Jamie Oliver: Part 2

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human Hi, this is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show Toyotathon is on So stop by your local Toyota dealer for incredible year-end deals on the cars, trucks, and SUVs known for their legendary reliability Like the stylish and efficient Camry The ready-for-anything RAV4 Or check out a rough-and-rugged Tacoma or Tundra all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota, let's go places. Welcome to Ruthie's Table 4, a production of iHeartRadio and Atomize Studios.

0:48Yeah, nice to see you. Nice to see you. Are you working tonight? No, I'm really sad. You're in here cooking pork and milk apparently. Apparently so. I don't know. Yes, if that's okay, I've got a table for four. Can't wait. Where are you sitting us? I haven't done the table plan yet, Jamie, but, you know, tell me where you want to go. Out, yeah, out. The famous table four, of course. I think I'm going to be quite well behaved today, so you can put me next to delicate ears. Have you seen your name, Jamie? Yeah, I'm back on the roto. I know, you're back on the job list. As James, not Jamie. Welcome back to Ruthie's Table Four.

1:22In the last episode, we spoke to Jamie Oliver about childhood, moving to London and getting started in television. In this episode, we'll be talking about his school meals campaign, but not before we send him back into the River Cafe kitchen after a 20-year absence to prepare a River Cafe classic. When we said to you, as we say to every guest, choose a recipe from one of the books, I was really moved when they told me this morning that you had chosen pork cooked in milk. And I was wondering whether you might tell me why you've chosen that recipe. Well, I was lucky enough to be taught it by you and Rose.

2:03And the idea of cooking meat in milk was something that I had never been taught anywhere or at college. And I hadn't at that point read anywhere. And really it was very simple ingredients. It was pork shoulder, which is obviously the cheaper cut of meat and it needs slow cooking. It has the fat in it. Yeah, and the connective tissues and these incredible leafy lemons, but just the zest, sage, garlic and some butter. And that was really it. And sometimes at Christmas, you might say you can put a little nutmeg in if you wish. But it was the most genius meal. And I remember trying it for the first time and I'm sure things slowed down and went in slow motion.

2:47And it was like this, like the milk that you pour in, you brown, you, yeah, I mean, I'm going to start explaining the recipe, which I'm going to do now. But the meat was so unctuous and like lip stickingly delicious. and like the milk split into essentially whey and ricotta sort of and it was just the most bonkersly beautiful thing I think I'd ever eaten. It was actually a recipe that I was taught by Richard's mother, Dada. Really? Bless Dada. I remember Dada. Yeah, I do. And she actually cooked, she cooked, didn't she say, quite a lot with milk so she would always finish off some meat dish by taking the gravy and then, you know, the juices in the pan and then adding milk to it and making the sauce.

3:36So, Danny. Hello. Pork and milk. That's like kind of an old-school ritual of the River Cafe, isn't it? Yeah, I think it's one of the first things Rose taught me. Yeah, Rose and Ruthie taught me as well. It looks like the recipe hasn't changed, right? New season's garlic, lovely Sicilian lemon zest, sage. Sage for the garden. Salt, pepper and pork. And pork. And hot milk. Would you like to read the recipe? What is it called? Go ahead. Pork cooked in milk. Serves eight people. Three kilos of pork shoulder. Two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. A litre and a half of full fat milk. 50 grams of butter.

4:19Five garlic cloves, peeled and halved. A small handful of fresh sage. Two lemons. Rind paired. and pith removed. Remove the rind and most of the fat from the pork and season the meat. Heat the olive oil in a thick bottom pan, brown the meat, remove it from the pan and pour away the fat. So we take the shoulder off the bone first, brown it in a little bit of butter and olive oil, a nice golden brown colour on it. Yeah. And then, once it's this colour, we then chuck in the garlic. Yeah. So the pork is obviously a lovely, beautiful free range pig. Free range, middle white pork. If people wanted to do this at home, you'd just get a whole or a half shoulder deboned skin off.

5:14You've left some of the fat on. Yeah, the fat's very important, because that's the flavour, and it helps with the crispiness, It's allowed it to go golden brown. It's probably, what, like three kilos? I'd say three kilos, yeah. Three kilos of pork there, pork shoulder. Pork shoulder's obviously sweet and delicious and needs longer to cook, but it's so tasty. So moist and it takes hours and it just keeps all that pork. Three bowls of garlic? Three or four bowls of fresh garlic. Or if it's drier garlic, then probably less, right? And this is probably browned for, what, half an hour? Half an hour and a medium to low heat.

5:45It's really dark. Keep turning in. The smell, as soon as that garlic goes in, it's just gorgeous. And then we put the sage in because we want to put the sage out. About a handful of picked sage. A handful of picked sage. Oh, lovely. Heat the milk to below boiling point and set aside. Melt the butter in the original pan, add the garlic with the sage, and when brown, return the pork to the pan. add hot milk bring to the boil add the lemon and reduce the heat beautiful beautiful you've used a speed peeler to take just the lovely yellow skin off the Sicilian lemons yeah that's it five lemons and we just use that to flavour the actual meat and also to help split the milk as it goes in because what happens is as it reduces the milk splits and you end up with these lovely curds.

6:45Like ricotta, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. And it just has that amazing flavour. It takes the flavour of the pig. Yeah. It's absolutely beautiful. I always think this moment's quite... Because you've got the fat from the pork, the fat from the butter, and then you've got the oils from the lemon skin. Yeah, yeah. It's like this little... Trinity. Yeah. Yeah. Can we get the milk in now? Yeah, go for it. Right, we've got some hot milk just before boiling. About a litre, right? Yeah. A couple of hot milk. And of course that milk is just cleaning the bottom of the pan. And it's glazing it and it's getting all those lovely caramelised juices.

7:21What do you reckon, four hours? At least, just in time for your dinner. That's exciting.

7:29Oh, damn right.

7:35Place the lid on the pan and simmer slowly for at least three hours. when the pork is cooked the milk will have curdled into brown nuggets carefully remove the meat and serve on a plate and spoon over the sauce delicious I remember you teaching me that and there's a simplicity but also a bravery I think about the cooking that you've always created here and and you've got this piece of pork and you keep turning it and you want it dark not just because the pork's dark but so you get the sticky bits yeah and um i remember i was going about to add the milk maybe when it was lightly golden and you're like no no no keep going i remember i remember being nervous you know no no trust me trust me but that magic when when the milk interacts with the zest of the lemon which curdles the milk on purpose yeah the chemistry of cooking is so interesting isn't it the lemon with the juices and then the milk and it's very it's quite a difficult thing to get right isn't it because if you put too much milk in it never gets that brown kind of crusty if you don't put enough milk in then it kind of becomes stuck on the bottom and also once you pour the milk in to about three quarters of the pork you know you don't want to touch it we used to say don't touch it don't move it you know because let it just be patiently and i think it cooks a long time but i must say in the new world of eating i haven't had it for a very long time so i was really yeah it's not something i make very often but i was really really pleased to see that you chose that i tell you what i'd done once and it was such a kind of powerful dish i think in like in a delicious sense and unexpected um i took the liberty of doing it with chicken in a book many years later and then it went mad in the new york times and they started like redoing it i'm like and and i think i even did a like a story about it i said no that's that's i learned at the river cafe with pork but of course it is delicious with chicken it's not the same as pork but it's still utterly delicious and of course people can get chicken so easily but if you do a spatchcock chicken and you kind of get it quite brown and then just be brave and halfway through just pour a lot of milk you know almost up to the chicken then in a big pan then it reduces then you scrape up the juices and it's really nice with a lemon yeah it's delicious and you would serve it with beautiful polenta yeah some simple greens and these chunks of pork and this weird but wonderful kind of how would you describe it like a it's not a gravy it's kind of a it's a curdled sauce it's almost like it's it's gone wrong yeah it's almost like what you don't want to happen when you make ice cream yeah when you add the eggs to the milk and then it can curl yeah you You know, gnocchi, rummage.

10:28But the story was so clear, wasn't it? It's just sage and lemon and garlic. Simple.

10:44Hi, this is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Toyota-thon is on and right now your local Toyota dealer is celebrating with can't-miss year-end deals on the vehicles that built Toyota's reputation for legendary reliability. Discover the stylish and efficient Camry and Corolla, both available with all-wheel drive. Or go with a RAV4 or Grand Highlander. Versatile, adventurous, and ready to take you and your family wherever the road leads. Need muscle? Take it up a notch with a Tacoma or Tundra. Built tough and always ready for the long haul. And no matter which Toyota you choose, you'll find smart financing and lease options available to qualified customers, making it easier than ever to get behind the wheel of the Toyota you've been waiting for.

11:35But don't wait. These year-end savings won't last. Shop the entire Toyota lineup and find a great deal today on BuyAToyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. Go! Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an iFit contract for$250 ,000. This is when mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. This is Trainer Games. Watch it on Prime Video starting January 8th. The only thing I was nervous about coming in the cab over was reading this recipe out, because I'm like...

12:23I've worked out ways to blag it, so it looks like... So is that dyslexia? Yeah. And did they not realise what that was at your age? You had to be literally blind to have any extra help in my school. And I was pulled out of class into a class which was a very kindly named Special Needs. So imagine 880 boys, and then... Can I have Jamie, please? And Mr. Lovett. and we'd be pulled out and we'd end up literally in the attic of the school learning how to spell the most basic things but I think it was and of course in a boys school you would never learn to cook because that's for the girls then Did they have cooking lessons for the girls?

13:03In the girls schools yeah but they certainly, you know it was just very chauvinist isn't it and it's funny because I left school with this chip on my shoulder about like this is not for me and they're not serving every child and I think I've only literally just brushed the last chip off my shoulder. You know, I keep talking about that ad for the Felix Project which says tonight 400 ,000 children in Britain will have the same meal, nothing. And that we're living this time right now where I find it shocking that we still can't feed our children. we've been looking at countries' approaches to food and I grew up in a time when Lyndon Johnson in the late 60s started the Head Start program and it was that you would give every child in poverty breakfast, it was breakfast there's that great phrase, no child should be disadvantaged by his birth in fact, a lot of children were disadvantaged by the fact that they went to school hungry and so they fed children they fed children breakfast so you'd come to school and any child who needed breakfast would have it.

14:13It was a Head Start. And studies are, years later, that the children who were on Head Start were not taking welfare. So they... Flourished out of it. Flourished out of it. And that, in fact, investment by society to invest in children, actually, if you want to be crass about it, save them money later on. Yeah, I mean, there's some sensible countries that invest in it. And it's funny, like, I mean, I know it's a name drop, but I saw Tony Blair last week, just the week before, just because it was a moment of reflection since because he was the one he was the first prime minister that found new money invested in equipment and training and the money on the plate.

14:56and I said like Tony like we've got to go faster on this and and actually his position has I mean he was incredible to to support me when we did it 15 16 years ago but he's he's like I'm even more on this now than ever and it makes more sense than ever and and um because of my position I've remained apolitical but um currently at the moment neither of the two big parties have child health on the manifesto as something that can be voted for. I don't know how you feel, but I don't understand why we can't feed every single child, whether a parent makes a million dollars or one dollar. You know, that every child...

15:37And also the idea that Sam Taylor-Johnson was on, and she can remember being put in a separate line because she was a child that needed school lunches to be paid for, and I'm sure... I don't know how they do it now. what is a society that does that to a kid i mean it's it was often a lady with a clipboard and a name and a token but you know now with technology like the card system um which can be incredibly intelligent if the government just allowed it to get organized and that's what what happens is little islands of hope but the government never really consolidates genius and spreads genius and facilitates genius so from that little card that gives you a free school meal that no other kid needs to know you're having you can also ping a text to a parent saying they had this for lunch which means you don't have to cook them the same thing for dinner if that's the case you know what i mean there's just loads of really clever things that can happen and how do you qualify for a free lunch do you know that the salary that you yeah as a household you have to earn less than seven thousand four hundred pounds a year that's not as a person that's as a household there are households that live on seven thousand pounds a year 1.2 million of them yeah and then there's a gap between the free school lunch kids who are parents that are on universal credit so universal credit is complex in the sense that it bends and it was invented to be bendy so you could have people on 20 grand per household which is still not loads of money but the average is about 13 to 14 so there's about 600 ,000 kids that fall into that that don't get a free school lunch that would have a household that earn you know sort of 10 to 14 000 pound a year um that can't get a free school lunch 190 days of the year so you know look every council has a different price per school lunch it could be 250 it could be 350 um but if you've got three kids and that sort of money then then that totals up per month pretty big you know so there's still gaps and there's lack of consistency and but also um there's been an amazing bit of work done just recently independently and they said if you just gave everyone a free school lunch over a 20-year period britain would be over 40 billion pounds better off and they look at it very surgically around kind of productivity that how you get through school how much you would cost the nhs and conservatively so what's interesting is all the math says um invest in the system treat them all the same and from a restaurant point of view which is essentially what they are if you've got a school that's 50 school lunches that's struggling genius cooking will happen but only about 70 because the numbers don't you can't have enough people on the line you can't fix the equipment so there is a kind of business you know so free school lunches definitely would make the food better more consistent um and then But more importantly, give those young people from poor postcodes, which is essentially what it is, give them much more hope and the ability to thrive.

18:39Because they don't get a free school lunch and the parents can't afford. Yeah, they'll get nothing. They'll have nothing to eat. And at the moment there is more lunch cooks than ever saying, I'm having to illegally give them lunches, not on the system. And there are teachers paying for 10 or 12 kids a day from some there or some budget they can find. So obviously they can't visually watch kids not have a meal. And like you say, it could be the only hot meal of the day, and that's not an exaggeration. And then, of course, outside of the 190 days of school a year, there's what we call holiday hunger, which is when you actually, even in that six to seven week summer holiday, if you measure public health or children, you can see that there's a massive spike of ill health because they don't, they get stuff, but it's all the wrong stuff.

19:29So that's what Marcus Rashford was working on, which was some kind of provision in the holidays for these very vulnerable families. What can we do? Well, I think keeping the story going, I mean, this year, one of the tactics where you, I mean, I've been on it constantly since 15 years ago, but one of the things we're doing this year, which I would love you to get involved in in any way you could, is um we're actually it's funny when you're like overwhelmed by a problem you keep telling the story of the problem and then then i had this genius idea about how about we do an annual school food awards that's amazing with real prizes and real incentives and how about we celebrate the best upcoming lunch cook and the best team and the best primary school secondary school special school um the best teacher teaching cooking so we've we've got eight different awards this year that we're going to launch and we're doing it with the one show and and actually the sun and we're trying to get as many people behind it but hopefully it will give us an opportunity to share what good looks like yeah because i definitely haven't done enough of that in the last 15 years i've really only focused on the darkness so that's a change of tact yeah these institutions are incredible these teachers are amazing and they haven't had I think I've worked through five or six prime ministers.

20:51I've worked through 13 education secretaries in 15 years, 16 years since school dinners. So imagine changing the head chef at the River Cafe that many times in that time. I mean, I do think the institutional school can be something so much more powerful than it already is. People forget it's the biggest restaurant group. 30 ,000 odd schools over 3 ,000 secondary schools it's nearly 5 million meals a day 85 ,000 lunch cooks which are largely women which are largely parents most of the time so it's an incredible workforce bigger than the military the navy out there cooking for kids every day

21:38If you like listening to Ruthie's Table 4 would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.

21:57Hi, this is Shirley Strawberry from the Steve Harvey Morning Show. Toyota-thon is on and right now your local Toyota dealer is celebrating with can't miss year-end deals on the vehicles that built Toyota's reputation for legendary reliability. Discover the stylish and efficient Camry and Corolla, both available with all-wheel drive, or go with a RAV4 or Grand Highlander. Versatile, adventurous, and ready to take you and your family wherever the road leads. Need muscle? Take it up a notch with a Tacoma or Tundra, built tough and always ready for the long haul. And no matter which Toyota you choose, you'll find smart financing and lease options available to qualified customers, making it easier than ever to get behind the wheel of the Toyota you've been waiting for.

22:49But don't wait. These year-end savings won't last. Shop the entire Toyota lineup and find a great deal today on buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an iFit contract for$250 ,000. This is when mindset comes in. Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. This is Trainer Games. Watch it on Prime Video starting January 8th. I was a child with dyslexia and working as a nine-year-old in the kitchen and knowing that your passion for food, that was what you...

23:42Did you ever waver from wanting to be a chef? Did you ever think at one point, maybe I'd like to be a racing car driver or a helicopter pilot? It's an interesting one because I think there's so much noise around what are you doing when you leave school, what are you doing, what are you doing? I knew I could cook so I knew I'd never have to be hungry there's always a job for sure but um like I play with a lot of Lego and I know it's a random thing to say but like that was the building blocks of of not just doing what it tells you to do but then when it's all destroyed when you can make something through fantasy which is much more really like what Richard would do with architecture right I mean so somehow Lego which was my best friend in cooking sort of I don't know they kind of gave me the confidence to just know that things were going to be all right we've talked about you know food as politics and and society and and fairness we've talked about food in your father's kitchen doing something i still can't remember with the bottles bottling up and we've talked about food in the river cafe and the friends you made and and rose and memories and food is memory you know today we've talked about our memories and i think that food is also comfort is there a food or some foods that you would think i need a bit of comfort right now what shall i eat would you cook would you buy something would you open a no i'll cook something yeah what would you cook jamie oliver it this is um unsurprisingly it's a inspired by my time here at the river cafe um but it's a bit of a melange between two things right so um it's spaghetti arabiata and certainly one of the ways i was taught it and i know there's many ways was to gently heat oil and put whole fresh chilies in and just let them kind of gently just cook beautifully and and you put a little hole in the chili so it doesn't give over the aggressive heat well you can make it as hot as you like because obviously arabiata means angry but and that means hot but um it's a really rounded fruit chili flavor and then the tomato beautiful tomatoes go in and a little garlic of course in the oil before the tomatoes the little hijack on that was I remember seeing you and Rose not very often using vodka as a base to a risotto I don't know if it's because there was no wine close to hand or vermouth but it wasn't like you to you had an always had an intention I'm sure you used vodka when you make risotto and you fry the sofrito off you would add often wine but you did vodka and I thought oh my god I've never seen that before but of course you cook it all away and you're left with this kind of cleanliness that's amazing and then i think you continued to make some form of like spring risotto that was just mind-blowing anyway so i kind of incorporated that hack into before i adding i added the tomatoes into this arabiata and you just end up with this this um and lemon zest so i'm i'm telling this terribly sorry oil and chilies slowly slowly slowly don't rush it then our lemon zest garlic vodka cook the vodka away then in with the tomatoes and then this magic sauce happens and then um just simple garlicky pangra tata which are the crispy breadcrumbs and spaghetti and i will curl up on a sofa with that and um i don't need to cry because i just have i and and if i'm feeling sadder than i need to i'll just put more chili in but that dish can console any heart but I also love it because minus the vodka it's really quite cheap I mean the breadcrumbs are cheap and the garlic's a tiny bit I mean it's all but it's so delicious and I do love chilli as you know I do, I do when you need comfort you can have your arrabbiata but you can also pick up the phone and call me thank you thank you Jamie thank you for having me I love you love you too

28:03Everyone that's rude for about it, you know that. That was great. It was really nice. Did you enjoy it? I loved it. Nice big conversation.

28:17The River Cafe Lookbook is now available in bookshops and online. It has over 100 recipes beautifully illustrated, with photographs from the renowned photographer Matthew Donaldson. The book has 50 delicious and easy-to-prepare recipes, including a host of River Cafe classics that have been specially adapted for new cooks. The River Cafe Lookbook, recipes for cooks of all ages.

28:46Ruthie's Table 4 is a production of iHeartRadio and Atomai Studios. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

29:20rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota, let's go places. What a matchup we got, y 'all. This is that classic HBCU vibe. Non-stop action, the bed is rocking, and the crowd lit. Chance echoing, drumbeat, everybody showing that school pride. A game like this? Yeah, it calls for an ice cold Coca-Cola. Ah, crisp and refreshing. That's a game changer right there. Mmm, yeah. That taste always hits the right note, just like a band at halftime. And just like that, we're back at it. Passionate fans, school colors everywhere, and an ice cold Coca-Cola?

30:10That's a winning combo. No matter the sport, no matter the yard, everybody knows. Fan work is thirsty work. So grab a Coca-Cola and keep that HBCU pride going. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.