Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 2: In August, after the Democratic National Convention, I was at
Speaker 2: a breakfast meeting in Los Angeles when James Carville suddenly
Speaker 2: joined our table. James is a legendary political analyst, a
Speaker 2: spokesman for the Democratic Party, and a former campaign manager
Speaker 2: to President Bill Clinton. The title of his new documentary
Speaker 2: says it all winning is Everything stupid. James and I
Speaker 2: might seem very different. After all, He's from Louisiana and
Speaker 2: I'm from upstate New York. He cooks cumbo, I cook
Speaker 2: Glagurian fish stew, but were also pretty much the same
Speaker 2: passionate about people, passionate about food, passionate about politics. With
Speaker 2: the inauguration approaching on January twentieth, there couldn't be a
Speaker 2: better time to hear what James has to say, and
Speaker 2: for this episode we have a special edition. Emily Maglis
Speaker 2: and John Sopel, hosts of The news Agent's podcast, joined
Speaker 2: us for what was a really interesting discussion.
Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm just delighted to be here. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think you and I maybe born in the same homb
Speaker 1: We certainly think a lot about a lot of things,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: So we have a lot to talk about, but before
Speaker 2: we do, you know the drill, right, So the recipe
Speaker 2: that just was Ligurian fish stew. Laguria is on the coast,
Speaker 2: it's apart between Genoa and Pisa. And this came from
Speaker 2: our first cookbook. It's pretty simple. But I thought you
Speaker 2: might like to read that, and you can read it
Speaker 2: anywhere you want.
Speaker 1: And let me preface it. But I said, I think
Speaker 1: my favorite foods in the world, or these fish based
Speaker 1: things like you know, gumbo, bully based for sure, Belengorian
Speaker 1: fish stew for sure, any of these kinds of things
Speaker 1: that really capture the sea. All of it is a
Speaker 1: little bit of the same. I mean, it's a little
Speaker 1: different cooking techniques. But let's go ahead. Let's get started here.
Speaker 1: Want three red mullet filet scaled and clean. You got
Speaker 1: of scale and clean and it's true. Five hundred grams
Speaker 1: of monkfish or turbo filets one point five kilograms and mussels,
Speaker 1: twelve langue steams like a little shrip scampy one and
Speaker 1: fifty millimeters of white wine. One fresh chili seated and chopped,
Speaker 1: one point two leaders of fish stock. Yeah, okay, that's
Speaker 1: that's the key ingredients in all of these kind of
Speaker 1: seafood things. Twelve small new potatoes, peeled and ball, one
Speaker 1: lead of tomato sauce and one hundred and seventy five
Speaker 1: millimeters olliveball. Put muscles in a large sauce fan with
Speaker 1: olive ball, white wine and chili coven steam over high heat.
Speaker 1: Shaken until all shells open. WINKU remove half the muscles
Speaker 1: from their shells and grain juices into the fish stock. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to make an editorial combat here. This is
Speaker 1: important because you're adding flavor to flavor. You already major
Speaker 1: fish stock. Never throw away oyster liquor or bacon grease
Speaker 1: because anytime you get into trouble, bacon grease is gonna
Speaker 1: save you. Now, then we bring the fishtock to a
Speaker 1: ball and the lango sines poach. Add the fish stock.
Speaker 1: Now when you poaching this or you're reducing a little
Speaker 1: bit too. Reduction is a big thing when you're doing
Speaker 1: things because you want to the fish track more flavor
Speaker 1: out of it. Add the fish stock and a tomato
Speaker 1: sauce and bring to a ball. Add the mullet, monk
Speaker 1: fish or turbo and scallons, stirring cooked potatoes, mussels and
Speaker 1: langosteins to make christini. Toast the bread on both sides
Speaker 1: in rubber garlic, Place on top of the soup and serve.
Speaker 1: But it's simple, but we have fresh ingredients. You want
Speaker 1: to enhance, not overwhelm the ingredients. So if you're going
Speaker 1: into trouble to getting fresh fish, shall fish, you want
Speaker 1: that flavor to come through and you want to I
Speaker 1: think what's brillian about this recipe? It accentuates the flavors
Speaker 1: more than anything else.
Speaker 2: Of course, we all know you as the political strategists
Speaker 2: for you know, you won the election for President Clinton.
Speaker 2: Did you want to go into politics yourself?
Speaker 1: Since I was a kid, I've always loved politics. I've
Speaker 1: never really wanted to run for office. Why not? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I always wanted to be the man, the
Speaker 1: man for the man, Okay I was. I said, maybe
Speaker 1: one day I'd like Noah governor and work for I
Speaker 1: mean then I didn't have my first electoral village victory.
Speaker 1: Tell's forty two.
Speaker 2: Your first major campaign was Clinton?
Speaker 1: Or what did you do well? Major being described as
Speaker 1: like statewide races. I said, I was in Louisia, My
Speaker 1: first statewide was a Senate race in Texas. We lost.
Speaker 1: That was in nineteen eighty four. I did a Senate
Speaker 1: race in Virginia nineteen eighty two and we lost. So
Speaker 1: I was a loser. And there was a guy I
Speaker 1: ran for governor of Pennsylvania. He lost three times before
Speaker 1: the three times he went to holy Cross College, and
Speaker 1: Matt Excuse called the three times I lost from holy Cross,
Speaker 1: and he couldn't find anybody in wanting to run his campaign,
Speaker 1: so they ended up calling me, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: to they had to send the money for the plane ticket.
Speaker 1: Well ultimately won. Then I won a race in Kentucky
Speaker 1: and New Jersey and Georgia, and so I became noticed
Speaker 1: by President Clinton. So I became his chief strategist. And
Speaker 1: then this is for the first selection, first election nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two, nineteen ninety two, and then after that I
Speaker 1: started doing foreign consulting.
Speaker 2: Did you go with him to the convention? Did you
Speaker 2: know him before the convention? Yeah, so you were part
Speaker 2: of the strategy right for him, but to get the
Speaker 2: domination right to nominate, yeah, yeah, which was quite incredible,
Speaker 2: wasn't it, Because he came from from Arkansas. Nobody really
Speaker 2: knew who this person was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was so unbelievably talented, and then he was
Speaker 1: when you just look at him. Man, I was with
Speaker 1: him a week ago. He is people. When people say
Speaker 1: he's smart, you don't have any idea. You think you
Speaker 1: think you're smart, You have no idea your empathetic understanding
Speaker 1: explaining things.
Speaker 2: And what about the food. Let's go back to food.
Speaker 2: So when you were with Clinton, he liked, he's a
Speaker 2: food person, isn't he did he care about food or not?
Speaker 1: So he was so intense. So one time we were
Speaker 1: on a campaign plane and he would do the New
Speaker 1: York Times Crossford puzzle and he literally would never take
Speaker 1: his fence law. And so they bought him salad and
Speaker 1: the coffee, and I asked had to wash him, put
Speaker 1: the thousand hours dress in the coffee and the cream
Speaker 1: on the salad. And he didn't know the difference.
Speaker 2: But you always knew you want to be a Democrat.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was always because all related to civil rights
Speaker 1: and race. I just thought black people were getting a
Speaker 1: terrible deal. And I probably grew up with some element
Speaker 1: of white guilt. Okay, we didn't obsess on it, but
Speaker 1: I knew that I had one life and they had
Speaker 1: another life, and I just thought that was kind of unfair.
Speaker 2: Let's start at the beginning. Where were you born?
Speaker 1: So? I was actually born in Fort Betting, George, because
Speaker 1: my daddy was an army during the war. I grew
Speaker 1: up in Louisiana, which is called the River Parishes, which
Speaker 1: is more black than the other parts of out of Louisiana.
Speaker 1: And my grandmother was from New Orleans and my mother
Speaker 1: was from of Alls, which is way north, and they
Speaker 1: are very distinct differences in Louisiana cooking. It is not
Speaker 1: one thing. It's like Italian cooking.
Speaker 2: Your father's mother was from New Orleans and.
Speaker 1: My mother was from Boyles Parish, which is probably one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles from New Organs. It's very far north.
Speaker 1: Both Catholics, both French dominated, but very different cuisine. If
Speaker 1: you think of New Orleans as being kind of Parisian
Speaker 1: and the rest being provincially it's a good shorthand it's
Speaker 1: a little different day in New Orleans. They put tomato
Speaker 1: in the gumbo, which is heresy to my much just
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that. I mean little things like that when you.
Speaker 2: Were growing up, did your grandmother live near you, so
Speaker 2: you had these two.
Speaker 1: Yes, eat paternal grandmother lived a mile exactly one point
Speaker 1: six miles me and I would stay with her all
Speaker 1: the time. Why is that because she spoiled me?
Speaker 2: Are you a grandfather?
Speaker 1: I'm a grandfather. I have a.
Speaker 2: Completely different relationship with our grandchildren.
Speaker 1: Someone said, the reason that grandparents and grandchildren get along
Speaker 1: so well they have a common enemy.
Speaker 2: Always take the side of your grandkid, always absolutely, I said.
Speaker 2: You know, I often say that people who come here
Speaker 2: and talk about food, they talk sometimes more about their
Speaker 2: grandparents cooking than their mother's cooking. They'll talk about their
Speaker 2: grandmother's food more than their mother's, especially people who've emigrated
Speaker 2: from other countries, they'll do that.
Speaker 1: How many we have brothers? Eight children? Eight? Eight? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you have seven brothers and sisters. We do. We'd have
Speaker 1: gumbo in the winter time on the sew, and she
Speaker 1: she do this delicious a shrimp and corn soup and
Speaker 1: the corn was fresh. And you know, we'd have that
Speaker 1: sometimes in the summer months, but we all we came
Speaker 1: home from school, we always had a pot on the sew.
Speaker 2: Did she work?
Speaker 1: Did she have a job, or she did she sold
Speaker 1: in cycle. She did not, but we had too many
Speaker 1: kids and eight children. So she sold encyclopedias and she
Speaker 1: was quite.
Speaker 2: Good at door to door type of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well she would, she would prospect. So she taught
Speaker 1: me like targeting customers and said, we want to see
Speaker 1: two things, a bass boat in a bicycle, because that's
Speaker 1: going to tell us that these people have children and
Speaker 1: they have some income. And so that's how we target out.
Speaker 2: You would target those target out house. What's the bass boat?
Speaker 1: It's like a fishing boat, but you have to have
Speaker 1: some influence and be in the yard. It would be
Speaker 1: like on a thing, a trailer. And so she would
Speaker 1: go in and that was like twelve or thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: and she didn't it was you know, this was a
Speaker 1: couple was out of coach in the late fifties and sixties,
Speaker 1: and she started talking to the lady at the house
Speaker 1: and she'd say, your son, what's the capital of her? Miners?
Speaker 1: My pitia? To god? Oh god, he said, God, damn genius,
Speaker 1: you know, And then she'd gone she said, what's the
Speaker 1: capital of Oregon? Salem? Oh? My god? How hockeld anybody
Speaker 1: be that? Some mort And then she'd say, well, what's
Speaker 1: the capital of Finland, I'd say, hell Sinki. And he
Speaker 1: got this knowledge by having these encyclopedias. And so the
Speaker 1: lady at the house and said, well, this sounds terrific,
Speaker 1: and let me get my husband there. And so they
Speaker 1: inevit to be bring the husband in, and he was
Speaker 1: kind of polite. He said, well, miss called he. I
Speaker 1: know you've got a great product here. But you know
Speaker 1: when school, when we're just a little short, now one,
Speaker 1: don't you come back maybe after the first year, we'll
Speaker 1: take another look at it. You know something, Sara, I
Speaker 1: find something about you that's interesting. You could afford a
Speaker 1: bass boat for yourself, but you can't afford educational workarios
Speaker 1: for your children. God was done. He was signing anything.
Speaker 2: That you and would every night you'd sit down to
Speaker 2: have a dinner or would everybody kind of she.
Speaker 1: Encouraged it, but you know, with kids that she was,
Speaker 1: I think she thought of losing battle. She thought that
Speaker 1: people should that meals were a communal thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: she had dementia and the only thing that they she
Speaker 1: would remember is my sister who was or and who
Speaker 1: took care of her, would say, Mama, would Grandma say
Speaker 1: at dinner time, and she would saying aposh, which is
Speaker 1: approached that until Grandma said approach, you couldn't approach the table,
Speaker 1: all right, And that was that was the last thing
Speaker 1: that I wone remember a prush. She was a pretty
Speaker 1: sophisticated cook. Actually there was. She made something called crawfish
Speaker 1: bisc sort of recipes and that I'll single it out
Speaker 1: for you, but it's one of these dishes that it's
Speaker 1: really hard to make alone. So she would make it
Speaker 1: with like three of my sisters. Okay, no one should
Speaker 1: ever shell beans alone. That's a communal thing where you
Speaker 1: get together on the table and everybody's talking, you know.
Speaker 1: Or no one should feel shrimp by themselves. That it
Speaker 1: should be done with a cold beer and newspaper and
Speaker 1: you feeling the shrimp. And you said, and there's certain
Speaker 1: things in home cooking or crawfish bisk because they had
Speaker 1: to make a stuffing and then they would like it
Speaker 1: was very complex undertaken, very good though, but you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: It's really labor intention.
Speaker 2: You grew up in this household, seven brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2: Your mother was cooking for you when she wasn't selling encyclopedias,
Speaker 2: and your father was.
Speaker 1: He was a postmaster, and we had a country store,
Speaker 1: a general store, so if you wanted a tenpenny nail,
Speaker 1: a pair of boots, a dozen eggs, slice lunch meat
Speaker 1: or something like that with the can. So we were
Speaker 1: to kind of central point of a rural place, and
Speaker 1: you know, old guys would come and they'd sit out
Speaker 1: and drink beer. And of course it was no I
Speaker 1: grew up. Everything was segregated except for us because we
Speaker 1: didn't have anything. There were no public facilities. There was
Speaker 1: one when I was a little boy. They had a
Speaker 1: movie theater because the ballerina and the whites had to
Speaker 1: sit in the balcony. Because it was so few, they
Speaker 1: had to be segregated. But in most places the blacks
Speaker 1: had to sit in the balcony and the whites got
Speaker 1: to sit in the bottom of the theater. I was
Speaker 1: it was so overwhelmingly black, we had to sit in
Speaker 1: the in the balcony. And that was when I was
Speaker 1: at public clothes, when I was five or six years old. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was. It didn't last, but it was a uh.
Speaker 1: And then what really made us international is we were
Speaker 1: the location of the most sophisticated and best place for
Speaker 1: the treatment of Hanson's disease, which you know of his leprosy.
Speaker 1: So that really in public health service ran as so
Speaker 1: medical people from all over the world would come to Carville.
Speaker 1: So I had this window on the wall that you
Speaker 1: would not get anywhere else in the Royal South. And
Speaker 1: I think that very much shape I became very much
Speaker 1: morning to be a citizen of the world, as much
Speaker 1: as I wanted to be anything else. I came to
Speaker 1: love the whole world. It sounds kind of like the
Speaker 1: r but it's true.
Speaker 2: And so that journey from going from being a citizen
Speaker 2: of this small small town to being where you are
Speaker 2: now concluded them. When you left home and then you
Speaker 2: went to university, did you know then that politics was
Speaker 2: what you.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't. It went a very diligent, a good student,
Speaker 1: and I did go to law school.
Speaker 2: And he went to the Marines.
Speaker 1: Did you say, yeah, I got I got funked out,
Speaker 1: honest expression on it.
Speaker 2: Where were you when Martin Luther Week?
Speaker 1: I was in the Marine Corps. It was in April
Speaker 1: nineteen six.
Speaker 2: Question is where were you when Martin Luther King was killed?
Speaker 1: I had a friend, sounds try to say, but the
Speaker 1: black friend Okay, of course you were in the military.
Speaker 1: You did. And he said, the news came off that
Speaker 1: the king was killed. He said, man, I gotta I'm depressed.
Speaker 1: I got to go back to the barracks. I said,
Speaker 1: I'll cover for you or worry about it. No, forget it,
Speaker 1: don't forget it. And in the day I got out
Speaker 1: of the Marines, Bobby Kennedy was shot. So I mean
Speaker 1: a new turmoil in the Vietnam War was or a disaster.
Speaker 1: People think that they're living in the most turbulent times
Speaker 1: you can imagine, Well, they are turbulent. It's terrible, But
Speaker 1: I lived in turbulent time.
Speaker 2: Shoot imagine estate bottled olive oil chosen and bottled for
Speaker 2: the River Cafe, arriving at your door every month. Our
Speaker 2: subscription is available for six or twelve months, with each
Speaker 2: oil chosen personally by our head chefs and varying with
Speaker 2: each delivery. It's a perfect way to bring some River
Speaker 2: Cafe flavor into your home or to show someone you
Speaker 2: really care for them with the gift. Visit our website
Speaker 2: shop the Rivercafe dot co dot uk to place your order. Now, Hello,
Speaker 2: come on in, come in.
Speaker 1: Excuse me from not getting up, but I'm your biggest friend. Oh,
Speaker 1: come on a terrible noise.
Speaker 2: For this episode, Emily mac List and John Sopel, host
Speaker 2: of The Newsagent's podcast, joined our table.
Speaker 1: Ruthie is like the greatest connector in the world, and
Speaker 1: so we talked.
Speaker 2: About We've been to New Orleans, We've been to the Marines,
Speaker 2: We've been through Clinton. We've been everywhere, haven't we been?
Speaker 2: We were just we were just beginning to talk about
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 1: It's called Carville. Winning is everything stupid based on the economy? Stupid? Okay?
Speaker 1: In my belief that political campaigns exist to do one thing,
Speaker 1: and that's to win. If you don't win, you haven't
Speaker 1: done anything. It's kind of useless.
Speaker 2: Where can people see this? It's only films in CNN.
Speaker 1: It's on HBO X okay, it's we were live on
Speaker 1: CNN twice. We've been to all of the big film fashions.
Speaker 2: Your Success was the idea that it had to come
Speaker 2: out after the election, so you you do it all.
Speaker 1: Notice very interesting because we were trying to figure out
Speaker 1: when do you release it, and then all of the
Speaker 1: events that happened. He had to change the ending four
Speaker 1: times because once Biden got out. I'd been He had
Speaker 1: me on tape years before saying this guy can't run
Speaker 1: for reelection.
Speaker 2: He's to Oh, people just say, are we worried about
Speaker 2: his age? And I was one of the people who'd say,
Speaker 2: I'd rather have that glass of water than Trump, and
Speaker 2: you're talking about him being old. I'm just a citizen.
Speaker 2: I didn't know the inside story. I wasn't the person,
Speaker 2: but I thought anybody who said we're worried about Biden's
Speaker 2: age was really a trumpest. I thought they wanted to
Speaker 2: for Trump, and they just wouldn't say it until the debate.
Speaker 2: You said, if he got out in twenty three in
Speaker 2: the summer twenty three.
Speaker 1: Would have one going away, the implication.
Speaker 2: Being that it would not have been her. You think
Speaker 2: there was somebody better.
Speaker 1: Than Yes, I know. Well, I hate to give names
Speaker 1: because somebody's going to say them, going to exclude them.
Speaker 1: Andy Bushier, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gretchen Ritt, mur Or,
Speaker 1: fl Warnock, JB. Pritskou, Jared Polish, all these people and
Speaker 1: I've left some out. All these people are Miss Landry.
Speaker 1: Miss Landrew might be as good as communicator as Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1: In politics, the most underrated. I think attribute is drum roll,
Speaker 1: please charm, charm count people. White people who can charm people,
Speaker 1: they just do.
Speaker 2: Isn't there a saying, you know, never play golf with
Speaker 2: the president, because if you're a journalist and the president
Speaker 2: asked you to play golf, he could come away and say,
Speaker 2: you know what, he had a sense of humor. You
Speaker 2: know what, he's kind of charming, you know and maybe
Speaker 2: again as a citizen, we're talking about policies. Maybe or
Speaker 2: Richard used to say that in his office. He said,
Speaker 2: if somebody was lovable, they could get away with so much,
Speaker 2: and if they weren't, they couldn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you have no people. Okay, so once you're president,
Speaker 1: but there's some people that walk into a room, in
Speaker 1: the room changes. Did Kamalo have that chol not overly? No,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make you don't understand. Harris never ran for
Speaker 1: office outside of California, Okay, so she never had to
Speaker 1: walk into the lines. Yet it was a demo heavily
Speaker 1: democratic state. So she did never to cultivate hustle audiences.
Speaker 1: That are politicians able to do that? Could she have
Speaker 1: won it? If Biden would have gotten out in the
Speaker 1: summer of twenty twenty three, we would have won easily,
Speaker 1: so could she have won? So Biden gets out on
Speaker 1: July to twenty first, all right, the deal gray condition
Speaker 1: starts on August seventeen, so she has to take his
Speaker 1: campaign manager, his campaign staff, his campaign headquarters, and everything
Speaker 1: the country. For whatever reason, I disagree with it. Wanted
Speaker 1: something different than by She refused to be different. They
Speaker 1: will ask her, what would you do different? She says,
Speaker 1: I can't think of anything, so we would have definitely
Speaker 1: wanted Joe Biden stands over this disaster like a colossus.
Speaker 1: And I like him, Okay, And it's unfortunate because he's
Speaker 1: had a really remarkable life life in political career, but
Speaker 1: he's just going to be remembered for this for a
Speaker 1: long time. And it's really a shame. We have not
Speaker 1: had an inspirational candidate since twenty twelve. Most people in politics,
Speaker 1: it's an emotional business. You see somebody, Hey I love
Speaker 1: John Kennedy, Hey I love Bill Clinton, Hey I love Obama.
Speaker 1: Hey I love Ronald Reagan. Hey I love Margaret Thatcher.
Speaker 1: So whatever, Okay, it's very much not a rational business,
Speaker 1: but an emotional business.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you about your domestic life
Speaker 2: when you created a home with Mary. So did you
Speaker 2: meet at the White House?
Speaker 1: No, there was a story about me. She worked for
Speaker 1: Lee Atwater, who's she was the chief of staff at
Speaker 1: the Public Nation Committee, and Lee said go out and
Speaker 1: date this guy. Basically, go see what you can find out.
Speaker 2: About the spy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was shut out as a spy.
Speaker 2: Romantic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, literally that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Did you have suspicions that she was spying on you?
Speaker 1: Well, fourfol she's really nice looking, well dressed, and we
Speaker 1: were spying. But an hour and a half and four
Speaker 1: drinks later.
Speaker 2: That's a very cinematic thing, isn't it. Where you find
Speaker 2: out the person that you think you love it that
Speaker 2: it turns out that.
Speaker 1: She's very kind of open about it. She was spyed me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very romantic, I'd say. Yeah. So this was
Speaker 2: when you were with Clinton in the White House. Where
Speaker 2: is it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I started We started dating from January to first
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: So he won the election.
Speaker 1: In ninety two. She was head of all field operations,
Speaker 1: the coordinator for the Bush campaign, and then in November
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety one, and she talked about movie and
Speaker 1: I went to work for Clinton, so she was the
Speaker 1: top Bush person. I was the top Clinton person, and
Speaker 1: God help us we survive.
Speaker 2: The River Cafe Winter said Lunch is now running from
Speaker 2: Monday to Thursday. Reserve a booking on www. Rivercafe dot
Speaker 2: co dot UK or give us a call. You've been
Speaker 2: all over the United States and your work and your travels.
Speaker 2: Do you think that the food of the South is
Speaker 2: the only really regional food we have in America? If
Speaker 2: you went to Vermont, you wouldn't find somebody living in
Speaker 2: northern Vermont eating something different than southern Vermont, or western
Speaker 2: Wisconsin from eastern Wisconsin, or even northern California from southern
Speaker 2: But the South is so defined by where you are
Speaker 2: and what you're eating.
Speaker 1: Do you agree, Well, I think that's particularly true, and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why I think that because New Orleans
Speaker 1: at one time the second largest ethnic group in New
Speaker 1: Orleans are Italians. So a lot of like gumbo oak
Speaker 1: crow was kind of African and order, and so we
Speaker 1: had African influences. We had Italian influences, but obviously had
Speaker 1: French influences. What we call the German Coast. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of German names in Louisiana, people just yes and
Speaker 1: and they have.
Speaker 2: I've never been to Louisiana.
Speaker 1: From the guy that I want you to meet is
Speaker 1: Chef John Folks, who is like a culinary historian, and
Speaker 1: he would love to cook for you, but he's very
Speaker 1: much into its true Louisiana cooking is comes in a
Speaker 1: lot of places in you it's a meld of different cultures. Jambalaya,
Speaker 1: you know, jambone am ya ya. Yeah. So when you
Speaker 1: listen to John explained the history in how these dishes
Speaker 1: came about.
Speaker 2: So we still have we determined why Southern cooking is
Speaker 2: it because.
Speaker 1: I think it's more. I think Louisiana cooking is a
Speaker 1: coastal Southern cooking is quite good.
Speaker 2: So if you went to Mississippi, would it be different
Speaker 2: from the coast to Belieza not.
Speaker 1: The Mississippi coast would be fine. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: really good rest but if you go to the interior,
Speaker 1: much less once you go beyond occasion. But if you
Speaker 1: go to Chelton, a Mobile or Savannah, the food is
Speaker 1: quite good, okay, but it's very different. The coastal South
Speaker 1: is very much different than the upland south Port cities
Speaker 1: tend to have all of these influence and these melding
Speaker 1: of cultures, and these people tend to adapt. There's no
Speaker 1: two people that make the same gumbo. It's rue stock
Speaker 1: and aaramatics and then it's anything you want to put
Speaker 1: in it. One of the best gumbos Paul put them
Speaker 1: used to make it called a seven steak gumbo, which
Speaker 1: is the really cheapest part of beef cow. Which is
Speaker 1: that really kind of well, throw it away, but the
Speaker 1: bone marriage just delivers and delivers and delivers. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you could do anything with it. You can put anything
Speaker 1: you want it.
Speaker 2: But is there one ingredient that you have to have
Speaker 2: in order to be a gumbo? It's like this, is
Speaker 2: there something you us?
Speaker 1: I would have shared a roue, but there's just exciting.
Speaker 1: Your chef in New Orleans named Melissa Martin and she
Speaker 1: has some colored mosquito show club and she really grew
Speaker 1: up disappearing land and she makes a numbo without a
Speaker 1: roue and it's quite good. It tastes but mostly it
Speaker 1: following oil.
Speaker 2: No butter. It's it's butter.
Speaker 1: When you could use the neutral of all you can
Speaker 1: use butter, you can use canola, could do a folleyball.
Speaker 1: You probably not a rule against it. My mother she
Speaker 1: would you would stir it in a cast iron skillet
Speaker 1: with a wooden spoon for twenty minutes and not. The
Speaker 1: color is everything. And so if you you have a
Speaker 1: dark room or you have a light room, and Paul Pudo,
Speaker 1: and he's right. Paul said, you just get all really hot.
Speaker 1: You have a flans plan and a whisk and you
Speaker 1: just add the flower in. When it gets within ten
Speaker 1: percent of the color, you wannt take the take the
Speaker 1: heat off because the heat's going to give you in
Speaker 1: a darker root is actually gonna chose a little bit
Speaker 1: thinner gumbo, but a lighter room. And you know, people say,
Speaker 1: if you do seafood, it should be I don't. I like.
Speaker 1: I tend to go for a darker room. But it's
Speaker 1: all in what you like. But basically it has what
Speaker 1: we call trinity celery pepper's onions, celery pepper and what
Speaker 1: is the pepper? Green pepper just great, but they call
Speaker 1: it trinity because very Catholic culture. So the mirror POI
Speaker 1: I think has different tagts. I think they have Most
Speaker 1: cuisines have this basic aromatics in the stock.
Speaker 2: Is everything well, you know, there's soups in Tuscany, like
Speaker 2: we believe to always start with it with the sofriito
Speaker 2: they call it. Yeah, And so you cook it down
Speaker 2: till it becomes one herb of us. You cook the celery,
Speaker 2: the onion, the garlic, the time, and you just cook
Speaker 2: it down till it disappears. But it's one herb. I
Speaker 2: always say, it's a bit like architecture. It's a foundation,
Speaker 2: isn't it foundation.
Speaker 1: The build on. And the better chefs are building a
Speaker 1: flavor based you know, they don't stalt all at one time.
Speaker 1: They build it, then they don't put And the biggest
Speaker 1: mistake people make about Louisiana cooking is they think it's spicy.
Speaker 1: It is not. It is season. You get one thing
Speaker 1: that dominates. That's not good food. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I see these people putting hot pepper. Leah Chase was
Speaker 1: a famous black restaurant sew in New Orleans and her
Speaker 1: restaurant was a kind of focal point for civil rights.
Speaker 1: Dookie Chase who chold him he'll run And she and
Speaker 1: I got an honorary degree at Tulane, And she said,
Speaker 1: you know, Obama came in my restaurant and he put
Speaker 1: hot sauce in my gumbo, and it really said James
Speaker 1: and aggravated me. He just sees took hot sauce and
Speaker 1: put it in my gumbo. I said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's chasing. You know, he's I couldn't get over that
Speaker 1: he put hot sauce in my gumbo. Didn't tell him.
Speaker 1: So I saw President Obama and I said, you know
Speaker 1: it's President. I gotta tell you. It's Leah Chase. She's
Speaker 1: still mad at to because she put in a gumbo.
Speaker 2: I said that there are I think there are some
Speaker 2: restaurants in Paris that don't put salt and pepper on
Speaker 2: the table because they feel that they've seen and that
Speaker 2: you know, and therefore, you know, it's like Matista doing
Speaker 2: a painting and saying it needs a bit more red.
Speaker 2: So I might just you know, sometimes you have a
Speaker 2: piece of fish and it's covered in a burb block
Speaker 2: sauce and it has a lot of you know, sauce
Speaker 2: over it, and you have the spinach next to it
Speaker 2: and this and that, and you don't taste the fish,
Speaker 2: you know. But when you have something like this, or
Speaker 2: you have the food that you were talking about, the
Speaker 2: quality of the ingredient that doesn't need much. You know
Speaker 2: it needs it needs to taste the ingredient and know
Speaker 2: that you're and you can't get away with anything. If
Speaker 2: you have a piece of fish that isn't very good,
Speaker 2: they're going to know it right away. If you have
Speaker 2: olive oil that isn't strong, you're going to know it
Speaker 2: right Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a place in Parish, Okay think and they do
Speaker 1: the fish and they do it in like an oven,
Speaker 1: and they bring it to you would live in and
Speaker 1: use lemon olive ball and it's utterly delicious. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you get it's really good fish. I mean if
Speaker 1: you if you get a kind of bony fish, you're
Speaker 1: not it's not going to work. But you know, like
Speaker 1: my favorite fish from the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaker 2: Tell me about the fish.
Speaker 1: The red snapper to me is the best when you
Speaker 1: can get fresh red snapper. And there's a place in
Speaker 1: the Orleans that that has a kind of charcoal oven
Speaker 1: and it went and they do the whole fish and
Speaker 1: I love that. Speckled trout. Triple tail is another really
Speaker 1: good fish. Yeah. If everybody has a different words, somebody
Speaker 1: called sea bass. Every every fish coaching or all has
Speaker 1: sea bass. I don't know what the hell they all
Speaker 1: have in common, sea.
Speaker 2: Bass, black bass. Even here they call Brenzi and they
Speaker 2: sometimes in France they call it bar and sometimes they
Speaker 2: call it lou de mare for the sea bass. It's
Speaker 2: different if it's in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.
Speaker 1: Right, something tells me they might be different fish and
Speaker 1: different things. And a lot of what I've come to learn,
Speaker 1: I've done work with to lose on seafood promotion people,
Speaker 1: and a fish sounds bad, but it's good. You got
Speaker 1: to give it a good name. You just call it
Speaker 1: sea bass, because well, everybody knows that mass is so
Speaker 1: ill said, well, gee, that sea bass, So I'm going
Speaker 1: to like that. I mean a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of seafood is nomenclature. How do you describe it? An
Speaker 1: ice is an oyster and the muscles a muscle, and
Speaker 1: we kind of know that, but uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: different shrimp all over the world.
Speaker 2: If you had to think about your comfort food, the
Speaker 2: food you would go to, not when you're hungry, not
Speaker 2: when you want to impress somebody, but when you actually
Speaker 2: need comfort, Is there a food that you would go to.
Speaker 1: I am kind of a big fan of soups. Okay,
Speaker 1: gumbo is I just love gombo. I've been I'm home
Speaker 1: by but four times a week. It's not really a
Speaker 1: comfort food, but the food that I really like and
Speaker 1: not have yet to master's guspacho. But in the summertime,
Speaker 1: you know, when you have when you you should be
Speaker 1: able to again smell what you're eating. My comfort food
Speaker 1: would definitely be gumbo, and but red beans and rice.
Speaker 1: You know, beans and rice are very stable and blat
Speaker 1: and cooking, and I'm Talian cooking.
Speaker 2: I love.
Speaker 1: Just what they call them Cataloni beans of the big
Speaker 1: white beans. You give me that and a little garlic
Speaker 1: and olive ball and a good piece of bread. How
Speaker 1: can you beat that? What are a pot of beans
Speaker 1: and a good bread and a good olive all you?
Speaker 1: I call that simple and unsophisticated. I call it good.
Speaker 2: I call it good too. Let's thank you, jas, thank
Speaker 1: You for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with
Speaker 1: Montclair