Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adami's Studios.
Speaker 2: Today, my guest is Alfonso Quiron, the Academy Award winning director,
Speaker 2: writer and producer. Amongst his many masterpieces are Gravity, Roma.
Speaker 3: And Harry Potter.
Speaker 2: He is a man who combines beauty in film with
Speaker 2: a passion for telling stories. Alfonso is from Mexico, and
Speaker 2: ever since the architect Ricardo Legeretta brought us there in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, our family has returned every year to
Speaker 2: this stunning country and the people who live there. Alfonso
Speaker 2: and I share the feeling that our children are the
Speaker 2: center of our lives, that food is a focus of
Speaker 2: our days, and Italy is a second home for us both.
Speaker 2: I admired Alfonso through his movies long before I knew him,
Speaker 2: and more and more ever since. Today, as we sit
Speaker 2: in the garden of the River Cafe and talk together,
Speaker 2: you will understand.
Speaker 3: Why goodbye, says Rutie Alfonso.
Speaker 2: When I cook a meal in the River Cafe. When
Speaker 2: we are serving a meal, what you think about is
Speaker 2: the action of the dish. But what really we're thinking
Speaker 2: about is the preparation before. So we start very early
Speaker 2: in the morning to prepare to think about process. And
Speaker 2: I found very moving the interview that you did about
Speaker 2: making a film, and you talked about that, you talked
Speaker 2: about the lighting, you talked about the black and white photography,
Speaker 2: you talked about the cinematography, you talked about process. So
Speaker 2: process in film, process in food, what do you feel about?
Speaker 3: What is your thing about? The relationship?
Speaker 4: Exactly the same proces.
Speaker 5: But I think it's the same with any creative endeavor,
Speaker 5: being this a technical endeavor or or an artistic endeavor.
Speaker 5: I think that everything comes from the concept. You know,
Speaker 5: first there's a concept, and that concept, interestingly, I think
Speaker 5: comes out of memories, and those memories in the specific
Speaker 5: case of I mean that's what food is so amazing,
Speaker 5: because it combines the two biggest centers of memory, that
Speaker 5: is taste and smell.
Speaker 4: In film, you go through different things.
Speaker 2: Tell me about film and.
Speaker 5: In the specific case of roma, for instance, the process.
Speaker 5: I try to focus the process in images, but also
Speaker 5: in terms of smells and sounds and in terms of
Speaker 5: Once that you start getting the concept also then you
Speaker 5: you have to you have to to start landing that process.
Speaker 5: How lan landing it is like how am I going
Speaker 5: to make this happen that. I guess that in the
Speaker 5: in the kitchen, in the when you're cooking is pretty
Speaker 5: pretty similar. You have an idea of a recipe, you
Speaker 5: have idea for a film, you write the screenplay, you
Speaker 5: write the recipe, so everybody can have the same shared information,
Speaker 5: because that's something that is so specifically.
Speaker 4: It's so similar between between say cooking.
Speaker 5: And and cinema that a lot of different processes are
Speaker 5: involved and a lot of different people are involved in
Speaker 5: the process. Another element that we have in common is
Speaker 5: the presentation. Yeah, because one thing is just mixing the
Speaker 5: ingredients and having the amazing dish, but how you're going
Speaker 5: to present it?
Speaker 2: And that's the last thing. That's that's what I do,
Speaker 2: or that's what the hedgeh Off us. We stand there
Speaker 2: and I will not send a plate out to your table.
Speaker 2: I'm the last person, so the responsibilities. Man, I'm the
Speaker 2: last person to see a plate before it goes And
Speaker 2: I guess you're the last person to see your film
Speaker 2: before it's in the cinema.
Speaker 5: And then you not only that, but also you have
Speaker 5: to do because in a film also is the presentation
Speaker 5: goes together your film with which image you're going to
Speaker 5: to use to convey the film, meaning the posters, the traders,
Speaker 5: all of that stuff off.
Speaker 2: Answer, tell me about the food of your childhood. Tell
Speaker 2: me about growing up in Mexico.
Speaker 5: I belong to a middle class family in Mexico City.
Speaker 5: You know, Mexico, And you know how different is a
Speaker 5: middle class in Mexico that the European middle class. So
Speaker 5: the way, tell me, ah, a middle class family in
Speaker 5: Mexico growing up in the sixties and the seventies, there
Speaker 5: was still a mentality of making things last. I remember
Speaker 5: the refrigerator in the kitchen was probably a refrigerator of
Speaker 5: the fifties. You know that rattle a lot. By the way,
Speaker 5: the kitchen was an old kitchen. I mean there was
Speaker 5: one TV set for the whole home and an old one.
Speaker 4: And with the food it was.
Speaker 5: So what I'm saying that is that the dichotomy of
Speaker 5: this is that in one hand, yes, it is that
Speaker 5: it was less oppolentan what it would be like a
Speaker 5: European or American families, a middle class families. But at
Speaker 5: the same time, because of the horrible social structure of
Speaker 5: Mexico and the disparity any middle class family league uh
Speaker 5: has domestic workers. And many of those families, of these
Speaker 5: middle class families, they have social domestic workers that live
Speaker 5: in the premises in the in what it was called
Speaker 5: the servants quarter.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And when you say servants quarter, you're you're thinking, okay, well, yes,
Speaker 5: a huge house is not not necessarily everything was gen
Speaker 5: cramped up.
Speaker 4: And I have to say that the duty of.
Speaker 5: The kitchen it fell in the in the hands of
Speaker 5: these domestic workers. In my house, there was one person
Speaker 5: that was born in charge of the kitchen. One another
Speaker 5: person was in charge of all the other chores around
Speaker 5: the house. When I my first memory was a very
Speaker 5: old woman called Benita Uh. I guessed that she was
Speaker 5: from Misteko origin south of that southern Mexico. I mean Mistako.
Speaker 5: They extend, they extend between what is Vera Cruz and
Speaker 5: beneath that.
Speaker 4: She was really old. The memory I have of her
Speaker 4: was just a face filled with wrinkles. And Benita was
Speaker 4: the was the cook, and she would just pretty much.
Speaker 4: She was very independent about unless.
Speaker 5: There was a special There were special occasions in which,
Speaker 5: as you we were talking before, it was more about
Speaker 5: my grandmother giving instruction.
Speaker 2: She wouldn't bring the food of her region because Mexico
Speaker 2: is so original. She cooked the food. If she'd come
Speaker 2: from Ohaka, would she cook.
Speaker 4: That, she would cook, she would cook, cook for Haka.
Speaker 5: But being a middle class family in Mexico, there was
Speaker 5: a lot of Mexican food, Yes, but there was this
Speaker 5: kind of uh Spanish tradition, I would, I would think,
Speaker 5: and a combination of this kind of Spanish and European
Speaker 5: French tradition completely adapted, I guess you know, it was
Speaker 5: very syncretic. And when I was a kid, also they
Speaker 5: were starting to be greater influence from the US, the
Speaker 5: whole thing of burgers and hogdogs.
Speaker 2: I'm picturing your household, your family home, and so you
Speaker 2: would come home from school, or your father would come
Speaker 2: home from work, or your mother would come home, and
Speaker 2: then you would also do you have a large family?
Speaker 2: Did you have brothers? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I had.
Speaker 5: I have three siblings, one sister, two brothers, And the
Speaker 5: household was pretty much the way they describing in the
Speaker 5: film Roma.
Speaker 4: The interesting thing is that it was a combination between
Speaker 4: which ever.
Speaker 5: Food Benita cooked by Because you knew how to cook,
Speaker 5: she was great, but also my grandmother would come with
Speaker 5: her big book of recipes that it was one of
Speaker 5: those ancient books you know. Well, it was not a book,
Speaker 5: it was a notebook. It was all written, handwritten, probably
Speaker 5: from her family, her mom or whatever. It was a
Speaker 5: very old kind of uh notebook, and she would go
Speaker 5: through the pages and find like the recipe that was
Speaker 5: going to be for that day. So that means that
Speaker 5: those recipes will come from from way before.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because yesterday I did a conversation with someone
Speaker 2: rush To and so there's someone who grew up in
Speaker 2: Bombay with a book like that in his kitchen from
Speaker 2: his great grandmother. He said that almost every kitchen you
Speaker 2: know had the great grandmother or the grandmother's recipes written
Speaker 2: in hand, you know.
Speaker 5: And yeah, well that would have been maybe my great
Speaker 5: grandmother or the book, and who knows for how far
Speaker 5: back it would come in. And it was yes, I
Speaker 5: remember it was I never I was a kid that
Speaker 5: was not that interested. But what I was amazing was
Speaker 5: the handwriting because they handwriting look antique. Yeah, and there
Speaker 5: was stel like in between pages like dry flowers and stuff.
Speaker 3: Where is that book? I have no idea to find it.
Speaker 2: The recipe that I'm going to read for our Fonso
Speaker 2: that he chose is or ketti with tomato and ricotta.
Speaker 2: Three hundred grams or katta, three hundred grams of cherry tomatoes,
Speaker 2: very ripe, cut in half and squeezed, one garlic cove chopped,
Speaker 2: fifty grams of grated parmesan, one bunch of fresh basil,
Speaker 2: a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil, and two hundred
Speaker 2: grams of ricotta. Combine the tomatoes, garlic, season add the
Speaker 2: olive oil and toss to combine. Let marinate for fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes or so. Put the ricotta in a bowl and
Speaker 2: season with salt and black pepper. Cook the orchetti and
Speaker 2: boiling salted water until al dente, and then drain gently.
Speaker 2: Heat the tomato mixture and add the drained orchetti, stirring
Speaker 2: gently to combine. Finally, stir in the ricotta and the
Speaker 2: basil leaves and serve with parmesan. So, Alfonso, why did
Speaker 2: you choose this recipe?
Speaker 5: Sounds so simple, is so in many ways so basic,
Speaker 5: and I think that that makes it so universal.
Speaker 4: It is one of those in which it allows every
Speaker 4: single flavor to come through.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's with the tomatoes, particularly the tomatoes that you use.
Speaker 5: You feel the soil. It's interesting because food is amazing
Speaker 5: because you can like simplicity the same way that you
Speaker 5: can enjoy a dish that takes like fifteen hours to make,
Speaker 5: you know, and it's a completely different journey. It's a
Speaker 5: completely different trip. The beauty of dishes like this is
Speaker 5: how honest and immediately they feel. But by this because
Speaker 5: of the same reason, nothing can go wrong.
Speaker 2: I think that growing up in the United States, the
Speaker 2: image of Mexican food that we had of Mexican food
Speaker 2: is being so heavy and so many, so many different
Speaker 2: dishes on a plate. You know that you would have
Speaker 2: you go to a Mexican restaurant and then just be
Speaker 2: very heavy. And then the experience that I had it
Speaker 2: was really radical to go to Mexico and see there's
Speaker 2: incredibly refined. You know, even if it was just rice
Speaker 2: and beans, there was just or if it was a
Speaker 2: fish with a bit of chili and chilantra, or if
Speaker 2: it was tortilla with just herbs and some cheese, it
Speaker 2: was so delicate. You know, it's robust. But the difference
Speaker 2: between the interpretation of Mexican food internationally and the reality
Speaker 2: of eating it in Mexico, for me as a cook was, well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's totally because you know, of course you have heavy,
Speaker 5: heavy dishes, I mean, and you you have a lot
Speaker 5: of that that is like fast food, the equivalent of
Speaker 5: fast food, A lot of them that you find in.
Speaker 4: Stands, like thousands of stands, and you know in the
Speaker 4: street stands.
Speaker 5: That is, they use a lot of corn and dough,
Speaker 5: corn dough, tortilla massa tortilla and.
Speaker 4: Different shapes, and a lot of that is fried.
Speaker 5: And and if you think about it, the difference between
Speaker 5: what would be a soapage, a lupa taco and say
Speaker 5: what achieve if you ask what are the ingredients pretty
Speaker 5: much exactly the same. The difference is how that corn
Speaker 5: dough is prepared a little bit like pasta. Yeah, now
Speaker 5: that one. Yes, it can be heavy if it's if
Speaker 5: you limit Mexican food to that, but that's you know,
Speaker 5: that is just it's like saying Italian food is pizza.
Speaker 2: Whenever I go to a city, must is the first
Speaker 2: thing I do is try and go to a market,
Speaker 2: because in a way, the market tells you where you are,
Speaker 2: tells you about the people there, It tells you about
Speaker 2: the food that's there, the attitude towards the food, and
Speaker 2: so Mexico for me was full of great markets. Were
Speaker 2: you did you go to the markets?
Speaker 5: Right, Well, that's you're you're hitting something that's very important there,
Speaker 5: because yeah, I think that unfortunately all of that is
Speaker 5: changing as well in Mexico because of the arrival of
Speaker 5: the big supermarkets and the convenience of the big supermarket.
Speaker 4: But what I grew up it was I love as
Speaker 4: a kid going to to to the market. It was
Speaker 4: an adventure.
Speaker 5: I mean it was just going through the stalls and
Speaker 5: you have all these kind of fruits and vegetables, but
Speaker 5: also you will go to the mid section of the
Speaker 5: fish section and they were like chopping all the stuff there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And it was the mixture of of the sounds, the smells,
Speaker 5: but other things. The sounds, you know, you've been in
Speaker 5: a market in Mexico, like most markets, of course, it's
Speaker 5: just the cacophony of sounds between the people announcing their
Speaker 5: their produce and the chopping of the of the butcher
Speaker 5: to some music in the distance.
Speaker 4: That's another thing growing up. It was the smells of
Speaker 4: the bakery. Yeah, and also the most beautiful smell, the
Speaker 4: smell of the tortillaia.
Speaker 2: Tell me about that.
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a to do.
Speaker 5: As you know, to do the tortillas, you go through
Speaker 5: a process called mixed mixed a meal.
Speaker 4: That is how you grind the corn. And it's a machine.
Speaker 5: It's a big machine that grinds the corn into this
Speaker 5: doll and then the machine actually goes and creates a tortilla.
Speaker 2: And so you don't have that rolling out process.
Speaker 5: No, you don't have that rolling out And now it's
Speaker 5: mechanical in most of the cases, there's a whole mechanical
Speaker 5: sound that comes with it is very metallical and very
Speaker 5: machine with a lot of squeaking. And the thing is
Speaker 5: the combination of the sound and the smell that is fantastic.
Speaker 5: Now I love that, but nothing beats a handmade tortilla.
Speaker 4: There was you know, Lauosquivel and she wrote like water
Speaker 4: for chocolate.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, of course.
Speaker 5: Louda used to say that the big difference is that
Speaker 5: when you were doing the tortilla by hand, you're actually
Speaker 5: infusing the tortilla with energy.
Speaker 4: Yeah. She was saying that.
Speaker 2: When you left home and you were on your around,
Speaker 2: did you first did you cook? Did you start cooking
Speaker 2: for yourself or did you.
Speaker 5: I tried to cook for myself, and I was, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I was sort of successful, but I you know, I
Speaker 5: was I was young, and I was completely busy trying
Speaker 5: to make a living that my priority was elsewhere, and
Speaker 5: wrongly so, because I think that they would help a
Speaker 5: lot discovery the kitchen and cooking earlier, and that didn't
Speaker 5: happen until later, and not because of me. It's because
Speaker 5: as my son came to live with me, and it
Speaker 5: was this whole thing of Okay, I'm not going to
Speaker 5: be just going and doing I was living in New
Speaker 5: York at the time, says I'm not going to be
Speaker 5: just doing takeaways, you know, for my son.
Speaker 4: I have his home.
Speaker 5: I need to cook for him, So yeah, I would.
Speaker 5: Then I started spending a long time going through recipe books,
Speaker 5: and I'm trying to figure out this combination of yes,
Speaker 5: food that was more kind of international food, if you might,
Speaker 5: but always having Mexican, Mexican dishes or Mexican ingredients.
Speaker 4: And I was in New.
Speaker 5: York and you could get at that time some ingredients.
Speaker 5: Now you can get everything in New York for Mexican food,
Speaker 5: but then it was a bit more difficult, so you
Speaker 5: would have to sort out the places and then it's
Speaker 5: when I start cooking the promise and it's something I
Speaker 5: haven't haven't solved yet.
Speaker 4: What is it that I love cooking but i'm missy.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that's a problem. And the other thing is
Speaker 5: I don't know how to manage the time. Yeah, time
Speaker 5: and miss is the thing. And because there was appearing
Speaker 5: which I said, you know, I just want to stay
Speaker 5: here home, and you know, like my kid just moved
Speaker 5: to New York, I want to be here. So it
Speaker 5: was pretty much dedicated to that and my life would
Speaker 5: go into doing menus and where I'm going to cook tomorrow.
Speaker 2: When you when you talk about we've talked about food
Speaker 2: in your in your parents' home and your grandmother's cooking,
Speaker 2: and in New York you're cooking and pretty ingredients. How
Speaker 2: the restaurants appeal to you? Do you like eating in
Speaker 2: a restaurant? Did your parents ever take you to a
Speaker 2: restaurants in Mexico City?
Speaker 5: Yes, that was for me growing up. There was a
Speaker 5: big treat going to a restaurant. It was a treat
Speaker 5: because it was expensive, so you would eat at home.
Speaker 5: I mean the typical thing is, oh, I would like
Speaker 5: to go at a restaurant and my grandmother and my
Speaker 5: mom saying we can cook it at home and it's cheaper.
Speaker 5: You would get mostly Mexican food, where it would be
Speaker 5: international food or Argentine and steaks or panadas and stuff
Speaker 5: like that. Once that I start being more independent pretty much.
Speaker 5: I lived in restaurants, yes, because also restaurants are not
Speaker 5: only a place where there's food, is a communion, and
Speaker 5: in Mexico, you know how it goes. I mean, the
Speaker 5: thing in Mexico is that comitas or lunchtime.
Speaker 4: Is dangerous.
Speaker 5: Because you know that you're going to agree with some
Speaker 5: friends to meet at three pm for lunch, and you
Speaker 5: sit there and maybe they order a tequila to open up,
Speaker 5: and then food comes and people eat. The launch extends
Speaker 5: until six pm, seven pm, and suddenly they're you just
Speaker 5: staying there and you're asking for some sort of diner.
Speaker 2: So food is if it is a connection and it
Speaker 2: is something very important to our life. So I suppose
Speaker 2: my last question to you from a very wonderful conversation
Speaker 2: here as people are starting to eat in the garden,
Speaker 2: is if you have a comfort food, if there's a
Speaker 2: food that you go to when not because you're hungry,
Speaker 2: not because you're celebrating, but because you need comfort. What
Speaker 2: would that food be?
Speaker 4: I think definitely will be Yeah, that would be That
Speaker 4: would be it.
Speaker 2: Well, I look forward to having a case Ida with you.
Speaker 4: I would love that.
Speaker 2: To visit the online shop of the River Cafe, go
Speaker 2: to shop Therivercafe dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: River Cafe Table four is a production of iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Adamized Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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