Ruthie's Table 4: Edward Enninful

Welcome to River Cafe, Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and Adami Studios.

Come with me into the River Cafe. You see the pink wood oven in the distance, the yellow kitchen cocktails are being made, proshutto is being sliced, and there's the quiet buzz for the beginning of an evening food and friends in a beautiful space. Welcome to River Cafe Table four with me, Ruthie Rogers. I'm sitting here with Edward nfl and you're the editor of Vogue.

Thank you for having me.

We're looking at the Thames, we're looking at the blue sky, and most of all, we're looking at people who've been not able to come to a restaurant for five months, eating, talking and having a wonderful time. And that's what we're going to have.

Edward.

We had your party, welcoming party to London at the River Cafe to welcome you here. It was a very beautiful party. I remember something about that night, which was we were talking about whether we could do ravioli as a premi and there was a conversation saying, well, you know, fashion people don't eat carbs, they won't eat pasta. Nobody's going to eat the ravioli. Not only did they eat it, they had seconds, gongs, and thirds and put on more ravioli on the plate.

It was a really magical even one of my really much cool evenings of my life because remember the issue came out.

Tell Us about that, tell Us about the first issue.

It was a love story really to Great Britain, the country that sort of took my family in and took me in. And we celebrated everybody from Naomi Campbell to Steve McQueen to Cake Moss and we had Adua on the cover.

It was a beautiful night. And I think people, you know, again, over food, over find the food. You wanted to be sharing plates, You wanted people to have antipacity.

People, there's a misconception of fashion people don't eat, But that's not true.

That's not true, And so what do you feel about food and fashion? Is the idea that in order to look good and clothes, you have to be thin, or you have to look elegant, you have to be a certain look or models have to look a certain way, and that would mean denial of food. It would say, in order to look that way, don't eat. Yeah, what's that strong?

Historically, you know, to be fashionable should eat When you look at at least my Vogue anyway, it's everybody's welcome, you know, all shapes, all sizes or colors. And what I love now is three years later when you look in all the other magazines, everybody's also welcoming in all the other magazines. That that strict thing of being able to be a certain size, being sized zero is the perfect that doesn't exist anymore. Even the idea of being a model's changed. How you can be short, you can

Well, do your job, but you made that. You did it out of empathy and sympathy and knowledge of yourself, and so I think that you have to take the credit for that, you know, in a beautiful way. But has it been a struggle to get you make it sound rather seamless that this is what's happened another mate, But it has it been a struggle for stores or for designers?

Yeah, I mean designers now know that they've missed out on a whole market from size forteen to sixty they've missed out. Why would you want to miss out on a section of a population that can make your business even better. So now designers have really sort of like, oh my god, they've wisened up. Okay, I just knew that the world we lived in just wasn't that just wasn't that world anymore? You know, you have you have to be a certain size or or a certain color or yeah, and I love the new generation.

I mean you're aren't they the new generator? Yes?

Yeah, you know, so welcoming and so so open. So you know, the industry's changed, and it's not perfect, but at least they're now you know what happened last summer, you know, black lives matter, and so now you know, companies are now realizing because they have to hire people from diverse backgrounds behind the scenes and not just so to watch. It's changed slowly. It's quite great. You know, conversations about have been had now never would have been

Because you grew up in Ghana, So tell me about the food of Ghana.

What do you spent my first sort of eleven twelve twelve years in Ghana, and I remember everything being spicy. I remember everything being peppery. I remember, you know, lots of sort of carbohydrates and lots of soups, lots of garne. Soups are very different because you need actual meat in them, so like a chicken soup or a lamb soup. You know, I remember just literally cheering through bones and skin, and that's really comforting for me.

Yeah, I think food. You know, we always talk about food being a connection, food being delicious, food being adventurous and exciting, but it is comfort and it's and the memories that you have. Who would your mother, would your mother cook for you?

My mother didn't cook so much what my grandmother did, so growing up in Ghana, my grandmother would always cook, and she would always cook in these huge I think that's why I love going to restaurants. She would always cook in these huge pots, and she'd never cook for just a family. It would be aunts popping in, uncle's popping in. There's something about Ghana the minute food is ready to go, all of a sudden, your aunts and

Really, did your grandmother live with you?

She lived with us, and then we moved to England. She didn't live with us when we moved to England, but when we got to England, my brother took over cooking duties. And again, you know, it was always sort of fairy meatium.

And your mother didn't cook.

She was a seamstress. She was busy working, just busy making club. I mean, pretty much what I do now. She just worked all the time. My brother would cook sometimes and my sisters would take time.

What about your father never cooked?

I never. I don't cook either. Somehow I missed the cooking Jean. But I can really eat.

So I was. If you have the eating Jean very often, if you have the eating Gean, then you do need to learn to cook, because sometimes if you don't have somebody to cook for you, you're in restaurants. You do, Yeah, that's why you love restaurants.

Food is love and love is food.

Did you grow up in the city.

I grew up in love with Grove West London.

Yeah, what about Gona.

We grew up in the military base called Burma Camp.

Was your father in the military, So it.

Was really weird growing up in Africa but not really living in the city, but living in a military base because my dad was in the army. So it was kind of a surreal kind of upbringing. Yeah, and then we moved to London and we lived first we lived in sort of Victoria for a few months or was it the Chelsea Barracks. Then we moved to Lubwick Grove and that's when life really begun. Oh my god, Jamaican food rise and peace check in.

I mean, so that exposure, it's very It's interesting how people leave there. You know, we've talked to lots of people in these conversations who say that they had the home cooking for the first you know, the student years are growing up, their memories of their parents and then and then there was a kind of explosion of food and adventure and trying, trying. But did you before we leave Ghana, did you bring Ghanian food with you? What was that the food that you still ate when you

I remember I always say I felt as if I lived in two countries. I mean, if anybody who's been an immigrant will let you know, we'll attest to this. You're literally you're at home and you're eating the flavors of Ghana and you're having things like fool food and

And would you bring friends home to experience?

Bring friends home? But Garan food is quite specific. You either take to it or you don't and friends will coming to They always love jello rice. I don't if you know what jelo of rice is. It's this famous. It's almost like a tomato rice. And there's a competition between Garnians and Nigerians. It's for thee wars who makes the best. So friends will come and they don't eat that.

But it's so it's rice with tomato, did you say.

With tomatoes and spices and so in the colors sort of orange like an orange color. But it's very famous.

And what's the Nigerian version.

Nigerians think this tastes better than ghani, especially whole war's going on about it. I would have said that.

And I have to have a little rice off.

And I remember a lot of ockry and everything, and I never had I never ate salads growing up. Every kind of you know, ganem vegetable was always cooked, you know, cooked and stirred and beaten to an end of his life. So eating salads was always.

But would you go to the market, would there be markets?

Would you get your mother every Saturday? Will take me to Brixton Market. They had a sort of big African. Yeah, you could buy meat, you could buy you know, fish, you could buy clothes, and every weekend was spent with my mom. We were very close in Brixton, and I remember just Bob Marley, the music of Bob Marley and Peter Touch that really made up my early teenage years. But and then my mom will be looking through the meats, essentially trying to find the best cuts and the best.

I think that, as you say, every immigrant. My family came from Eastern Europe, you know, to the United States, to New York, and they cooked the food of their country. And food is culture. It's it tells you the story. When you arrive in a country and you go to the market, it tells you about the culture. Welcome back to River Cafe, Table four. In each episode, my guest reads a recipe they've chosen from one of our cookbooks.

I'm going to read the recipe for the veal shin slow cooked with birollo and sage. Serves eight people. You need two veal shins, extra virgin olive oil, a bunch of fresh sage, four bay leaves, four garlic clothes peeled, one bottle of burrollo, three hundred and fifty grams peeled plump tomatoes drained of their juices very important. The longer this cooks, the better. You need to preheat your oven to two hundred degrees centigrade. Heat an oven proof pot.

Ah, thank you beautifully read. If all you know the recipes that you've cooked from the River of Cafe book, and that you've eaten in the River Cafe, I think you have had feel a lot. You do have it when you come in. But was there something? Was it? The comfort? What was it that made you choose this recipe amongst all the others.

I mean, I find feel very comforting anyway, Like I love comfort food, you know, whether it's veal, I'm definitely a carnival but it reminds me great memories of my grandmother and my mother sort of, you know, cooking always meats.

I think that, as you say, every immigrant my family came from Eastern Europe, you know, to the United States, to New York, and they cooked the food of their country. And I think that you bring It's interesting that you said it, because you do bring. The food is cultures. It tells you the story when you arrive in a country and you go to the market. It tells you about the culture. And you know, as an immigrant, maybe particularly first generation, we'll bring it with them.

We never went to restaurants. There were so many, there were six of us. So I remember the first time I went to a restaurant. I think it must have been about sixteen, when I started modeling, and I remember thinking, oh my god, this is what'd you do here? Being quite frightened.

But was a restaurant do you remember? Do you remember the restaurant?

It was in Lubrick Grove definitely. It was a Chinese restaurant. It had two seats. It was next to the next to the chief stage group to station. I can't remember the name. It was really famous. It was then about thirty years Yeah, and you know, you get a little take when you sat. It wasn't probably a proper restaurant, but you set, you have three tables and you sit there and it felt so glamorous. Yeah.

I think that it's interesting if we look out side here and we see the ease at which you know, people are sitting in a restaurant where they bring their children. And for me as well, it was a special occasion going to a restaurant. I lived in Upstate New York.

I mean I was a modeling so then I thought, you know, sort of traveling and sort of having new friends and you know, living with Judy Blame and so my whole life changed. But I remember those first few sort of times that I ate up my house.

Did you travel to when you were modeling? Where did you get? Paris?

And the first place I went to was New York sort of burgers and yeah, oh my god, New York is so milkshakes and those huge steaks that they have steaks. And then I've got to Paris and French cuisine was incredible. I always found for cuisine was delicious, but a little too what's the word for me?

Too heavy?

And I loved Italian food. When I discovered Milan mind loved Italian food. I loved everything about it. I love Italian food.

Do you see restaurants as places where you work? Do you work over food?

You? No?

Okay, I like that.

Never for me to put those two together. Root it for me? For me workers work, and when I'm in a restaurant, I just need to have fun, enjoy myself, not have to worry. So, you know, even going out to a restaurants very special for me. I always dress up. I'm never walking to a restaurant and not dressed up.

Look you look at you? Look at you dressed up? So what was that?

Growing up a dad was like to get on a plane, you have to dress up. To go to a restaurant, you have to dress up, so you never see me in the restaurant.

That's nice, that's nice. I mean, I don't mind what people wear when they come and and either they can come in a pair of you know, jeans and a T shirt. But there there are people who and you see, especially in the evenings, you do see people. And I sometimes say that to the waiters. I say, you know, people put a lot of effort sometimes to look really beautiful here, and so we also have to, you know, the effort that we make.

Nice.

So what do you do when you're on a shoot or you're working, you know, you just say, okay, guys, we'll see you in a couple of hours.

Do you take a little Yeah, you sit and you eat and then you go back to I don't I don't eat and look at pictures or anything like that. I need that moment to It's one of the few times in the day that I have to enjoy myself. You know.

Do you find that you can go out to lunch and to dinner, you might go. You just love it.

When I lived in New York, I lived in New York for a while, I would be out lunch, sometimes breakfast too. I just love the whole experience of love.

Yeah, I really do.

I really love it. And I love sit looking at people, seeing what people are wearing, seeing just people having fun and enjoying themselves. It's almost like therapy for me. It's therapeutic.

What did you do during lockdown? And we couldn't go to the restaurants the.

First few weeks. Alec my partner cooked and he's very healthy, sort of sort of salads and sort of meats, and that was great. And then we discovered banana bread.

Oh for me, about banana bread.

Went out of the blue. Alex learned how to make banana bread and it was such a novelty. We ate it every single day for a month and now I can never look at it ever again. I'm done. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, you started with the comfort of your grandmother cooking for you. And so if I were to ask you the question that I asked at the end of every interview, which is what is your comfort food? If you were feeling like life is tough, I've had a bad day, I've had I need I need to eat something. Is there a typical food that you would go to that would you just know if I have this it would make me feel better? So many Yeah, they can tell us a few of that. It doesn't have to be one.

Something raci of rice and beans and chicken or something very just really comfort because my grandmother would make whenever I wasn't feeling well.

She loved you through probably many ways, but through food.

Food, My memories about just cooking. Yeah, that's all I remember.

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