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