved by.
Speaker 1: Small acts. You tell the story of a local restaurant
Speaker 1: constantly harassed by the police. Is that a memory or
Speaker 1: is that? Can you tell me about the restaurant, the
Speaker 1: politics and the series.
Speaker 2: Sure, well.
Speaker 3: The Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by Frank Critchlow
Speaker 3: in Lambergrove on All Saints Road, and he opened a
Speaker 3: restaurant in nineteen sixty eight and it was a sort
Speaker 3: of home away from home restaurant. You can imagine, as
Speaker 3: I said before, the peaceeople wanting the sort of the
Speaker 3: taste of home and had a vibrancy of having sort
Speaker 3: of like many people wanted to sort of come to
Speaker 3: a place to eat and to sort of commune with
Speaker 3: each other. So it was a place of refuge in
Speaker 3: it in a way. You know, the vibe, the vibes
Speaker 3: that came out of there, and it was just one
Speaker 3: of those places which became very infectious if people wanted
Speaker 3: to go. It was it was it was something which
Speaker 3: was which was which was on the scene and unfortunately
Speaker 3: the police and the authorities that be obviously didn't like
Speaker 3: what was happening at this place because again it was
Speaker 3: you know, it was people from the Western Ears, it
Speaker 3: was working class people, it was the thinkers, it was
Speaker 3: sort of activists were coming there and also the hoy eploy.
Speaker 2: So all these people.
Speaker 3: Coming to this spot and talking over food, having ideas
Speaker 3: and obviously that was something which the authorities didn't like,
Speaker 3: and therefore they tried to disrupt disrupted as much as
Speaker 3: they could. You know, it was a case of the
Speaker 3: people not wanting certain ideas having a foot in the UK,
Speaker 3: and they thought that the Mangrove was a place where
Speaker 3: those ideas could sort of take root.
Speaker 1: There's something about doing that kind of discussion as well
Speaker 1: over food. And one of the things that I see
Speaker 1: in the restaurant is that somehow being out of your house,
Speaker 1: being away from your domestic life, being looked after, gives
Speaker 1: you the chance to really focus on a conversation. Do
Speaker 1: you find that in a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, And there's a sense of, I don't know
Speaker 3: what is it. Purpose, you're there, you're present, there's another
Speaker 3: person there and present, but also actually just a listen.
Speaker 3: It's just a case of being in an environment where
Speaker 3: you are you know, you feel comfortable in order to
Speaker 3: say things and listen.
Speaker 1: And also I've talked to various people in business and
Speaker 1: in film and creating movies or making deals. I mean
Speaker 1: when I always quote is Michael Caine who said that
Speaker 1: he never did a deal for a movie in America
Speaker 1: that didn't take place in a restaurant. And he said
Speaker 1: that was very Hollywood. Do you work in restaurants? Do
Speaker 1: you like to meet people that you're going to work
Speaker 1: with in a restaurant?
Speaker 2: First, I love it, but that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's sort of it's a classy
Speaker 3: way to do anything, isn't it. And also I love
Speaker 3: it because growing up in the art world. What was
Speaker 3: wonderful about growing up in the art world is that
Speaker 3: artists never paid for dinners, never because you're the artist.
Speaker 2: And it was amazing.
Speaker 3: In fact, I think that's how I grew up in
Speaker 3: food in an an interesting way. It was through the
Speaker 3: art world. It's completely different to the film world. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know the fact that you you know, you might
Speaker 3: go crappy sang which you're you're you're lucky. But in
Speaker 3: the art world, it was always the best wines. It
Speaker 3: was always the best food. You know, if it was
Speaker 3: an opening or even a meeting, it was always the
Speaker 3: best restaurant. And that was a huge education. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about making movies and the movies you've made,
Speaker 1: and of course here we are talking about food and
Speaker 1: eating and the joy of being taken care of through food.
Speaker 1: And then I think of the movie that you know,
Speaker 1: was so earth shattering, which was Hunger, And so we're
Speaker 1: talking about a movie called Hunger and the state of
Speaker 1: hunger and somebody put their principles and politics above comfort
Speaker 1: and as a political act actually starved themselves. So what
Speaker 1: was it like making a movie that was the absence
Speaker 1: of food as a political statement?
Speaker 2: Heavy? I mean, for me, it was again it's food
Speaker 2: is interesting thing.
Speaker 3: I related to that in a way that of being
Speaker 3: a child, in the way that you know, the often
Speaker 3: only power a child has is frailing to eat his
Speaker 3: or her mother saying you're not leaving the table until
Speaker 3: you finish that plate, and the child sort of you know,
Speaker 3: refusing to eat, and then you're sent off the bed,
Speaker 3: you know. And it's interesting because you know what what
Speaker 3: you know, the clothes you wear that as a as
Speaker 3: a child of a cerdaden age, what time you go
Speaker 3: to bed, what food you eat is chosen by your parents,
Speaker 3: and the whole idea that this child, the power this
Speaker 3: child has is to refrain to eat. That was my
Speaker 3: relationship in some ways to Bobby Sands and hunger strike,
Speaker 3: that the power that person had was to refrain to
Speaker 3: eat every since it was a child. I remembered asking
Speaker 3: my mom when I saw this image of Bobby's Sands
Speaker 3: on on television with a number beneath his image, and
Speaker 3: asking my mother, what's what's what is that? How oldest
Speaker 3: person is? Because no, that how many days this person
Speaker 3: has been on hunger strike. So there was an immediate
Speaker 3: relationship with the story and it was, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3: It was difficult, but I think Michael Fans been there,
Speaker 3: you know where cars is. Bobby Sands was tremendous and
Speaker 3: that was a bond up you know we have to
Speaker 3: this day. It was a real kind of a labor
Speaker 3: of love.
Speaker 1: And what are the food scenes in your movies? In
Speaker 1: twelve years a slave? There's a scene, isn't there at
Speaker 1: the dinner table?
Speaker 3: I seem to remember, Yeah, there's lots of I think
Speaker 3: there's lots of food in my films. I mean you
Speaker 3: can see after that is shame the two characters, Brandon
Speaker 3: and any sort of a possible girlfriend or at this
Speaker 3: dinner table and this waiter, annoying waiter comes in every
Speaker 3: five seconds to interrupt them. I remember that from having
Speaker 3: lots of dinners in New York and every five seconds
Speaker 3: one becomes in the middle of something was getting bigger.
Speaker 2: You know how conversations are. They had to get to
Speaker 2: that point, you know.
Speaker 3: It's always it was commercial buddy breaks every five seconds.
Speaker 3: You have to start from a scratch every five minutes.
Speaker 3: So it didn't make for a good eating experience. So
Speaker 3: I put that in the movie What do you.
Speaker 1: Eat on a film?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
Speaker 3: when I started filmmaking and there hunger and sharing in
Speaker 3: twelve this it's like all the actors and all the
Speaker 3: crew will eat together. We did the people in their
Speaker 3: buddy trailers in that crap, everyone lead together. There's something
Speaker 3: about communal eating and it's about weed. It's such a
Speaker 3: unifying thing to see, you know, the hear and makeup
Speaker 3: and the camera department and tune up, furity and sitting
Speaker 3: at a table together and talking about the film or
Speaker 3: talking about things. There's a camaraderie. It's only time often
Speaker 3: when you're sort of on set together that you had
Speaker 3: that sort of time, you know, when you're sitting together
Speaker 3: eating and it's fun.
Speaker 2: It's fun. I love it.
Speaker 1: Year three is an exhibition that was at the Tate
Speaker 1: and I went to see it three times because every
Speaker 1: time I went back I saw something something different in
Speaker 1: the expression of a child of a teacher. It really
Speaker 1: told the story of the world we live in through
Speaker 1: these photographs. And one of the issues that I think
Speaker 1: is very important is that when we had the lockdown
Speaker 1: a year ago, one of the things we learned that
Speaker 1: when children were denied school, they were also denied food,
Speaker 1: and they were denied food at lunchtime, which might have
Speaker 1: been their only meal of the day. And the idea
Speaker 1: that we have a society that children depend on having
Speaker 1: their food away from the home because of the poverty
Speaker 1: in the home is appalling and shocking and distressing everything else.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, I mean I had schooled this which I
Speaker 3: paid for by my mother. That's why even today I
Speaker 3: like hot meals. I love hot lunches, I mean, and
Speaker 3: they were vital. They were vital there were children. I
Speaker 3: know for a fact that that was the main meal
Speaker 3: of the day, if not the only meal of the day.
Speaker 3: And this is with our bottle of milk in the
Speaker 3: morning before missus snatcher took it away from us.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love school meals in that way. Also, just
Speaker 3: because we're such a good laugh in the canteen, you know,
Speaker 3: I associate food in school with good times. And I
Speaker 3: can even remember the smell of it, the canteen and
Speaker 3: the noise and the cutlery banging together, and it's so important.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Also, people have to sort of really tip the hat
Speaker 3: to Marcus Rashford and what he did in the sense of,
Speaker 3: you know, getting the government to sort of stand down
Speaker 3: twice about the school mill because you know it can
Speaker 3: This is you know, if we can't look after people
Speaker 3: we can't afford to eat, then I don't know who
Speaker 3: we are as human beings. That it took a footballer
Speaker 3: to do that is kind of a bit you know.
Speaker 3: There you go, everyone has got to step up in
Speaker 3: your own way I suppose if people aren't doing their
Speaker 3: job properly, that meaning the government. And also, don't forget
Speaker 3: this again, It's just one of those things I feel
Speaker 3: that you know, everyone is unfortunately not brought into this
Speaker 3: world equally. But if you just give someone the possibility
Speaker 3: a little bit of a shaft of light, one doesn't
Speaker 3: know where that might lead them to. So, yeah, the
Speaker 3: fact that people actually have a meal in the stomach,
Speaker 3: you know in Britain, Yeah, it's more than important. One
Speaker 3: thing I was very shocked by when I was shooting
Speaker 3: in Chicago, shooting widows, was how I didn't see a
Speaker 3: grocery store in a black neighborhood. I didn't see any
Speaker 3: greens in a black neighbor you know, there wasn't a
Speaker 3: green grocers, but there was always some sort of fast
Speaker 3: food place where people eat.
Speaker 2: So people are losing this sort of heritage of food.
Speaker 3: People are not aware of food and nourishment and possibilities
Speaker 3: within food. And food is politics in a way, it
Speaker 3: reverts back to what we were talking about right at
Speaker 3: the beginning of a conversation. It starts with like, in
Speaker 3: a way, markets, because markets, a lot of markets are
Speaker 3: on the threat. A lot of markets have closed. So
Speaker 3: this sense of community, sense of promarderiate, a sense of
Speaker 3: sort of love of food and love of each other
Speaker 3: is being sort of erased in the sort of you know,
Speaker 3: working class areas. I mean, you get these markets, but
Speaker 3: they're so they're kind of like posh markets, aren't they.
Speaker 3: They're sort of farmers markets, they call them. And you know,
Speaker 3: the food is so expensive, so and I can I
Speaker 3: feel that they're becoming kind of food deserts in a
Speaker 3: way where kids are growing up on fast food and
Speaker 3: not being introduced to sort of love food in a
Speaker 3: way that Stundlach, which I'm a bit sort of concerned about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, food is a connection, and food is a memory,
Speaker 1: and food is giving and sharing, and food is political
Speaker 1: and social, and it's also comfort. It's something that we
Speaker 1: go to and we need comfort. And so I suppose
Speaker 1: Steve McQueen, what would you say is the food you
Speaker 1: would go to if you needed comfort?
Speaker 3: For me, the comfort food that I very much love
Speaker 3: and I appreciate is often a cold day, you know,
Speaker 3: and you come in and it's my mum's chicken soups
Speaker 3: West Indian chicken soup, which has the bones in it
Speaker 3: and stuff, you know, you suck on the bones, and
Speaker 3: it's the sort of.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the time, it's.
Speaker 3: The garlic, it's all kinds of stuff, you know, the
Speaker 3: sugar ingredient which she wants, you still want atomic, the dumplings,
Speaker 3: a bit of potatoes, a bit of peas.
Speaker 2: It's wonderful.
Speaker 3: So those are the kind of things I really love. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I could hear my dad sucking the bones right now.
Speaker 3: It was a wonderful, you know, having those dinners together
Speaker 3: on those cold days. I remember it was. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3: It was beautiful and lots of great memories. My dad's
Speaker 3: not anymore. So when I often do think about him,
Speaker 3: I do think about him, and that soup. I do
Speaker 3: think about him. Christmas and the ham, of course, and Christmas.
Speaker 3: Christmas breakfast was a big thing.
Speaker 2: Hot coke coo.
Speaker 3: My dad would make a bake. A bake is a
Speaker 3: kind of a flat bread West Indian flat bread in
Speaker 3: the morning.
Speaker 2: And oh my god, how can I how can I
Speaker 2: not say this? Fish cakes? My mother's fish cakes. Oh
Speaker 2: my god, my mother's fish cakes.
Speaker 3: On the Christmas morning and she's making these little bakes
Speaker 3: which was a sort of like a like a bread
Speaker 3: you'll fry and oil, oh my god, and even my
Speaker 3: daughter youtually when my mom comes up as yours, ask
Speaker 3: Granny please make fish cakes for me because it's a
Speaker 3: West Indian fishcakes such as it's gorgeous and of course
Speaker 3: you know there's never anything left for me when I
Speaker 3: get home. But you know it's just I think, really,
Speaker 3: what you've done actually is actually given me.
Speaker 2: I mean fast, what love is rock?
Speaker 3: Not even love is rock. That's what the whole of
Speaker 3: Small Acts was based on. The foundation of all of
Speaker 3: that was based on food and memory. Because it's what's
Speaker 3: so fascinating. I'm rambling on it again myself. But the
Speaker 3: smell is the most antaste is the most potent sources
Speaker 3: of memory, not the photographs. Photographs is only twenty so
Speaker 3: much because you know, it cuts out what's beyond the
Speaker 3: frame is not present, it's not visible.
Speaker 2: Going on wrapping.
Speaker 1: I'll stop myself, no doubt it's beautiful, but it is
Speaker 1: what it does. There are people who say, I never
Speaker 1: remembered that until we started talking about the food, and
Speaker 1: that brought back the memory. I had somebody whose father
Speaker 1: had left home and he would when he saw his
Speaker 1: children on the weekends he would suddenly start cooking for them,
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever told anybody that story. But now I remember
Speaker 1: my father actually is a way of his guilt or
Speaker 1: his love just started cooking, you know. And I think,
Speaker 1: what you just when you choose your comfort food, you
Speaker 1: start thinking about your father and your mother, and you
Speaker 1: think about the memories and that it's so potent, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I thought it would be interesting, But what it really
Speaker 1: brings home over and over again is the connection that
Speaker 1: food has for us for memories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, forget about this, I'm telling you. Do You've done it, mate,
Speaker 2: smell and til you've done it.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, you've done it.
Speaker 2: It's all to do with you.
Speaker 1: To visit the online shop of The River Cafe, go
Speaker 1: to shop The Rivercafe dot co dot uk. Ruthie's Table
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