Speaker 1: You were listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Recently talking with friends about the type of movies we
Speaker 1: liked most. My vote was for movies about journalism and newspapers,
Speaker 1: His Girl Friday, Broadcast News, The Insider, and most of all,
Speaker 1: all the President's Men. I don't need to watch a
Speaker 1: movie to see my favorite journalist. I just call my
Speaker 1: great friend James Harding, the youngest ever editor of The Times, Washington,
Speaker 1: editor of the Financial Times, and head of BBC News.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, he found a Tortoise, an online news platform,
Speaker 1: and his vision for the principle of responsible deep journalism
Speaker 1: slow news in the age of high speed information overwhelmed.
Speaker 1: Richard and I were committed supporters from the very first day,
Speaker 1: and it was then that James and my names for
Speaker 1: each other changed. I became missus Graham Catherine Graham of
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, and he became Ben as in Ben Bradley,
Speaker 1: her brave and brilliant editor. James and I speak often
Speaker 1: about what's happening in the world, our families, what he's writing,
Speaker 1: where he is going, and a lot more. Today we're
Speaker 1: in the River Cafe to talk about food and memories.
Speaker 1: Two friends, a journalist and a cook together. That's what
Speaker 1: I call news, Ben. Why should I say James has
Speaker 1: chosen a recipe for horse Readish to read today on
Speaker 1: the podcast Why did you choose horse Readish?
Speaker 2: Well? Before? Can I just tell you my favorite Missus
Speaker 2: Graham story? Yes, So when I was in Washington, I
Speaker 2: was with the fteam. I ended up meeting this couple. R. W.
Speaker 2: Apple Junior. It was the Washington buwer chief of the
Speaker 2: New York Times, Johnny Apple him and his wife was
Speaker 2: Betsy Apple. It's absolutely extraordinary, kind of southern character. And
Speaker 2: she was very good friends with Catherine Graham and they've
Speaker 2: been friends, she told me at this dinner. They've been
Speaker 2: friends for about eighty twenty years. And one day Missus
Speaker 2: Graham and everyone in the Washington Post called her Missus Graham.
Speaker 2: She was obviously the steel, the kind of backbone to
Speaker 2: the paper all the way through Watergate. She'd called Betsy
Speaker 2: and said, Betsy, we've been friends for a long time now,
Speaker 2: maybe you'd like to start calling me kay And Betsy
Speaker 2: Apple said, you know that's so lovely of uk. Of
Speaker 2: course I'd be honored. Of course I'll call you k
Speaker 2: and there was a pause and then she said, in public,
Speaker 2: you're probably gonna want to still call me missus Graham.
Speaker 2: And I always thought that was such a kind of
Speaker 2: Washington moment. It was great, nice, right, you know your pa.
Speaker 2: And I went back years later to interview Missus Graham.
Speaker 2: She had this kind of salon, and I interviewed Ben Bradley.
Speaker 2: I interviewed the two of them. So and Bradley had
Speaker 2: so she was in her salon in Washington in Georgetown,
Speaker 2: and he had an office up in the old Post building,
Speaker 2: and by then he was no longer executive editor of
Speaker 2: the paper, but he was still had a place there,
Speaker 2: and he looked exactly like that Jason Robot's character and
Speaker 2: all the President's men. And behind him he had a
Speaker 2: cork board and he collected on his corkboard corrections and
Speaker 2: errors in newspapers. He cut them out of newspapers and
Speaker 2: he put them on and he read one out to
Speaker 2: me that was like four hundred words long. It was
Speaker 2: just a layer upon layer of mistake and error and
Speaker 2: neglect and misjudgment. And I remember him talking about it
Speaker 2: as if he was describing a martini. He's said at
Speaker 2: the end, now that is a correction with a twist.
Speaker 2: It was his ideal of it.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's read the recipe.
Speaker 2: Horse radish sauce. One hundred grams of fresh horse radish
Speaker 2: one tablespoon. Does it even qualify as a recipe? Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course it is okay, good. One tablespoon of red
Speaker 2: wine vinegar, one hundred and fifty milli liters of creme
Speaker 2: fresh salt, and freshly ground pepper. There are only three
Speaker 2: main ingredients in this source, so their quality is important.
Speaker 2: Look for a horse radish route that is firm and clean,
Speaker 2: free of cuts and deep lemishes. The white of the
Speaker 2: flesh of the horse radish, the fresher it is. And
Speaker 2: for the vinegar, we use vulpire vinegar made on an
Speaker 2: estate in Tuscany. And the crome fresh adds creaminess and
Speaker 2: balance to the sauce. The freshness of this source makes
Speaker 2: all the difference compared to one in a jar.
Speaker 1: There you go, So why have all the recipes thirty
Speaker 1: seven years? Well, the least us thirty seven. Our first
Speaker 1: cookbook was nineteen ninety four. But what you made you
Speaker 1: think about using horse readish as a recipe.
Speaker 2: So I've been lucky to come to the River Cafe,
Speaker 2: and then you find yourself looking at this amazing menu
Speaker 2: and every time doing that annoying thing to the brilliant
Speaker 2: people who come and ask you for your order, looking
Speaker 2: at the menu, thinking long and hard about what you're
Speaker 2: going to have, deciding what you're going to have. The
Speaker 2: person arrives, indecision strikes, You're in the grip of it,
Speaker 2: and then eventually what happens is I'll order the beef
Speaker 2: with the horse radish because of the horse radish, because
Speaker 2: it's kind of creamy and strong and just irresistible. And
Speaker 2: I've got a soft spot for condiments, all of those
Speaker 2: pickles and chimneys and chili based, but horse radish is
Speaker 2: one that is I'm sure there's a word for ruthie.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it is, that mixture of something
Speaker 2: that is sweet and sharp and spicy all at the
Speaker 2: same time. And yours is the best in the world,
Speaker 2: the horse radish. And I say this having done the work.
Speaker 2: You know, I've really had a look at a lot
Speaker 2: of horse radishes, and this horse, rightig horse is the best.
Speaker 1: There you go, so we will go back to the
Speaker 1: early days, as we could start at the beginning. You
Speaker 1: grew up in a household in North London.
Speaker 2: So on my father's side, my family came from Germany
Speaker 2: with German Jews in thirty six Berlin with family's Hirshevitz.
Speaker 2: My grandmother Elsie, my daughter's called Elsie. My grandmother Elsie
Speaker 2: was this incredibly strong character, pulled everyone together. The family table,
Speaker 2: the Friday night table, was incredibly important place. The food
Speaker 2: was terrible. She was sure, We completely sure. You can
Speaker 2: ask all members of the family. It's one of those
Speaker 2: family facts, you know, there are very few things that
Speaker 2: all families can agree on, but the fact that granny's
Speaker 2: food was just terrible. She was a big smoker, eighty
Speaker 2: to one hundred and twenty a day, silk cut and
Speaker 2: she would cook with the cigarette and the ash would
Speaker 2: just bend slowly dipping. Would it fall into the boiling
Speaker 2: pot of tongue that she was cooking, Yes, yes it
Speaker 2: would fall. And so you would watch this whole thing.
Speaker 3: Do you think she didn't want to cook?
Speaker 2: I don't think she was.
Speaker 3: She probably didn't want well, it sounds like a cracking woman,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Maybe she was an amazing woman. So her story was
Speaker 2: that she wanted to be a journalist, she wanted to
Speaker 2: be a journalist, and actually at home I have her
Speaker 2: old Erica typewriter next to my desk. In thirty three,
Speaker 2: when the Nazis came in, one of the first things
Speaker 2: they did was bar Jews from working in journalism, and
Speaker 2: so she left in thirty six. And she definitely would
Speaker 2: have been one of those journalists who was a great
Speaker 2: eater rather than a great feeder. She was someone who
Speaker 2: cared a lot about ideas and opinions and politics, and
Speaker 2: she had loads of that of her own. But you're right,
Speaker 2: she didn't love the cooking front off. On my mom's side,
Speaker 2: my mother's family were where Jews had gone from Manchester
Speaker 2: to Cape Town. My great grandfather had had tb they
Speaker 2: moved there to South Africa. That side of the family
Speaker 2: were really really lovers of food, of cooking and cakes
Speaker 2: and fruit and my mum, to my great good fortune,
Speaker 2: is an amazing cook. Yeah, I met wonderful cook and
Speaker 2: all of those sweet things you know, as I said,
Speaker 2: chocolate cakes and fruitcakes and sponges, but also chickens and
Speaker 2: casseroles and soups, and that you can even hear in
Speaker 2: my voice that feeling of just being taken care of
Speaker 2: by food.
Speaker 3: Your father is a very well known doctor. Tell me
Speaker 3: about him.
Speaker 2: Funny and alive and interested is everything in food. Loves food,
Speaker 2: but I would say loves meals with people even more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and did he ever cook? Did your male ever
Speaker 1: go into your kitchen or did your father he was.
Speaker 2: I remember, I don't remember much. The moment that I
Speaker 2: remember with my dad around the stove was I slipped
Speaker 2: trying to climb over a barbed wire fence when I
Speaker 2: was I can't remember, like six, seven eight. And I
Speaker 2: remember my dad had made us breakfast scrambled eggs every day.
Speaker 2: He made no this was just this was a Saturday morning,
Speaker 2: I think, and I'd gashed my throat. There was a
Speaker 2: cut under my throat and it needed stitches. And I
Speaker 2: remember my dad swashing out the pot from the scrambled eggs,
Speaker 2: boiling the water to sterilize the suitures, and then stitching
Speaker 2: me up on the kitchen table. I remember thinking that's
Speaker 2: quite that's quite a lot of use of the pot
Speaker 2: in the morning. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you grew up in.
Speaker 1: A house where food from your grandparents, whether were your
Speaker 1: grandmother is a great cook or not, but there was
Speaker 1: food and discussion and around the table.
Speaker 3: Would you come home from school? How many similars my sister?
Speaker 2: So, my sister and would sit there and would have
Speaker 2: supper together, remembery.
Speaker 3: A typical dinner in your house, would you?
Speaker 2: Yes? We were talk because I'm sure that now that
Speaker 2: our kids, we've got two thirteen and eleven, and I
Speaker 2: think you're always re remembering, idealizing a version of a
Speaker 2: dinner that may have actually only happened twice in your
Speaker 2: entire teenage years. But the idea of sitting at the
Speaker 2: table eating, And the one thing that is absolutely repeating
Speaker 2: is that my parents were endlessly exhausted and frustrated by
Speaker 2: my table manners, and that turns out to be hereditary.
Speaker 2: So was that painful?
Speaker 3: Did they sit at the table and correct you the
Speaker 3: whole thing? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's I had a French friend and I said, you
Speaker 1: have the most incredible pasture, you sort of say, and
Speaker 1: she said, and I said, that's great.
Speaker 3: How did your parents do it?
Speaker 1: And she said, I have only terrible memories of my
Speaker 1: childhood because every meal I had to sit up straight.
Speaker 3: I ended up with good pasture. But I really don't.
Speaker 1: Like sitting down to dinner anymore. But I can't imagine
Speaker 1: it was that bad.
Speaker 2: It wasn't bad at all. It wasn't bad at all.
Speaker 2: It was just sort of like having the radio on,
Speaker 2: you know. It was that was the noise. And I
Speaker 2: think with my kids it's the same. So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when you left this cocoon of a home
Speaker 1: being for and then you were at Cambridge, Yes, and
Speaker 1: was that a shark?
Speaker 2: It was incredible shock just I mean, you know, have
Speaker 2: you ever just driven up there? In part? I remember
Speaker 2: standing in front of the college and it looked like
Speaker 2: a palace, you know, it was just an amazing place
Speaker 2: and the But I don't associate it with food. I
Speaker 2: associate it with architecture and light and trees and obviously
Speaker 2: people overwhelming with people and a pub with beer and crisps,
Speaker 2: you know, and a lot of hanging about. But I
Speaker 2: don't It's funny, actually, I can't think of time in
Speaker 2: my life where I think less about food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're not alone. So you were, you
Speaker 1: were writing at that time.
Speaker 2: It was ninety two, so it was a weird time. Actually,
Speaker 2: people looking for work, you know, coming out of university
Speaker 2: wasn't easy, and there was this amaz program to go
Speaker 2: and learn Japanese and I learned, I learned Japanese. They
Speaker 2: were there was a rather wonderful, eccentric man who'd run
Speaker 2: a big Japanese firm who'd set up this scholarship program,
Speaker 2: and there were seven of us. We all learned Japanese
Speaker 2: for a year at SOAS and then went out to
Speaker 2: work in Tokyo for a year. And I was just
Speaker 2: absolutely life changing because you'd suddenly seen the world in
Speaker 2: a completely different way. The start of it was a
Speaker 2: homestay and there was the first experience of food.
Speaker 3: Different domestic Japanese food.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't. While I was at university, I
Speaker 2: did a number of trips which really threw me into
Speaker 2: a world of different food. I'd i'd done my first
Speaker 2: real piece of journalism. I'd gone into Pakistan and into
Speaker 2: southern Afghanistan. I remember eating kind of wobbly white sheet
Speaker 2: fat out of a pile of rice and thinking, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is different. And then I remember arriving in Japan,
Speaker 2: going on this home stay up in Kusher, up in Hokkaido,
Speaker 2: and thinking, okay, this is really a different breakfast we
Speaker 2: are into for Japanese. So they would they would give
Speaker 2: us a thing called NATO, which was a sort of fermented,
Speaker 2: very fermented bean, and you'd have it with rice. It
Speaker 2: was very sticky, it had a really pungent smell to it,
Speaker 2: and front enough, you know, I'm sitting here in your
Speaker 2: cheese rooms. It's the equivalent of taking a Japanese person
Speaker 2: to the cheese room, the most painful and unfound and welcome,
Speaker 2: but for breakfast. But then you sort of, you kind
Speaker 2: of nearly got into it, and you sort of were
Speaker 2: getting into it to impress your Japanese hosts. But as
Speaker 2: soon as you could do anything like toast, you were
Speaker 2: back for that. So Japan changed the way.
Speaker 1: I ate tell me more about food in Tokyo. So
Speaker 1: you were give us a job to work, so I had.
Speaker 2: So what you did is you went to go and
Speaker 2: learn Japanese in the morning, and then we were all
Speaker 2: placed in a different place of work. I worked in
Speaker 2: the office of a politician, the Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan,
Speaker 2: a guy called Kato Koichi, And I remember the first
Speaker 2: day arriving, and it was one political scandal after another.
Speaker 2: I arrived in my office building and there were police
Speaker 2: fans outside the office building because one of the kingmakers
Speaker 2: of the Japanese political party, the LDP had been found
Speaker 2: to have bars of gold in his desk. Draw that
Speaker 2: it was. It was that, but I spent a year there.
Speaker 2: There was a hierarchy of duties. The most important to
Speaker 2: them was probably photocopying and tea. And then sometimes I
Speaker 2: pretend that it was really not very hard. It was
Speaker 2: pull the boiling water in. But I but I did
Speaker 2: go and do things, some of those things you'd expect.
Speaker 2: The tea, but food was an incredibly important part of
Speaker 2: life in Japan because the days were very, very long.
Speaker 2: The office days went often until sort of eleven midnight.
Speaker 2: You'd have these late night meetings with Japanese journalists. So
Speaker 2: the Chief Cabinet Secretary ran background briefings with in effect,
Speaker 2: the Tokyo political reporting teams, and they would come to
Speaker 2: his flat, and my job was to serve the tea
Speaker 2: and hang up the coats and then just sit and listen.
Speaker 2: And it was an absolutely fascinating window on Japanese politics.
Speaker 2: And then occasionally I would be asked to write a
Speaker 2: short speech in English, which felt very grand.
Speaker 3: So it's an immersion, isn't it. It's a complete immersion.
Speaker 2: It's an emersion, and also it was a very strong
Speaker 2: food and drinking culture in the office. Well, so the
Speaker 2: day would end and then us know, what would happen
Speaker 2: was that we'd leave the office at about eight and
Speaker 2: we would then all get taken out to eat and drink.
Speaker 2: You know, the boss either takebisan or USN would take
Speaker 2: you out, and we'd be taken either to Chinese restaurants
Speaker 2: or Japanese restaurants, and depending who was there. And it's
Speaker 2: such a culture of eating out. You know. Actually, I
Speaker 2: think in the year that I was there, I was
Speaker 2: probably invited into someone else's home to eat once, but
Speaker 2: you'd be invited out to eat all the time. And
Speaker 2: you'd eat in these incredible places, and that's where you
Speaker 2: discovered everything. And you'd see these sushi places that fullgoul
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of fish the supposedly so it's
Speaker 2: a puffer fish, and it's famously poisonous if you cut
Speaker 2: it up wrong, but if you cut it up right,
Speaker 2: it's very delicate. All of these incredible treats, but then
Speaker 2: also an enormous amount of drinking beer and Missleworry Witten
Speaker 2: whisky and water, all of that, and that was a
Speaker 2: whole lifestyle. I was twenty two. They couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: And then you would sort of kind of wheel home,
Speaker 2: you know, because even after the thing finished, you then
Speaker 2: go for a few drinks, and then you'd stop at
Speaker 2: home on the way home for a bowl of ramen
Speaker 2: miso ramen. That was the sort of thing that more
Speaker 2: or less kept you from getting a cold and did
Speaker 2: a little bit to help you out with a hangover
Speaker 2: the next.
Speaker 3: By that time, it would time, and then you'd be
Speaker 3: in the office.
Speaker 2: Not that eight thirty. Yeah, yeah, I mean in the office,
Speaker 2: you know, in charge of the photocopying machine. So I
Speaker 2: don't think it was going to.
Speaker 1: Get I don't quite believe that. But so that you're right,
Speaker 1: I'm not I was in charge.
Speaker 3: I sell you.
Speaker 1: But did you travel all of chapas regional food with
Speaker 1: the food in the north different from the food in
Speaker 1: the south, And did you go.
Speaker 2: To the mountains killing Yeah, so in the north it
Speaker 2: was up in the island, it was it was much
Speaker 2: more of those kind of soups and noodles. But I
Speaker 2: then came back from Japan, I got a job at
Speaker 2: the ft That was the sort of nineteen ninety four
Speaker 2: ninety six, I went to China, and that was essentially
Speaker 2: three years and a bit of just eating. And then
Speaker 2: that was my only job, finding off working in restaurant.
Speaker 3: Come to think of it, you worked in a restaurant.
Speaker 2: I worked in the village restaurant in Shanghai. I did.
Speaker 2: It was a very interesting thing, thinking back on China
Speaker 2: then and China now. The chef in a village restaurant,
Speaker 2: or the owner of the village restaurant. I went to
Speaker 2: her restaurant. She is wonderful and warm and welcoming, and
Speaker 2: I said, how does it work? And she took me
Speaker 2: into the kitchen at the back, and there was this
Speaker 2: amazing chef kind of just drumming these huge blades, these
Speaker 2: huge chopping knives, and I thought, I would love to
Speaker 2: learn how to do that, how just to get those
Speaker 2: wrists moving at that speed. And so they had me
Speaker 2: in and I learned to cook. One thing. I learned
Speaker 2: to cook snake soup. I mean when I say I
Speaker 2: worked in a restaurant, I worked in a restaurant. I
Speaker 2: worked in a restaurant for I would like say, six hours,
Speaker 2: but they would probably say forty five minutes.
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Speaker 3: Now do you think food and journalism and food and writing?
Speaker 1: And food is a revelation to both the culture you're in,
Speaker 1: the city you're in, the government that you're in. It
Speaker 1: tells you know, the culture of a country is told
Speaker 1: by the food and the way it's prepared and the
Speaker 1: way it's.
Speaker 3: Even going to a market.
Speaker 1: I always say to people and they go to Venice,
Speaker 1: they say where should I go first? Should I go
Speaker 1: to the academy or as I go to a market,
Speaker 1: go to the rialito and see whether they shout, or
Speaker 1: whether they serve, or whether they wrap it up or
Speaker 1: whether they're don't.
Speaker 2: You think, oh my God, tell me so. My nephew
Speaker 2: Alpha is a chef and he's just got a job
Speaker 2: going to work in Japan. He flies into Tokyo and
Speaker 2: he had the jobs front off. He's going to be
Speaker 2: a pizza chef, head chef in a restaurant making pizza
Speaker 2: in the Japanese mountains. He's got one day in Tokyo.
Speaker 2: I thought, there's only one thing to go and see
Speaker 2: ski gee the fish market. Yeah, and that's the place
Speaker 2: you would want to you'd want to go, I mean,
Speaker 2: and I think you're right. Markets are the place. But
Speaker 2: in China, China and Italy in that sense are the same.
Speaker 2: The conversation is food and the way in which you
Speaker 2: you know that. I'm going to spare your listeners my
Speaker 2: terrible Chinese. But it's the very fact that the greeting
Speaker 2: in Chinese was always have you eaten?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 2: That was your hello. And the interesting thing was that
Speaker 2: regional food you talked about all the time, all the time,
Speaker 2: every way you went to you know, what was what
Speaker 2: you ate in Shinyang was different from what you ate
Speaker 2: in Kunming, what you ate in Shanghai was obviously totally
Speaker 2: different from Beijing, and it meant something incredibly important. And
Speaker 2: today if you meet anyone from any of those places
Speaker 2: and you talk about those foods. I mean, and it
Speaker 2: was also I think I think true about politics, and
Speaker 2: I think I think it's more true than we think
Speaker 2: about the way we conceive of our society and our
Speaker 2: politics too. I went to a talk by Chimamundan Goziadice,
Speaker 2: the Nigerian author, but she said something incredible at the
Speaker 2: end of this talk at the Royal Academy, which was
Speaker 2: and there was a whole talk about the origins of
Speaker 2: being a writer, but her very last line, Ruthie was
Speaker 2: and remember, dignity is always as important as food. And
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, if you were to try and
Speaker 2: distill a great philosophy around politics, I would probably go
Speaker 2: for dignity is always as important as food, and food
Speaker 2: is always as important as dignity. But it's quite a
Speaker 2: just distillation of everything.
Speaker 1: But you were in Afghanistan, You're going to ask two opposite.
Speaker 1: When you're in Afghanistan and Pakistan and you were working
Speaker 1: as a report, did you have a fearful of food?
Speaker 3: Were you hungry? Do you have days?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, But that's I mean, that was that that
Speaker 2: happened occasionally, But I wasn't No, I wasn't fearful.
Speaker 3: Were you ever in a zone where people were food denied?
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been in places and that and that is
Speaker 2: there northern Pakistan, there were huge refugee camps were there.
Speaker 2: I mean actually as a reporter in many places, and
Speaker 2: I think that that I remember traveling up through southern
Speaker 2: Africa and then flying from there to France, and I
Speaker 2: find that, as everyone does, incredibly difficult. You just can't
Speaker 2: make sense of it. You know, I remember going to
Speaker 2: Gaza the first time. You know that all of those things,
Speaker 2: it's really you know, there's nothing you can say about
Speaker 2: it that doesn't sound either kind of glob or simplistic,
Speaker 2: but it's it's really hard to make sense of and
Speaker 2: live with. And in China, I think that's the curious thing.
Speaker 2: So when I was in China and at mid nineties,
Speaker 2: that whole experience of the Great Leap Forward and the
Speaker 2: famine and hungry ghosts that was within touching distance. People
Speaker 2: had memories of that and it had affected their families
Speaker 2: and their and their parents. And so the period that
Speaker 2: I lived in China was this just incredible explosion of
Speaker 2: excitement and optimism and food. You know, in Shanghai, restaurants
Speaker 2: were opening all the time. People were going out in
Speaker 2: a way that they never had and obviously now that
Speaker 2: then became commonplace. But living in a country, when it
Speaker 2: takes off and the experience people have around food and
Speaker 2: the joy and pleasure of eating and meals together, it's
Speaker 2: an amazing thing to win us.
Speaker 3: And what about the opposite, When you went to Washington.
Speaker 1: And then you were thrust into the world of American food,
Speaker 1: does that stay with you, that experience of when were
Speaker 1: you in Washington.
Speaker 2: I was in Washington in the early two thousands, so
Speaker 2: I was in Washington just after nine to eleven, through
Speaker 2: Bush the Bush Kerry election and into two thousand and five.
Speaker 2: When I think of food in the States, I think
Speaker 2: of food almost everywhere but Washington. So I think of
Speaker 2: kind of meatloaf in New Hampshire or going down into
Speaker 2: you know, Gumbo and Louisiana, these things that are real.
Speaker 2: But again, the US in that sense is quite a
Speaker 2: lot like China. It also has foods that it's really
Speaker 2: proud of Washington food, those sort of steaks in the
Speaker 2: Capitol Grill, and that sense, I mean that there was
Speaker 2: a particular restaurant called the Capitol Grill. It was dark
Speaker 2: and it was furnished like it was a set from
Speaker 2: our Hollywood movie about Washington restaurant, and you know, people
Speaker 2: lobbying and being lobbied. It's not a very it's not
Speaker 2: a very romantic restaurant scene. Mexico, Oh my god, Mexico City.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that restaurant? We went to Contromar count tomorrow.
Speaker 3: We spent those one of the We sat there.
Speaker 2: For hours, hours and hours. Now, that is one of
Speaker 2: the great restaurant cultures in the world. That you go there.
Speaker 2: I agree Friday afternoon, arrived two, maybe three, possibly even
Speaker 2: four o'clock in the afternoon and have lunch from four
Speaker 2: till nine. I thought that was amazing.
Speaker 3: I love the Mexico say.
Speaker 1: I love the way the Mexicans have a very late
Speaker 1: breakfast and they have lunch at four and then they
Speaker 1: have an apple for dinner.
Speaker 2: And they're all finished at about and they finished at
Speaker 2: And also think what's interesting there was when I was there,
Speaker 2: they also don't ask you what you do. Like the
Speaker 2: culture of lunch. If there's a whole culture, like the
Speaker 2: way you talk to people, and it's so it's much
Speaker 2: less transactional and much more social.
Speaker 1: The River Cafe Winter you said, Lunch is now running
Speaker 1: from Monday to Thursday, reserve a booking a www. Rivercafe
Speaker 1: dot co dot uk or give us a call. So Tortoise,
Speaker 1: I would like to talk because do you feel that
Speaker 1: with starting this vision it's a bit like starting a
Speaker 1: family or building a home that you had an idea
Speaker 1: of how you wanted people to eat or to have
Speaker 1: time to eat.
Speaker 2: To have time to eat is really key and I
Speaker 2: think being honest about caring about food. So if there's
Speaker 2: an all night election coming up, we talk a lot
Speaker 2: about what are we going to eat? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: the whole idea of taught us was how would you
Speaker 2: get away from this torrent of news and information and
Speaker 2: stop and think and try and make sense of what
Speaker 2: was happening in the world. And the best way you
Speaker 2: were going to do that was to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: And as we said, some of the best conversations are
Speaker 2: around a table, and the best thing to have on
Speaker 2: the table is food. And so we're very interested in
Speaker 2: food as a way of bringing people together, and sometimes
Speaker 2: it's been really deliberate. So you know, recently we were
Speaker 2: trying to get a better understanding of what's really happening
Speaker 2: in Iran and to try to bring a whole group
Speaker 2: of people, and we're really lucky. You know, a brilliant
Speaker 2: Persian chef came and cooked a whole night. It was
Speaker 2: absolutely incredible. Tell me, it was just actually fine enough.
Speaker 2: It was Someone had said to me, look, no one
Speaker 2: really covers Iran, which is true. There's a context, there's
Speaker 2: there's Iran coverage because it's very difficult. It's very difficult
Speaker 2: post anyone to Tehran. I tried for a long time
Speaker 2: at the BBC. But also if you think about it,
Speaker 2: if you think about what's going on in terms of
Speaker 2: human rights and the politics of Iran, actually the focus
Speaker 2: and the attention paid is minimal. So someone said, let's
Speaker 2: have a conversation about Iran. Let's bring together a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of journalists and commentators and people with points of view.
Speaker 2: And then she said, rather wonderfully, wouldn't this be much
Speaker 2: better over a really good Persian dinner? And of course
Speaker 2: it was. And I think there's something interesting, Ruthie, about
Speaker 2: news and polarization and food, because I think there's a
Speaker 2: sense among some people that the world is more polarized
Speaker 2: than it really is. I think there's a willingness of
Speaker 2: people to hear each other more than we sometimes acknowledge,
Speaker 2: but you have to bring them together in the right
Speaker 2: way first, and there are certain things, I would say,
Speaker 2: food and music that can really do that. And once
Speaker 2: you've got together around the food and the music, the
Speaker 2: argument about the ideas can be as deep and divided,
Speaker 2: but it's warmer and more human, and so that's part
Speaker 2: of the spirit of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if we're thinking about news, James, and we're here
Speaker 1: to talk about food and family and food and memories
Speaker 1: and food and work, but we're also here to talk
Speaker 1: about food and news. And one of the most exciting
Speaker 1: things that has happened here for me personally as your friend,
Speaker 1: and also as a reader of newspapers, as somebody who
Speaker 1: cares and can't put them down and wants more to read,
Speaker 1: is the idea that you are going to have a
Speaker 1: newspaper the Observer, which is all part of our history.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of food, it's part of our history
Speaker 1: and it's also the future.
Speaker 2: Well, here I'm just witnessing great writers and thinkers and
Speaker 2: photographers and lovers of food at work. The Observer is
Speaker 2: the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. Founded in seventeen ninety one,
Speaker 2: it's had some of the greatest people ever walked through
Speaker 2: its door. Rachel bar was the first female editor of
Speaker 2: the National newspaper in the eighteen nineties. It sort of
Speaker 2: called out the Versailles Treaty as being a problem waiting
Speaker 2: to happen. George Orwell had it as it was his paper.
Speaker 2: He called it the Enemy of Nonsense. David Astor was
Speaker 2: this inspiring editor of it who used to say that
Speaker 2: journalism is too important and too fun to be left
Speaker 2: a journalist to brought a whole group of people in.
Speaker 2: But if you ask people what they love about The Observer,
Speaker 2: it's food. The reality is that it had whether it
Speaker 2: was Jane Grigson or Katherine Whitehorn, but for the better
Speaker 2: part of thirty years. I think the best writer on
Speaker 2: food and recipes Nigel Slater, and not just the way
Speaker 2: he writes, because he really writes about food or the
Speaker 2: recipes he creates. And you must know him well, Ruthie.
Speaker 3: I do. I respect him and I like him.
Speaker 2: He's extraordinary anyway. The Observer cares as much about art
Speaker 2: and food as it does about politics in the world,
Speaker 2: and there are very few. And I remember when I
Speaker 2: started out at the time someone said to me, remember
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties, Harold Wilson wasn't the story. The
Speaker 2: Beatles the story. And if you go back over time
Speaker 2: and you look at the front pages of every paper,
Speaker 2: they all led with Harold Wilson. And what I love
Speaker 2: about The Observer is this sense that, no, no, we
Speaker 2: realize that where people are arts and food as much,
Speaker 2: if not more than politics and ideas in the world.
Speaker 2: And so the hope is that you can take something
Speaker 2: that has for a long time just been a newspaper,
Speaker 2: just in print with its journalism sitting on the website
Speaker 2: of The Guardian, and create something that genuinely has a
Speaker 2: life of its own, and you bring the Observer food.
Speaker 2: It's got less wonderful magazine, the Observer Food monthly, but
Speaker 2: you bring it to life digitally, you bring it to
Speaker 2: life in a bunch of live events, and more people
Speaker 2: and a new generation of people get to have that
Speaker 2: love and respect for the culture of food that I
Speaker 2: think has been at the heart of The Observer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we excited about that.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about it too. I'm actually even you.
Speaker 3: Know why it's exciting as well.
Speaker 1: It's a successible but it changes, you know, you have
Speaker 1: a column that you look to what's new in food,
Speaker 1: what's happening in food, what's somebody cooking and food?
Speaker 3: What ingredients are coming in today?
Speaker 1: Which ones are you saying goodbye to the politics of
Speaker 1: food the.
Speaker 3: Way we grow it.
Speaker 1: There's so much, so much time, and you know, without
Speaker 1: having to buy a book, as.
Speaker 2: You say, it's a way into culture, a way really
Speaker 2: into economics. That's why I think that Chimamanda line really
Speaker 2: sat with me. Because so many newsrooms know what they're
Speaker 2: against right, they're driven by a kind of anger or fear.
Speaker 2: If you can have one that knows what it's for,
Speaker 2: dignity is always as important as food, and food is
Speaker 2: always as important as dignity. You know what you're about
Speaker 2: and you get up every day and go, well, these
Speaker 2: are the things we're seeking out.
Speaker 1: Going for food as comfort if you need and as
Speaker 1: I say, I hope you don't need comfort. You don't
Speaker 1: need a life you need it. But I have a
Speaker 1: pair of socks. Talked about my socks that James Harding
Speaker 1: brought to me. They are definitely giving me the good.
Speaker 3: They're really good.
Speaker 1: If we're going to go and join through and have
Speaker 1: lunch and have some comfort, here, is there a food
Speaker 1: that when you do need comfort that you will turn to.
Speaker 2: You can go parently one or parody two. Here. Parently
Speaker 2: one is chicken soup.
Speaker 3: That's a good one, and.
Speaker 2: The other is spaghetti bolonnaise, and either of those every day,
Speaker 2: all day long. But my comfort treat is Cituanese food
Speaker 2: mar putauf on a good bowl of white rice and
Speaker 2: a cold beer. That is a happy place.
Speaker 3: Let's go do that.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 2: with Montclair