Speaker 1: Guess What's happening on Ruthie's Table four on the twenty
Speaker 1: second of October, our brand new series with exciting guests.
Speaker 1: Just last week I interviewed Elton, John Greta, Gerwig, Ian
Speaker 1: McKellen and Guillermo del Toro. Go to Apple, Spotify, iHeart,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. See you in two weeks.
Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Sitting here in the River Cafe on a sunny Monday morning,
Speaker 1: with chefs in the kitchen making ravioli, with hiroles and
Speaker 1: waiters laying tables in the garden, the uncertain world we
Speaker 1: live in feels miles away. The artist and filmmaker Steve
Speaker 1: McQueen does not separate the world of beauty and the
Speaker 1: world of suffering in any of his work political oppression, slavery,
Speaker 1: sexual inequality. Steve and I met in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: when he won the Turner Prize for his radical video art,
Speaker 1: and we once had dinner together with President Obama. It
Speaker 1: was clear that the only person President Obama was interested
Speaker 1: in talking to with Steve McQueen, and he didn't want
Speaker 1: to share him with anyone else. Now, a few years later,
Speaker 1: I finally have Steve McQueen all to myself, and being
Speaker 1: a generous person, will share him with you. Steve and
Speaker 1: I share a hero in Paul Robeson. We share the
Speaker 1: same concerns for equality and justice and food, and today
Speaker 1: we're going to talk all about that and more. Thank you, Steve,
Speaker 1: Thank you for inviting me. Tell me about growing up
Speaker 1: in London. You lived with your parents in West London
Speaker 1: and what did you eat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we grew up. I grew up having a firstyship
Speaker 2: with book West London. My relationship with food really starts
Speaker 2: with the market. I was the kid who was carrying
Speaker 2: the bags behind their mother, you know, because basically I
Speaker 2: would have to go with her because you know, I
Speaker 2: was the sort of detra pair of hands to carry
Speaker 2: the shopping back home. Food was a way of actually
Speaker 2: getting to go London because if someone had said to
Speaker 2: my mother there's you know, you could get so and
Speaker 2: so seabas in this market for this amount of money,
Speaker 2: she will be there. So people used to talk about
Speaker 2: where can they get particular kind of food and fresh produce?
Speaker 1: Yeah, where was your mother born?
Speaker 2: My mother was born in Trinidad, but she grew up
Speaker 2: in in Grenada and my father was born in Grenado.
Speaker 1: How old were they when they came to London.
Speaker 2: My mother was about fourteen fifteen, I think's about fifteen
Speaker 2: when she came to London. I think in the early sixties,
Speaker 2: and my father was a little bit older. I think
Speaker 2: maybe it was about twenty one.
Speaker 3: I don't know when. I think he came early sixties too,
Speaker 3: but 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 2: Well, in fact, what happened was that a lot of
Speaker 2: joity of people for coming from west in this headline,
Speaker 2: and they grew their own food, you know, and look
Speaker 2: after you know, the animals and so forth and whatnot.
Speaker 2: And fishing was a big part of the culture too,
Speaker 2: because obviously my mother lived on the coast InCred a
Speaker 2: place called Siteers and was a very big fishing spot there.
Speaker 2: You know, it's called a fishing village. Food was very
Speaker 2: much directly sort of to do with who they were.
Speaker 2: So when they came to London, of course looking for
Speaker 2: good food was very important. And you know we used
Speaker 2: to go to all kinds of bloody markets all over London.
Speaker 3: I so I said, I met up with it.
Speaker 2: I missed my football focus on a sacle because I
Speaker 2: had to go to the market with my mum. It
Speaker 2: was something which I remember, and it was all different cultures,
Speaker 2: you know, it was, didn't you You had the sort
Speaker 2: of you know, the Londoners and the White Londoners and
Speaker 2: the Indian, you're the Jewish. You had all kinds of people.
Speaker 2: It was fabulous. It was really kind of coolbe.
Speaker 1: When you would come home from the market. What would
Speaker 1: you eat? What would they cook from the market?
Speaker 2: Oh, if you get dashing, you know, spinach? You know
Speaker 2: again you know you cook? I mean my my my
Speaker 2: favorite was like a nice stewed chicken. I'm not a
Speaker 2: special thing. I'm rote just you know, Oh my god,
Speaker 2: what was it? A beautiful It's like a nice stew fish.
Speaker 2: And I used to love what was this this one thing?
Speaker 2: I used to not very much. Was a vegetable?
Speaker 3: What was it? It was? I love, I love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it was all kinds of exotic stuff. I
Speaker 2: mean I say exotic because it was familiar to me.
Speaker 2: But my friends, my white friends, and what was that was?
Speaker 3: This 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 cooked too. He took pride in the Christmas hand.
Speaker 3: That was his job.
Speaker 2: There was a particular way of cooking, part way that
Speaker 2: came from because his uncle was a butcher in the
Speaker 2: West Indies.
Speaker 3: So there was a particular way of cooking the hand.
Speaker 2: I can't even prescribe it now, but it's close, all
Speaker 2: into indented in all everywhere.
Speaker 3: It was almost like sort of a ror movie. Marvelous. Yeah,
Speaker 3: great cooks, great cooks.
Speaker 1: Did you cook with them? Was it a family affair?
Speaker 1: Would you all cook together?
Speaker 2: I mean, I love being with my mother in the
Speaker 2: kitchen because somehow I love to help out. I love
Speaker 2: to sort of be I don't know, I love to
Speaker 2: love that. So I can't say that I'm a great cook,
Speaker 2: but I was a very good shoe chef. I am a
Speaker 2: bit of a neat and tidy person.
Speaker 1: Would they entertain would friends come over? Did was there
Speaker 1: that feeling.
Speaker 3: When people did come over? It was? It was a
Speaker 3: lot of family and fair and well. I think most
Speaker 3: of the things I used to do with the people's
Speaker 3: come over with them would just listen because.
Speaker 2: There was always boys that would come out that my
Speaker 2: parents will never talk to us about, of course, but
Speaker 2: always because adults will talk to adults.
Speaker 3: So therefore and find out about sort of how what
Speaker 3: 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 2: I was actually nearing you, guys. Actually I was in Fulham.
Speaker 2: I was just around the corner from me. I was
Speaker 2: with this girlfriend and she was great. She was a
Speaker 2: very important girlfriend of mine. Your name was a Nuke.
Speaker 2: She was a Swiss. And then she had discovered this restaurant,
Speaker 2: this place called Malati, the Indonesia place and so, which
Speaker 2: was delicious, It was gorgeous. And that was my first restaurant, and.
Speaker 1: She that was your first restaurant.
Speaker 3: I think that was one of my first restaurants. I
Speaker 3: 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 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: I mean what's great about I mean, now, I suppose
Speaker 2: in London it wasn't so when when I was growing up,
Speaker 2: we didn't have that was the world, I think. And
Speaker 2: to be introduced to the world through food and of
Speaker 2: course good company, that's always the main ingredient for going
Speaker 2: to a restaurant, So that was wonderful. And then we
Speaker 2: got to know. So we've got a lot of restaurants
Speaker 2: and so we got to know I remember during that time,
Speaker 2: this is early nineties, early nineties. Yeah, and also in
Speaker 2: East End too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what about in arts school? Was that revelation?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean, you know canon bit of cheese blaodiel and baget.
Speaker 2: I mean that was that was kind of like interesting
Speaker 2: because again there was an addition to wet in this cheese,
Speaker 2: I mean was crappy cheese. You know, you can imagine
Speaker 2: a sort of a big block of something which they
Speaker 2: called cheese. But getting to know cheese was interesting during
Speaker 2: my time at Foundation at Chelsea.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a kind of interesting life change, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Between this going to the market with your mother and
Speaker 1: carrying the bag and coming home and cooking, and then
Speaker 1: sitting down and eating, and then having independence and having
Speaker 1: to fend for yourself and discover life out there. Did
Speaker 1: you go home? Would you return home for the home
Speaker 1: cooked meal?
Speaker 3: Yes? I used to love going home for food.
Speaker 2: My goodness, I said, Oh, oh, my goodness, I used
Speaker 2: to love it.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just to sort of. Yeah.
Speaker 2: It was difficult because at first it was how do
Speaker 2: I cook? What do I cook? I was on the phone,
Speaker 2: my mom, Mom, how do I do this?
Speaker 3: Mom? Do I do this? My mad I do that?
Speaker 2: So a lot of calls about making sort of soups
Speaker 2: and things like that, and how do I season them?
Speaker 2: Because I think it For granted, I used to be
Speaker 2: a shoe hip, but I wasn't really looking. It wasn't
Speaker 2: really studying. Yeah, so a lot of phone calls.
Speaker 1: Basically back then, the River Cafe Cafe is ready for autumn.
Speaker 1: Pumpkin and chestnut souper tolo dispinacci polenta and almond cake
Speaker 1: and why not a telephonino, one of our favorite cocktails,
Speaker 1: were open from nine to nine, just steps away from
Speaker 1: the River Cafe. See you there, Welcome back to River Cafe.
Speaker 1: Table four. In each episode, my guest reads a recipe
Speaker 1: they have chosen from one of our cookbooks. We chose
Speaker 1: spinach and peas. So would you like to go for
Speaker 1: it and tell the world how to make it?
Speaker 2: One kilogram fresh peas in their pods, extra virgin olive oil,
Speaker 2: one garlic clove, peeled and diced. One dried red chili crumbled,
Speaker 2: one kilogram with spinach, washed, tough stalks removed.
Speaker 1: Pard the peas and blanche them with plenty of boiling water.
Speaker 1: In Italy, no one ever cooks vegetables.
Speaker 3: I'll only pasta.
Speaker 2: So rather than blanching these peas, boil them so that
Speaker 2: 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, The Mangrove Restaurant was a restaurant run by
Speaker 2: Frank Kritchlow in lamber Grove on All Saints road, and
Speaker 2: he opened a restaurant in nineteen sixty eight, and it.
Speaker 3: Was a sort of home away from home restaurant.
Speaker 2: You can imagine, as I said before, other people wanting
Speaker 2: the sort of the taste of home and had a
Speaker 2: vibrancy of having sort of like many people wanted to
Speaker 2: sort of come to a place to eat and to
Speaker 2: sort of commune with each other.
Speaker 3: So it was a place of refuge.
Speaker 2: In it in a way, you know, the vibe that
Speaker 2: came out of there, and it was just one of
Speaker 2: those places which became very infectious if people wanted to go.
Speaker 2: It was it was it was something which was which
Speaker 2: was which was on the scene, and unfortunately the police
Speaker 2: and the authorities that be obviously didn't like what was
Speaker 2: happening at this place because again it was you know,
Speaker 2: it was people from the Western Ears, it was working
Speaker 2: class people, it was the thinkers, it was sort of
Speaker 2: activists were coming and also the whole eploy.
Speaker 3: So all these people.
Speaker 2: Coming to this spot and talking over food, having ideas,
Speaker 2: and obviously that was something which the authorities didn't like,
Speaker 2: and therefore they tried to disrupt, disrupted as much as
Speaker 2: they could. You know, it was a case of the
Speaker 2: people not wanting certain ideas having a foothold in the UK,
Speaker 2: and they thought that the Mangrove was a place where
Speaker 2: those ideas could sort of take roote.
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?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And there's a sense of I don't know what
Speaker 2: is it purpose, you're there, your present, there's another person
Speaker 2: there in present, but also actually just a listen. It's
Speaker 2: just a case of being in an environment where you are,
Speaker 2: you know, you feel comfortable in order to say things
Speaker 2: 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 Kine 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'd like to meet people that you're going to work
Speaker 1: with in a restaurant.
Speaker 3: First, I love it, but that doesn't happen often.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it's sort of it's a classy
Speaker 2: way to do anything, isn't it.
Speaker 3: And also I love it because growing up in the
Speaker 3: art world.
Speaker 2: What was wonderful about growing up in the art world
Speaker 2: is that artists never paid for dinners, never, because you're
Speaker 2: the artist. And it was amazing. In fact, I think
Speaker 2: that's how I grew up in food in an and
Speaker 2: interesting way. It was through the art world. It's completely
Speaker 2: different to the film world. I mean, you know the
Speaker 2: fact that you you know, you might get crappy sangwich,
Speaker 2: you're you're you're lucky.
Speaker 3: But in the art world, it was always the best wines.
Speaker 3: It was always the best food.
Speaker 2: You know, if it was an opening or even a meeting,
Speaker 2: it was always the best restaurant.
Speaker 3: 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: it was so earth shattering, which was Hunger. And so
Speaker 1: we're talking about a movie called hunger and the state
Speaker 1: of hunger, and somebody put their principles and politics above comfort.
Speaker 1: Does a political act actually starved themselves? So what was
Speaker 1: it like making a movie that was the absence of
Speaker 1: food as a political statement?
Speaker 3: I mean, for me, it was again it's food is
Speaker 3: an interesting thing that you know.
Speaker 2: I related to that in a way that of being
Speaker 2: a child, in the way that you know, often the
Speaker 2: only power a child has is frailing to eat. His
Speaker 2: or her mother saying you're not leaving this table until
Speaker 2: you finish that plate, and the child sort of, you know,
Speaker 2: refusing to eat, and then you're sent off the bed,
Speaker 2: you know. And it's interesting because you know what the
Speaker 2: clothes you wear that as a as a child of
Speaker 2: a sudden age, what time you go to bed, what
Speaker 2: food you eat, is chosen by your parents. And the
Speaker 2: whole idea that this child, the power this child has
Speaker 2: is to refrain to eat.
Speaker 3: That was my.
Speaker 2: Relationship in some ways to Bobby Sands and Hunger Stright,
Speaker 2: that the power that person had was referring to eat
Speaker 2: ever since it was a child. I remembered asking my
Speaker 2: mom when I saw this image of Bobby's hands on
Speaker 2: television with a number oneth his image and asking my mother,
Speaker 2: what's what's what is that? How oldest person is? Because no,
Speaker 2: thats how many days this person has been a hunger strike.
Speaker 2: So there was an immediate relationship with the story and
Speaker 2: it was, yeah, it was It was difficult, but I
Speaker 2: think Michael Fans been there. You know why cars is
Speaker 2: Bobby Sands was tremendous and that was a bond up,
Speaker 2: you know, we have to this day.
Speaker 3: It was a real kind of a labor 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 2: I seem to remember, Yeah, there's lots of I think
Speaker 2: there's lots of food in my films. I mean you
Speaker 2: can see after that his shame. The two characters Brandon
Speaker 2: any sort of possible girlfriend or at this dinner table
Speaker 2: and this waiter, annoying waiter comes in every five seconds
Speaker 2: to interrupt them. I remember that from having lots of
Speaker 2: dinners in New York and every five seconds and what
Speaker 2: becomes in the middle of something was getting bigger. You
Speaker 2: know how conversations are they have to get to that point,
Speaker 2: you know, it's always it was commercial bloody breaks every
Speaker 2: five seconds, start from scratch every five minutes, so you're
Speaker 2: didn't make for a good eating experience.
Speaker 1: I put that in the movie What do You Eat
Speaker 1: on a Film?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 1: Do you hate stopping for lunch when you're filming?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I think it's fantastic. I mean, what was so wonderful
Speaker 2: when I started filmmaking? And hunger and shame and obvious.
Speaker 2: It's like all the actors and all the crew eat together.
Speaker 2: They people in their buddy trailers and the act crap,
Speaker 2: everyone lead together. There's something about communal eating and it's
Speaker 2: about weed. It's such a unifying thing to see, you know,
Speaker 2: the hear and makeup and the camera department and tubing
Speaker 2: up for food and sitting at the table together and
Speaker 2: talking about the film or talking about things.
Speaker 3: When there's a camaraderie.
Speaker 2: It's only time often when you're sort of on set
Speaker 2: together that you had that sort of time, as you know,
Speaker 2: when when you're sitting together eating and it's fun.
Speaker 3: 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 2: Yes, absolutely, I mean I had schooled us, which I
Speaker 2: paid for by my mother. That's why today I like
Speaker 2: hot meals. I love the hot lunches, I mean, and
Speaker 2: they were vital. They were vital. There were children I
Speaker 2: know for a fact that that was the main meal
Speaker 2: of the day, if not the only meal of the day.
Speaker 2: And this is with our bottle of milk in the
Speaker 2: morning before missus snatcher took it away from us.
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 them together, and it's
Speaker 3: so important. You know.
Speaker 2: Also, people have to sort of really tip the hat
Speaker 2: to Marcus l Ashford and what he did in the
Speaker 2: sense of, you know, getting the government to sort of
Speaker 2: stand down twice about the school meals because you know
Speaker 2: it can This is you know, if we can't look
Speaker 2: after people we can't afford to eat, then I don't
Speaker 2: know who we are as human beings. That it took
Speaker 2: a footballer to do. That is kind of a bit
Speaker 2: you know. There you go, everyone has got a step up.
Speaker 3: In your own way.
Speaker 2: I suppose if people aren't doing their job properly, that
Speaker 2: meaning the government. And also don't forget this again, it's
Speaker 2: just one of those things I feel that, you know,
Speaker 2: everyone is unfortunately not brought into this world equally. But
Speaker 2: if you just give someone the possibility a little bit
Speaker 2: of a shaft of life, one doesn't know where that
Speaker 2: might lead them to. So, yeah, the fact that people
Speaker 2: actually have a millionaire stomach, you know in Britain, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's more than important. One thing I was very shocked
Speaker 2: by when I was shooting in Chicago. Shooting widows was
Speaker 2: how I didn't see a grocery store and a black neighborhood.
Speaker 2: I didn't see any greens in a black neighbor You know,
Speaker 2: there wasn't a green grocer's, but there was always some
Speaker 2: sort of fast food place where people eat. So people
Speaker 2: are losing this sort of heritage of food. People are
Speaker 2: not aware of the food and nourishment and possibilities within food,
Speaker 2: and food is politics in a way, it reverts back
Speaker 2: to what we were talking about right at the beginning
Speaker 2: of a conversation. It starts with like, in a way
Speaker 2: markets because markets, a lot of markets are on the threat,
Speaker 2: a lot of markets have closed. So this sense of
Speaker 2: community's sense of comarder in a sense of sort of
Speaker 2: love of food and love of each other is being
Speaker 2: sort of erased in the sort of you know, working
Speaker 2: class areas. I mean, you get these markets, but they're
Speaker 2: so they're kind of like posh markets, aren't they. There's
Speaker 2: sort of farmers' markets they call them, and you know,
Speaker 2: the food is so expensive, so and I again I
Speaker 2: feel that they're becoming kind of food deserts in a
Speaker 2: way where kids are growing up on fast food and
Speaker 2: not being introduced to sort of love food in a way.
Speaker 2: So that's something 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 mc queen, what would you say is the food
Speaker 1: you would go to if you needed comfort?
Speaker 2: For me, the comfort food that I very much love
Speaker 2: and I appreciate is often the cold day, you know,
Speaker 2: and you come in and it's my mum's chicken soups,
Speaker 2: westernion chicken soup, which has the bones in it and stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, you suck on the bones, and it's the
Speaker 2: sort of you know, it's the time, it's the garlic.
Speaker 2: It's all kinds of stuff, you know, the secret ingredients
Speaker 2: when she wants you to want toll me. The dumplings,
Speaker 2: a bit of potatoes, a bit of peas.
Speaker 3: It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: So those are the kind of things I really love. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I could hear my dad sucking the bones right.
Speaker 3: Now my head. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was a wonderful, you know, having those dinners together
Speaker 2: on those cold days. I remember it was it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: It was beautiful and lots of great memories. My dad's
Speaker 2: not anymore. So when I often do think about him,
Speaker 2: I do think about him, and actually I do think
Speaker 2: about him. Christmas and the Ham, of course, and Christmas.
Speaker 2: Christmas breakfast was a big thing. Hot cocoa.
Speaker 3: My dad would make a bake.
Speaker 2: A bake is a kind of a flat bread, West
Speaker 2: Indian flat bread in the morning and and oh my god,
Speaker 2: how can I how can I not say this? Fish
Speaker 2: cakes my mother's fish cakes. Oh my god, my mother's
Speaker 2: fishcakes on the Christmas morning and she's making these little
Speaker 2: bakes which was sort of like a like a.
Speaker 3: Bread you'll fry and oil. Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And even my daughter ittually when my mom comes up
Speaker 2: as yours, asks Granny please make fishcakes for me because
Speaker 2: it's a West Indian fishcakes such as it's gorgeous. And
Speaker 2: of course you know that there's never anything left for
Speaker 2: me when I get home. But you know, it's just
Speaker 2: I think, really, what you've done actually is actually given me.
Speaker 2: I mean, fact's what love is rock, not even loves rock.
Speaker 2: That's what the whole of Small Acts was based on.
Speaker 2: The foundation of all of that was based on food
Speaker 2: and memory, because it's what's so fascinating. I'm rambling on
Speaker 2: it again myself. But it's smell is the most antaste,
Speaker 2: is the most potent sources of memory, not the photographs.
Speaker 2: Photographs is only telling you so much because you know,
Speaker 2: it cuts out what's beyond the frame is not present,
Speaker 2: it's not visible going on wrapping.
Speaker 1: No, don't it's beautiful, but it is what it does.
Speaker 1: There are people who say, I never remembered that until
Speaker 1: we started talking about the food, and that brought back
Speaker 1: the memory. I had somebody whose father had left home
Speaker 1: and he would when he saw his children on the weekends,
Speaker 1: he would suddenly start cooking for them. And he said, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think I've ever told anybody
Speaker 1: that story, But now I remember my father actually is
Speaker 1: a way of his guilt or his love just started cooking,
Speaker 1: you know. And I think, what you just when you
Speaker 1: choose your comfort food, you start thinking about your father
Speaker 1: and your mother, and you think about the memories and
Speaker 1: that it's so potent, isn't it. I had I thought
Speaker 1: it would be interesting, But what it really brings home
Speaker 1: over and over again is the connection that food has
Speaker 1: for us for memories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, forget about this island this, I'm telling you.
Speaker 3: You've done it, mate, Smell and til you've done it.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, you've done it. It's all to do
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 2: with Montclair