WEBVTT - Simon Sebag Montefiore 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.280 Next week is our hundredth episode of Ruthie's Table four, 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:07.080 and to celebrate, we thought we would turn it over 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:09.760 to you. If you have a question for me, a 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.680 food memory you'd like to share, or a recipe you 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:15.520 just need help with, Record a message and send it 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:19.400 in the phone numbers in the text below. Ask me anything. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.080 Happy Birthday, Ruthie's Table four. I would like to think 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.479 that Simon sebag Montefiori and I have much in common. 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.360 We both had what he calls a loving and indulgent childhood. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:36.280 We believe in trust, and openness and flexibility. Our families 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.680 fled the pogroms of Romanov Russia. We see food as 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.559 one of the focuses of our life. Simon and I 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:47.280 also love to tell and listen to stories, food and history, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:50.080 food and fiction, food and exploring. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:51.960 I love the stories. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:56.440 Simon has lived them his books and television programs. Katherine 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:00.600 the Great Potempkin, Stalin the Court of the Red Star, Erusalem, 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:05.720 The Biography Titans of History, the Romanovs sixteen thirteen to 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.040 nineteen eighteen, and most recently a fantastic book, The World 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:15.760 of Family. History of Humanity, educates, informs, and inspires us 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.959 who read, listen, and watch. Today we're here together on 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.399 a beautiful autumn day in the River cafe to discuss 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:24.479 this and more. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.320 Lucky me, lucky me, too great to be here. 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:33.000 Thank you for coming. So Simon, you've chosen. You wrote 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.200 to me, you called me, We spoke about it that 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:38.360 of all the recipes in our twelve cookbooks, you wanted 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.120 to do the Canelini bean. 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:41.520 And jacorea soup. 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.920 So you could read the recipe and then we could 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:45.160 discuss why you chose this. 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.400 Of course, chaquaura and canelini bean soup. So this serves 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:53.080 six two hundred and fifty grams of cooked cannellini beans, 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.360 two hundred grams of chacorea leaves, half a garlic bulb, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:06.160 fresh sagely, two garlic clothes chopped, three tablespoons olive oil, 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:12.240 and parsley leaves chopped with extra virgin olive oil. This 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.240 has been marked up by Ruthie herself. This is a 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:19.280 proper This feels like an archival document. It reminds me 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.560 of working in the archives. When you see Stalin or 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.800 Kafine the Great, I think in the grate. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:31.000 Of restaurants, not to Stalin, you might ask the my stuff. 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:32.000 They might say, I'm the style. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.280 I'm not asking that question, Ruthie, because I might not 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:34.960 like the answer. 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.560 I don't know enough about it, but I'm happy to 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:42.200 take a woman over anybody over Starlin. 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.600 I think that you're a stalin, but anyway to cook it? 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.760 In a large salespan. Cook the garlic, then the olive 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.560 oil until soft but not brown. Stir in the parsley, 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.639 Add the checoria leads to the oil and braize until 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.760 slightly soft before adding the beans. Put three quarters the 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:02.840 beans into a food process so with some of the 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:07.200 reserve cooking liquid, and the mixture should be thicker and thicker, 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:12.080 and return to the saucepan and season. Reheat if too thick, 0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:16.520 add more cooking liquid, serve with a generous amount of 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:21.200 extra virgin olive oil. And I've already tried it. 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:25.000 God, am I going to be able to eat all 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:28.280 that looks delicious? 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:30.920 I think I'm going to switch plates now from the 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.560 Sea Bass too. I'd say this is going to River Cafe, 0:03:34.680 --> 0:03:39.360 Georgian lobbyo Beans because people always compare Georgia, which is 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:43.320 one of my favorite countries, to Italy, especially to Sicily 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.000 and the food there is a real mixer of Lebanese, Ranium, 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.920 Persian and Italian, and they're basically my two favorite countries 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:51.960 in terms of food. 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:58.320 So this soup is the ideal mix. Hi, I want 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.440 to take it home with me? Can I take you home? 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:06.800 Remind Joseph? It is absolutely delicious, absolute delicious. Cannot waste 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.839 a single bead, it's so good, and I think you've 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.120 got I'll take thank you. 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:16.440 I'm here with Joseph. This is a River Cafe classic recipes. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.400 It really is. It's in the Yellow Books, in the 0:04:19.400 --> 0:04:22.479 book two of our first books, and it's a real 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:25.240 classic that we make. Almost every portion of the suit 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.400 that I've ever eaten. Ruthy's made herself, and it really 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:32.680 reminds me of her and arriving here and learning how 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:33.040 to cook. 0:04:33.320 --> 0:04:33.520 You know. 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.799 It's that is early days River Cafe for me. Anyway, 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.600 it's more than maybe a bit more wintry. It's one 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:42.760 of those recipes like many that it's just has few ingredients, 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:45.400 you know. So it's has this chequoia, which is a 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:48.000 wonderful green which gets labeled a kind of bitter green, 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:50.400 but really, when it's well cooked, loses an awful lot 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:52.839 of that bitterness and it's really rather sweet. And then 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.280 Chile and then if you've got really lovely cannellini beans, 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:58.720 and that's kind of all it is. But it's amazing 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:01.960 how those combination of a few things can be tweaked 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.520 in different ways and it can actually be rather different. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:06.279 But it's you know, it's one of those rather hearty, 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:08.560 quite thick country suits. 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:09.719 What do you think. 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:16.720 I absolutely loved it. It's a delicious mixture. Italian hammer Smith. 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:17.600 Would you say? 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:23.000 Georgia your part, the River Cafe part? And I love 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.800 the way you've marked this up. Okay, well to keep 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:29.280 And because because I found out I liked it, say much, 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.120 I found out that they had a bigger pot of it. 0:05:32.520 --> 0:05:35.360 So I'm taking that home with me if I'm allowed, 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.720 rather calf from the grade of the River Cafe. 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:40.279 So why did you choose it? 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.440 I chose it because bean soup has played a big 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.760 part in my life, because I started off in the 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:48.640 very early nineties with the fall of the Soviet Union, 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.599 and I was always in Georgia, and Georgia became my 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:54.000 favorite home from home. 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:55.760 I was there for all its. 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.320 Wars, its coups, it's tragedies, but also I came to 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.120 love it's food, food, and the heart of its food. 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:05.200 At the heart of Georgian cuisine is the bean soup, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.480 and lobbyer bean soup is the national Georgian dish, one 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.160 of them, along with satze, via, kadschapori and all these 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:16.040 other delicious dishes. But in Georgia they have the Georgian Supra, 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.200 which is a feast, and there's a tamada who's elected 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:24.240 the toast master. By the way, Stalin was always, of 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.240 course toast master at his feasts, but he was a Georgian. 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.600 But of course normally the toast masters are a little 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:32.800 bit more benign than that. 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:34.440 What does a toastmaster do? 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:38.719 He tells stories, He makes toasts quite often, he goes 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:43.120 around the table and clinks glasses with different people. Basically, 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.320 what's unique about the tamadam is that he's a storyteller 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.279 as well, which brings us back, which is why I 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.440 thought food and stories. But you know, I have many. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.120 When I was there, the Soviet Union was falling apart. 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:56.720 This is nineteen ninety. 0:06:57.680 --> 0:07:00.479 Eighty nine, nineteen ninety, nineteen ninety one to sort of 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.120 ninety four, and I was very lucky I've been an 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:05.400 investment bank, I believe it or not. And I left 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:08.720 investment banking and I went out there and I was in. 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.440 All the wars of the former Soviet Union, but. 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:14.880 Some of my favorite moments were in Georgia eating lobbyo 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:22.080 beans once. I remember in the Assetian Wartias north of Tbilisi. 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:25.360 It's a region that broke away from Georgia and was 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.480 backed by Putin and is still backed by Putin. 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:30.120 But I went up to the. 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.800 War and I was with the Georgian side, and we 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:34.760 were up at the top on this kind of amazingly 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:38.640 beautiful mountain with these amazing Georgian churches on the mountaintops, 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.480 and the fighters all lent their guns against the tree 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.800 and a bit, so I was kind of imagining I 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:47.720 was a a heming, you know, for whom the bell tolls. 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:48.760 It was a little bit like that. 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.320 And there was this huge table laid out for a Georgian. 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:55.880 That's interesting that, during you know, the fighting, they had 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:56.760 a table for a while. 0:07:57.160 --> 0:07:59.880 Three boys had been killed in the village, so this 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.520 was their funeral supper. So we all sat down and 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.800 the Tamada took control. We all made toasts and everyone 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:08.120 got drunk and drunk, and the food, more and more 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.200 food kept arriving. And then after a bit I said 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.800 to them, you know, you're gonna imagine we're on the top 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.000 of this mountain, the blue sky in the distance. And 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.440 I said to them, you know that I guess in 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:21.080 the funeral happened earlier, because you know the boys were 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.200 buried earlier. I guess this is their funeral supper. And 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:26.920 they said, no, they're with us, and they lifted up 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.680 the table cloth and their bodies were under the table. 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.240 So you can see why I have a visceral feeling 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:35.600 for Georgian feasts. 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:37.360 Would it be very regional the food? 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.960 Did you find that Georgia is very different from Chechna, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.079 which is different from very. 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:44.880 The Caucusus is fascinating because it's it's the sort of 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:48.719 borderland of empires. So there's a huge Persian influence. They 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.760 controlled it for a long time. There's a huge Ottoman 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.480 Turkish influence. They controlled it for a long time, and 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.920 then the Russians, and now of course it's three independent republics, 0:08:57.360 --> 0:09:00.400 and Chechnya tried to break away. I was in the 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:04.079 Chechen War in nineteen ninety four, so I witnessed all 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.480 this amazing stuff happening. There's nothing like Georgian food and 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:10.320 Georgian food. It does have a touch of Lebanese food, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:14.880 touch the Persian food, Persian, Arab and Turkish, but it's 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.640 not like any other because it's filled with coriander and 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:21.160 tarragan and walnuts and a jeeka which is sort of 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:24.960 chilli sauce. It's very original, it's not like anything else. 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:27.240 I think you'd love it as it. 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:27.600 Was with me. 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.320 He has a brother in law based in Osborne and 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.240 he's Georgian and he's actually doing the Georgian Film Festival. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.520 He called me this morning and has very very strong 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.160 roots in Georgia and brought me a cookbook with a 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:40.520 chef who had written it. 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.680 And it was so interesting. It was beautifully done. 0:09:44.760 --> 0:09:46.720 First of all, it had a sense of the culture 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:50.080 and that it had the cooking, the dumplings, a lot 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.000 of dumplings too, which. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:53.680 I forgot the name of. 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.840 But all the dishes have a sort of role, and 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.920 in that way Geordian foot food. It's almost like the 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.160 a story behind many of the dishes. It's not quite 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:07.360 like a passover Sadan Knight, but the Georgian super That's 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.360 the thing it's most similar to him is a pass 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:13.920 over dinner because of the storytelling. Yeah, and of course 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.200 Stalin used to sit up with his cronies and have 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:17.080 these Georgians. 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:19.480 I think you alluded to the fact that he was 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:22.079 a good that he was interested. 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.240 He loved Georgian food. His real name was Joseph Dugashphili. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.640 Many in Georgian names end in Adzi or Shwhili, which 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:32.960 means son of and he came from Gorri, which is 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.800 a small town in Georgia. Till it was about thirty 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.040 or forty, he was completely Georgian. He spoke Georgian. But 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.200 his mother was very ambitious for him and she wanted 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:45.160 him to be a bishop or an archbishop. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:46.320 She was very religious. 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.800 She got him into the seminary in Tibilisi, which is 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:52.160 where he was trained to be a priest. There they 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.559 were taught Russian, very good Russian, and if he hadn't 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.040 been taught Russian, he could never rule the Russian Empire 0:10:58.120 --> 0:10:58.960 a Soviet Union. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.320 Do you speak yeah, I can tell, well, I can 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.360 tell when you were naming the soups and the names. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.600 If you speak Georgian, you have to learn what it's 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.680 nothing to do with, nothing to do with no. 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.679 It's nothing even has a different alphabet, and they have 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.400 an amazing history in the sort of twelve. In the eleventh, twelfth, 0:11:14.440 --> 0:11:17.480 thirteenth century, Georgia was a huge kingdom and at one 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.680 point under the great Queen Tamara, who's another great female 0:11:21.840 --> 0:11:24.079 ruler who I write all about in the World Book. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.520 It ruled from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.280 and was one of the great powers of the Near 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.200 East under a female ruler, which is quite something. 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:35.280 So going back to Stalin and being a good eater, 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.640 when you were writing your book about him, what did 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:39.920 you find out about his food? 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:43.600 He loved He loved lobbyo, and he loved kadjapori, and 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.680 he loved all the soups. He loved loved chakapouli, which 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.120 is the lamb stew, and he used to put Georgian 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:52.160 bread in it, soak it and eat it. He was 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.520 a great trenchman, one of his few winning features, I 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:59.280 should say. But the interesting about Stalin was he reinvented 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.640 himself several times. I mean, he became Stalin which means 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.800 man of steel, in about nineteen twelve and before then 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:11.120 he'd been basically Georgian and Stalin is a kind of 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:15.520 Russian style name, and so he really infented himself. He 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:17.439 was kind of always a Georgian in terms of kind 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.160 of eating and drinking. He loved Georgian wine, for example, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.920 and the thing he really loved was Georgians singing. Because 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.439 Stalin surprisingly was the star choir boy of the seminary. 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.680 His full setto was supposed to be the most beautiful 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.080 full settle, very high and very pure, and when his 0:12:35.160 --> 0:12:38.760 voice broke he became a tenor. And even when he 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.040 was dictator, even during the terror. 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:42.560 Just after the war. 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.200 During the war, he liked to sing to piano and 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.160 he used to sing that there's a very famous Georgian 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.240 song called Suliko, which he was his speciality was singing there. 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:55.200 So he was this rather sinister choir boy, a choir boy. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.120 Going back to the beginning and tell me about growing 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.439 up in the Montafoury. 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.720 Father was a doctor who was also a psychiatrist. He 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:05.840 had a very fascinating practice, so we grew up in 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.720 a very kind of strange household because the surgery was 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.880 under the house in Kensington. He had all sorts of patients. 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:13.719 He was the sort of person that saw lots of 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.240 people for free. But also he had people like Peter 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:19.280 Seller's and Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. And they actually 0:13:19.280 --> 0:13:22.640 did of sketch about him, did they. Yeah, because whatever 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:25.600 you said to my father, whatever terrible thing you'd done 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.000 as a child, he'd always say, don't worry, Simon, that's 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:30.000 perfectly normal. 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.640 That's what from a psychiatrist and a father. 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.720 Five Yeah, and a father. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.120 So their sketches, there's there's a sketch where they where 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.439 they go to a psychiatrist based on my father and 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:42.679 everything they say to him. 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:47.439 He says, don't worry. That's perfectly as it was the 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.079 connection between the Montefori hospital and the Monterefori family. 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:52.360 Yeah, go back, because I tried to do your family 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.640 treat I would say to Michael Ignatief, who was a 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.920 mutual friend of ours, that his family killed my family probably. Yes, 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:01.920 they were very white Russians, and my family were the 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.240 you know, the fiddle around the real family that came 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.720 from me tour. No, but they don't have a hospital 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.160 named after our so there might be a diversion somewhere. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.959 So just go back to the roots, because I think 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.400 it goes into the eighteenth century, so maybe I can 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:21.400 trace mine back to about nineteen o six, so I 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:22.280 think it's quite different. 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.200 But tell me, well, my mom's family are from Lithuania 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.320 like yours, right, V are you from Kiev? 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:29.160 So we were. 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:31.200 We were lit Vas and some of them for Odessa 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.480 and some of them from Galitzia and Galitzianas a notorious 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:38.240 which were dusd from Galicia which is sort of southern 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:43.479 Poland around and Levolv which is in Ukraine. And Galitzianas 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:49.360 were famous playboys, notorious womanizes and boulevardiers and food and 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:52.240 they loved food. They were set, they were, they were. 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:55.920 They go together, don't they and you know, do you know. 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:57.440 What they were? They were Epicureans. 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.600 Yeah, nice, notorious and so that's my mother's family. But 0:15:00.600 --> 0:15:02.680 they were interesting because they got out when all the 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.040 programs begun in three to four, just around the same 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.080 time as we may have been on the same boat. 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.200 Yeah, but us got off in England and mine went 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:11.640 to you know, Ellis Island. 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.640 Well, mine were tricked. We bought tickets for Ellis Island. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.720 But when week after about two days at sea, they 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.120 said I'm afraid that you're getting off here, and so 0:15:21.280 --> 0:15:24.200 my family said, but hang on. So we bought tickets 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:27.480 for New York and we haven't seen the Statue of Liberty, 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.480 and they said, sorry, look at your tickets. And they 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:32.880 looked at the tickets and they said, that's. 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:37.640 Not New York. It's New Cork. New Cork, Yeah, which 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.800 is Ireland. So they got off there. But the Montafis 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:42.040 have a longer story. 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.360 So that's your father's family, Yeah. 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.800 My father's family, and they would come the sea banks. 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:51.360 Came from Morocco sebah Sebach, so that's an Arabic name. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.080 And the Montafiories were originally called, we think called Carvero, 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:58.360 which was Spanish, and they were expelled from Spain in 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.320 fourteen ninety two. They went to Portage and in Portugal 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.880 they were expelled in fourteen ninety eight. So they went 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.760 back to Spain and converted to Catholicism. But they were 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:12.160 only pretending they were crypto Jews. And when Philip the 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:16.080 second was trying to recruit governors to govern New Spain, 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:19.080 which was Mexico, he gave them the job of governing 0:16:19.120 --> 0:16:22.640 a huge province. But there was a feud. They were 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.120 denounced by their servants who spied on them, and they 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.440 would announce for secretly being Jews, and most of the 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.520 family were burnt alive in Mexico City. It's very sinister 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.200 because when you read about these after Cortez, after this 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:41.520 is about sixteen hundred and one son got away and 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:46.680 went to Italy and adopted the name Montefiori because it ends. 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:47.320 As sort of is. 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.640 Yeah, yeah, So you grew up in this household a 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.720 mother from his families from Lithuania. Your father felt did 0:16:56.760 --> 0:17:00.960 he identify very strongly with being Jewish, and the. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.080 The family was the very Jewish family. 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.040 But my father's family, monte Seabag Montefuries were sort of 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:07.520 fox hunting Jews. 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:08.919 They were very different. 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.359 While my mother's family, she would kill me for saying this, 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.639 but they were stettle Jews from Lithuania and Poland and 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:16.080 so on. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.320 And and your mother's mother then she would have been 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:22.320 born in Lithuania, and she took Lithuanian food. 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:24.760 No, they didn't cook Lithanian, but they didn't really eat 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.399 lat kids and that because bagels and chick but chicken 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:30.640 soup was key. I remember when I was a child, 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:33.840 my parents had a huge row once and my father 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:35.639 was being impossible and my mother just got a thing 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:37.480 of chicken soup and pored it over his head. 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:38.359 Was it hot? 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.080 It was not that hot, lucky, but then they started laughing. 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.080 But it was a very good for a psychiatrist. Right, 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.359 did this psychiatrist say that's not Do you say that's normal? 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:49.080 I think he would. 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.960 He would say that was perfectly normal kitchen behavior. I 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:54.880 don't know if that happens in your kitchen, We don't know. 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:58.760 We stopped short of boring super people. So your father 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:02.160 would be downstairs with his patients. Would there be family meals? 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.560 Would there be would you say, how many siblings do 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:04.800 you have? 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.760 I've got three brothers. I'm the youngest of the whole family. 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.760 We were always aware that the surgery was going on downstairs, 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:13.639 and we were always told never repeat anything that you 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:15.879 see in this house because it would ruin your father. 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:17.760 But they were very open us, so we knew all 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:20.440 the stuff that was happening, and all sorts of crazy 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:22.359 stuff happened. People will kind of arrive in the middle 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.199 of the night with their sort of having had a 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.840 row with their wife, or you know, somebody was giving 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:28.560 birth to a baby or something. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:31.480 It was like growing up in a theater. It was 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:32.360 very exciting. 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:34.199 And then but she would have would he come up 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:34.920 for dinner? 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:36.000 And then you come up for dinner? 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:36.879 And who did the cooking? 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.040 My mother did the cooking, and there'd be there would 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.679 always be delicious kind of food, but not really Jewish 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:46.040 food but actually very English food, like roast chickens, roast lambs. 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.600 Yeah. So she was born and she. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:50.600 Was born in h She was born and she was 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.280 born in Nottingham or Newcastle. Our grandfather was the first 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.720 Jewish Lord mayor elected in Newcastle and he ran for 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.479 He ran for Lord Mayor and when he was painting, 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.320 they used to say, we hear you you lie in 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.520 bed all day and he replied, so would you if 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.480 you were married to missus Wolfe, which was which was 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:10.440 which worked. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.840 Very well, the one in the election. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.040 One on the election and I've got her picture in 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:17.680 my room and she does look. 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.960 Quite quite. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:21.679 Campaigning. 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.320 It was food important, though, it was it the family 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:25.280 meal that was important. 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:27.760 Food, food was all important. 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.919 We're absolutely epicurean ruth and we absolutely live for food 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:35.040 and we love delicious food and hate bad food. 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:35.920 Did your father. 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:38.399 Cook no, you never cooked. You never cooked. 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.479 Did your mother have help? So that she did have 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:41.720 help domestic she. 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:44.440 Did have help, And it was all about meals, and 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.399 everything happened at meals, and I still live for eating. 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:49.800 And then your boarding school was that a shock? 0:19:50.040 --> 0:19:51.720