237: Ruth Reichl

28:23Now, of course, you've just like very articulated the exciting moments in L.A. and New York. So this is a generalization, but I do think here that our menus are kind of the same in a lot of places. Well, I think one of the things that's happening is during COVID, a lot of chefs started saying, do I want to do fine dining anymore? Is this the kind of – I mean it's interesting because I'm saying that all of the chefs who are nominated in New York, they're people who are doing the food that they want to do. And most of those people, when they go out to eat, they're not going out for fancy food. And so they're saying, do I want to be cooking the food that isn't really what I want to be eating myself?

29:08And I have to say last time I went to eat at Noma, which was about a year and a half ago, I got – when I was talking to Renee, I got the distinct feeling that if you could – if he could be cooking what he wanted to cook, it would be kind of Alice Waters' very simple food that I could feel his fatigue with the tweezer food that he's cooking. Absolutely. And I could see it coming that he was just going to say, why am I doing this? He really looked in the mirror and realized that doing it as an event, doing the pop-ups in places outside of Copenhagen, it was more sustainable for his own. So my question is, so fine dining, what does that mean to you now?

29:54Well, I think there will always be a place for fine dining. But what I have seen over the course of my career is when I started writing about restaurants, the people who went out to restaurants were rich, old, white people. And suddenly the people who mattered were hip, young people who had money to go out to eat but didn't want that level. They didn't really want to have to put on a tie. Formerly known as the yuppies. Formerly known as yuppies, exactly. Or tech. Now, those are the new yuppies. Tech execs. Yeah. Patagonia Vest guys. But, you know, they don't want that. They really don't. And so, you know, why if the chefs don't want it and the people who are making it don't really want it, that leaves you with a much smaller audience.

30:53and it means that restaurants are going to have to change. And so there is room. It's interesting to me that there are very few really high-end restaurants in Los Angeles. Right. You know, I mean, really, when you're trying to think of like, where am I going to go for an anniversary? There aren't a lot of them. Yeah. And they're shrinking in New York too. You know, I mean, there used to be, you know, If you wanted pomp and circumstance, there were 15 or 20 restaurants. Yeah, now it's like Teresi is the hottest table in New York, and that's just like a downtown at the Puck Building, and it's certainly not a place to celebrate anything except for being at Teresi.

31:33Right. Boy, they are such a good cook. Yeah. Exciting just to see what he's up to. Yeah, Rich was on the podcast about a month ago. Yeah, absolutely. Just absolute talent. And just like him and Mario together, just a force of packaging restaurants for the masses. Yeah. I mean, I have to say the other one who I would put up there in that same ilk is Ignacio Matos. Yeah, totally. It's like such another force and creative and food that you didn't imagine yourself. Yeah. But, you know, I think there will always be a place for the Jean Georges, I mean, another amazing talent, a Daniel, a Le Bernardin.

32:22But, you know, if you've got four or five restaurants like that, it's probably all even a city like New York needs. Yeah, it's very interesting. We could talk about this all day. I want to transition to something that came up in your newsletter in the past couple of months was a trip you took to China in 1980. You went there to review or write about a hotel, but you came across much more. I like to get a sense of what China was like in 1980. Oh, I feel so privileged to have done that. So I don't know how this happened. I was sent by Apartment Life. It was before it became Metropolitan Home. Yeah.

33:01Dorothy Kalins. Yes. And I was sent to write about this hotel that was supposed to – that was apparently built in Toisan. And there was a group of about 10 journalists who went on this trip. And I mean this is 1980. Yeah. Not many are going to China. Not many Americans. No. Very few. And Toisan is where so many of the people who came from China to build the railroads in the 1880s came from Toisan. we get there first of all it takes forever to get there we went from Hong Kong but it was like every time we would come to a river we would have to wait for a ferry which was basically just a raft to come and take us across so it just took forever to go like 100 miles I recall it as like 2 or 3 days and then we get to Toisan and there have been no non-Chinese people in this village for 45 years.

34:07Wow. And this hotel that we're supposed to be writing about has not been built yet. Oh, my God. And they basically put us up in a hotel for overseas Chinese people and they give us each a bike and say, go explore. But we also have a minder. Yeah. And I mean, this is still, you know, a cultural revolution. I mean, it's still a very authoritarian government. It was a very authoritarian government. And the Toisan, people were still living basically whole families in one room. So all the life of the village happened on the streets. So people are cooking in the streets. So, you know, we would walk past and ride our bikes past.

34:51And, I mean, we were really seeing a China that has not existed now for a long time. But a very rural, poor China. Yeah. And our poor, responsible person, I mean, I was kind of a hippie in those days. So he came to me one day and said, you don't wear a bra. That is not good. What do you respond to? What do you say? And I was like, I don't have a bra. Yeah, I didn't pack it. I didn't make the trip over all those rivers. And then one day he just said to me, we were on the bus going to see the hospital, which was a trip. Wow. And he said, what do you use for birth control? Just out of the blue. No non sequitur.

35:41Okay. And then people would like, you know, I have very frizzy hair and it was very hot and humid. Nobody there had ever seen curly hair before. I mean, they're Chinese, right? Yeah. So I get off the bus and hundreds of hands are reaching out just to touch my hair because it's such an anomaly for them. But the thing that was exciting was, I mean, we really ate. They gave us the best that they had. But it was, you know, I've written about this. But one day we were eating something and I had no idea. It was a steamed creature. And the whole creature was there. Whole body, yeah. And I was like, what is this?

36:24And they said, we don't know what it's called, but, you know, here, let me show you its armor. And he took me into the kitchen, but it was like an armadillo. It was a pangolin, which they don't have armadillos in China, but they do have pangolins. So we were eating everything, you know, everything that they had. And, you know, wonderful dim sum for breakfast. Most of the journalists I was with were, you know, they just wanted eggs and bacon. Really? So back then even, you know, you're on one of these boondoggles with a bunch of journalists and there's like the food people and then, you know, there's always like divide.

37:00Yeah. I mean, I think I might have been the only food person on this. I mean, they were mostly sort of academic journal. I mean, it was interesting. I feel so fortunate to have been there. Me and another couple of the journalists started being known as the Gang of Four because we got into real trouble because we would go to the tea room, the major business at that time. I mean, Toy San is now huge and they have, I think, the largest fish farm in the world. It's indoors. But at that time, it's very small. And the major business was the tofu skin factory. Oh, cool. And there were – so there were these conveyor belts where they would sort of paint the liquid tofu, the soy milk on it.

37:57And then it would go through the oven. Like Yuba basically. And they would twist it off and it would be Yuba at the end. And they also – there were a few tables there and you could get tea in the middle of this factory. And so people would come up to us and ask us to read English onto their tape recorders because they wanted to learn English. That's amazing. And then somebody there invited us home for tea. And we all got into so much trouble. You know, the police came. Oh, yeah. Yes, we were not supposed to go to anybody's home. Can you imagine them having an American guest read English for the first time?

38:39Yes. Probably for many of them? Yes. Wow. That's amazing. It was extraordinary. Let's talk about gourmet a bit. When you think about gourmet and these quiet moments, what flashes into your head right away? I was so lucky. That's what passes through my head. I mean, I loved that job so much, and I knew how fortunate I was even then. I mean, I was working with really talented people. I had – I don't think it will ever happen again. But, you know, a boss who said basically make me the best magazine you possibly can. Think out of the box. I don't care what it costs. You know, hire the best writers.

39:20Try and figure out how to do the most exciting art that you can for the magazine. And, you know, I was working with wonderful editors and, you know, the great thing about Condé Nast in those days, I'm sure it's nothing like that anymore. But so I pretty much ran it like each one was a separate studio, like a movie studio. And they didn't care that I didn't do it hierarchically and that we didn't have a flow chart of who reported to who. and that, you know, it was sort of anybody could do anything. And, you know, I mean, I basically went in and said, you know, I'm not going to tell you what stories.

40:06You go out and find your stories. And it felt like every day was exciting and every issue. I would – you know, we would have these meetings and we'd say, okay, let's do a Paris issue. And I just remember walking out of those meetings and thinking, I wonder what it's going to be like when it's done. Oh, I know the feeling. I feel like I mean in a much smaller scale, but whenever I'd be in editorial meetings at Taste or other publications, you get that. There's so much promise and hope with all the like approved stories of an issue or a special something. So much great hope. And I was really – for the bulk of my time there, I had a publisher I loved and who kept saying – I would say, you think this is too scary?

40:51And he'd go, no, we have to be different. And I can explain. I took a David Foster Wallace article and said, I don't know. People aren't going to love this piece. He said, no, this is incredible. We should be doing this. that doesn't happen it was just a stroke of extraordinary love that's great that you hear I hear gratitude and I hear somebody who made the most because you're a naturally inquisitive person just hearing you speak in this episode you just love this stuff you're interested in it all the time yeah I am and then to be surrounded by other people who are and to really say the sky's at the limits don't you know, don't put a leash on your imagination.

41:40Let's think, you know, and also to be doing it at a time. I mean, I took it over in 1999. It was an amazing time when I thought Americans are ready to think about food in a new way. You weren't wrong. But it was before, I mean, right now everybody's thinking that way. But at the time, there weren't very many people who were thinking, oh, let's get beyond, you know, how to spend your money. And let's write a lot of recipes. Yeah, yeah. And then I had, you know, those great test kitchens. Yeah, you got to like test and you get your passionate home cook as much of a restaurant critic and a traveler.

42:22So it's like a blending of all those interests. Do old issues pop up in your feed, in your own collection? Do you look at old issues of gourmet? I do. I do. And people have been sending me. So I've now got like most of the 40s. And my collection oddly is growing. That's amazing. I mean, we've written about your menu collection. Priya Krishna came up to your house in the Hudson Valley and wrote a great piece for us. But also your menu collection is always on display in your newsletter. And I just love that so much. Well, I mean, I just feel like menus tell us so much. And apparently there's a show right now at the Grolier Club of menus.

43:04No way. Yeah. Somebody sent me a link to it and I want to go there. Has there been any thought about publishing these menus in some kind of collection, some kind of printed? I don't think so. I mean, but that's one of the great joys of doing the Substack is, you know, it makes me go back and look at them and think about them. And, you know, to me it was just like yesterday. day. So, you know, when I'm looking at something from 2000, I mean, it doesn't seem like a long time ago to me, but I look at it and go, oh, that was a little time. That was a bit of a moment. We'll have a few more questions.

43:38What excites you right now about food writing? Is there any writer that pops up in your feed or any publication? Well, I really love Vittles, Yeah. Which is – Absolutely. Is, you know, totally surprising and wonderful. Whetstone is wonderful. I mean I actually think it's quite an amazing time for anybody who – I mean a friend is about to start teaching food writing at a university and he said, I don't know what to tell these kids because there are no jobs in journalism. And I said, no, no, you're wrong. There has never been more work for food writers. You don't have to write for a publication necessarily.

44:24I mean there are policy places that you can write. There are so many outlets now. And, okay, yeah, there aren't that many magazines or dedicated to food. But every magazine is now covering food. Absolutely agree. I think that right now it's an entrepreneurial moment for food writing, and I think you can definitely start your own thing. Maybe not the staff positions are fewer or far between, but I think I agree with, like, what they're doing at Vittles and what – you mentioned Whetstone. And even all the traditional publications I think are really raising the bar. Yeah. I mean Bitter Southerner does amazing stuff on food.

45:04And, you know, The New Yorker is doing great stuff on food. And The Atlantic does. I mean it's a very fertile time because when I first started writing, you know, the food section was basically called the women's section. Crazy to think about those times. Yeah, but it wasn't that long ago. And it was basically, you know, very polite little pieces. Well, things aren't so polite anymore. No, it's not. And that's the best thing possible. That's the ultimate end goal for food writing is to not be polite, right? Exactly. And get real. It's cool with the real world. No, exactly. Cookbooks? Are you reading cookbooks?

45:46I mean, I'm sure you're sent cookbooks often. Are there any cookbooks that come to mind that you're really interested in? I'll tell you the cookbooks that have come across my desk recently that I really like. And this one, I cannot believe that this book hasn't gotten more pop. The Chef's Garden in Huron, Ohio, they have written the most wonderful book about vegetables, how to grow them, how to use them, vegetables you've never heard of. It's called The Chef's Garden. It's called The Chef's Garden Cookbook. And it is – it's fantastic. I mean it's the kind of thing I think everybody should have this book in their collection.

46:22I mean, the other recent book I've really – it's not that recent, but Mr. Zhu's In Chinatown. Brandon Zhu's book is – I don't think there's ever been anything quite like it. And, you know, they're real chef-y Chinese recipes, but the writing is great and interesting. And, you know, that 14-day duck of his is worth doing. You've done it. I haven't done it. Yeah, but it's worth looking at the recipe. I am going to do it at some point. Yes, definitely. A winter project maybe. There's a new North African cookbook that's just come out that is – it's been a long time since – there's sort of Paula Walford and then silence.

47:02And I think this book is terrific. I was sent – it's not out yet but Viola Butoni. I don't know that one. Oh, it's a really interesting – an Italian cookbook that has things that you've never seen before. That's impossible. I feel like. I think it's coming out in the fall. Yeah. But I really like that. And then, of course, you know, they're the classics. I mean, Marcella is still a book I cook from. And I have to say the first gourmet cookbook, the yellow one, is probably the book I use most often. You put a lot of effort. You put a lot of work into that book. We all did. You did all. Your team did, yeah.

47:47Yeah, we all did. and the recipes are good and we went through 60 years of gourmet recipes. And, you know, and it's the thing that they're tested and tested and tested so they work. I mean that's the thing about Marcella. Those recipes really work. And, I mean, I guess there are some people, I mean there are some cooks who I really like and I like their food but their recipes never work for me. Definitely not. There's definitely like they're in a restaurant for a reason and they're not working at a food magazine. Right. Yeah. So I keep waiting for the next really exciting book to come out. What do you love that's come out recently?

48:29Super biased. I mean, I thought Anna Heasel's Tin Fish Cookbook, My Old Colleague, was one of my favorite of the season. Like for a small format book, she really like nails this moment of tin fish with both recipes that are creative and inventive, but also really like dialing in what to buy and doing it in a way that she thinks like an editor because she is one. And I just love books from editors. Hedy McKinnon's new book, beautiful. It's a large format and it tells her story. It also has called Tender Greens and it has a real flow to it that I get excited about. Like it's not repetitive. It has story and recipes.

49:05So those are a couple. We publish a lot of books here too. So I'm always biased. I mean, I still think Eric Kim's book is one of my favorite the last couple of years. Right. Korean-American. Yeah, it's a wonderful book. Terrific book. Yeah. Let's talk about the documentary worked on Food and Country. It debuted at South by Southwest earlier this year. So what's the big idea happening here? And we will probably see it soon, I hope. I hope so. I mean, right now I'm on the festival circuit. Yeah. I was in Toronto last week. I'm going to Seattle this week. That's fun. We're opening the Berkshire Film Festival at the end of the month, Nantucket.

49:43I mean, we're really traveling around with it. What happened – how this came about was I was in L.A. in March of – is it 2020 when COVID started? And one day my husband and I just looked at each other and said, if we don't get out of here, we may be stuck here forever. They're going to close the airports. So on March 12th, we just literally went to the airport and came home. And I said, OK, before we go into quarantine, I'm going to do one giant shopping. I'm going to go to the supermarket. And, you know, we live up in the Hudson Valley. And I went to the supermarket and the shelves were empty.

50:23I mean, there was nothing. It was – I'd never seen it before. And I came home and said to Michael, you know, I think this may be the moment I've been waiting for my whole life. This is the moment where Americans suddenly understand that food matters. And we've been taking it for granted forever. There's always been enough. Nobody's ever seen empty shelves before. and with restaurants closing, I don't know how it's going to be at the end. Are the farmers going to go out of business? I mean, what about the fishermen? I mean, most of the fish in this country isn't sold to consumers. It's sold to restaurants.

51:05Are the fishermen going to survive? And I just thought, you know, I said to them, I have no idea what will be. I mean, maybe this will be the triumph of farming and everybody will be cooking with their kids and realize cooking is important. Or maybe the other thing will happen and it will be the triumph of industrial food. Soylent for everybody. Exactly. But I feel like I should keep a record of it. And so I just started – I got a Zoom account. As we all did. And I started calling farmers, fishermen, policy people, chefs. and I thought, I don't quite know where this is going, but I really want a record.

51:53And then my friend Lori Ochoa, who was married to Jonathan Gold, said, you know, Laura Gabbert, who did the movie City of Gold about Jonathan, she's working on a movie about restaurants, and L.A. restaurants and how they're going to get through this. And I called Laura and said, you know, I think you need to think bigger. And I think this is not an L.A. story. This is a national story. And so she said, you know, do you want to hook up together and you want to do this together? And I was very fortunate because both she and our producer put their own money into it to start shooting immediately. And I said, you know, God, we should have started a month ago.

52:37And she said, that's what – it's always the case with documentaries. You're always too late. Of course, at that time, we had no idea that this was going to be years. Yeah, years, yeah. And changing forever in many ways. Yes. And so, I mean, the idea was that we would identify six great stories and make the film about the six great stories. But I really did not make it easy for her because I literally Zoomed all day every day for two years. Wow. That's hundreds of hours. Hundreds of hours and policy people and one person would lead me to another and I went down all these different rabbit holes.

53:18But there were a bunch of people who I talked to on a regular basis. And in the end, we're pretty much letting the farmers, the ranchers, the fishermen tell their own stories. And it was amazing because when we premiered at Sundance, I had not met most of these people because every time we were supposed to go get on a plane and go shoot in person. A new variant would roll in, yeah. Laura found crews, local crews who went and shot people. But I fell in love with people and these people I'd never met, but you become very close with them if you talk to them every couple of weeks for two years. And people cried on camera.

54:10So I talked to 11 chefs and a bunch of farmers and in the end a few chefs in it. But we really all felt that the farmer's story doesn't get told. No. And I came out of this with such respect for farmers and such a sense that if we don't help them, we will not grow food in this country. I mean, we make farming so difficult. Is the we the government? Is the we the consumer? The we is the government. Yeah, exactly. It's a story about the government. The farm bill, I'm sure, enters the equation. Yeah. I mean, for me, the big takeaway is for years I have been saying to people, the great thing about food is if you don't like it, you can change it, right?

55:00You vote with your dollars. And what I learned when I really got down into the economics of farming is the only way we change it is we elect people who will change it. Yeah. Because it is government policy that makes life so difficult for farmers. And it's why we do not grow food in this country. We grow commodities. Yeah, we grow fuel. Yeah. We will write about it in our newsletter when it is – just follow you on social media and you'll let people know. I will definitely let people know. Yes. Ruth, we asked all guests on Today's podcast if you could write a cookbook or food culture book without the burden of time, meaning you have no deadline, or the burden of budget, meaning you have all the money in the world to execute this book.

55:42I've always wanted to ask you this. what would that book be? Well, you know, I think the thing that really identifies the best food people is that they're obsessive. So they're a little bit crazy. A little bit nutty. It's a certain type. I would like to go around the world finding the most obsessive people and telling their stories. Beautiful. So it's like a people study. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, all the best, I mean, all the best interviews I've ever done are these people who are completely obsessed with what they do and a little bit crazy, but we're better off for their craziness. Love that you end it with a way it's an optimistic reading.

56:21Make this happen, please. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, Ruth Roichel. It's been a real honor and pleasure to talk to you and definitely subscribe to your newsletter. You just write like every day. It's like it's always there. I'm really having fun with the newsletter. I love it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

56:44Matt, this is Taste. How does it feel? How does it feel to have a new name and same great taste? New name, same great taste. How long were you waiting to say that? I've been like sitting on that for a couple months now, maybe longer. It was good. I liked it. I appreciate you endorsing. We've been talking about changing the name. The goal was to take podcasts out of the name. Yeah, which is, I think, a good goal in 2023. Right. It's a little dated. It's like back in the day when we were like, we have blogs. Remember like the blog of Bon Appetit was like you worked at the blog of Blink. It felt like calling it the Taste Podcast felt like it was already we know what the format is.

57:23And we thought there was a cooler name, a better name. We wanted to obviously have Taste. So this is Taste. I think it's a good name because this is Taste. And it's one of the things that Taste does. The word Taste has really been kind of fun to play with. I certainly didn't come up with it. I inherited it when I started the site and the publication in 2016. And I didn't know what to think because it was pretty broad. But ultimately, we've really like we've lived with it for a while. And I think it means more than just like literally what your tongue is saying to you. Right. The taste of food.

57:56Right. I mean, the other obvious one is your personal taste. Exactly. Right. And I think that when we've been talking about other names for the podcast, there was this idea of in good taste, things like that. But I think it's limiting to have a certain descriptor, right? We talk about all kinds of things on the podcast that are related to things that you're literally tasting and also maybe the personal tastes that our guests have as well. Absolutely. And we're going to start to craft those conversations towards getting into like our guests' tastes and like their wheelhouse and maybe items and ideas that might surprise us as hosts and as you as listeners.

58:31Yeah. I want to ask you what your personal taste is. Do you think there's a certain thing that like really is the Matt Rodbard personal taste? I mean, it's I love that because you've been asking people that question, like, what is your personal taste and what is something you're a tastemaker for? And like we've had a variety of answers. Some people have been like running out of the studio screaming like I can't do that because it makes you sound like kind of a douche. Like I'm a tastemaker. Yeah. And also I think people can get self-reflective in a weird way. That's like, what is the one thing that identifies me?

59:00Right. We're all more than the things that we like to eat and drink. Yeah. But I still want to ask you. No, and what I would say is, I mean, with food at the center of my career, your career, in some ways, I'm speaking for myself, though, like restaurant recommendations or cookbook recommendations or like that has always been like the wheelhouse of go to. But like I feel like I have taste in other areas. I mean, for me, I mean, I watch a shitload of television. when I like a show I feel like others can roll with me I sound like such a douche saying that out loud TV is not really a great thing to talk about on a podcast I feel I mean there's a whole genre of podcast that's just talking about TV truly and like The Watch it's a great show those guys are experts it's hard to talk about television on this kind of format I don't know what about you what is your one category I know there's many.

1:00:00I think my music taste is something that I really love and I love to share with people. My friend Tanya that I do cake zine with, when she started doing production in the restaurant all the time, I made her like a six hour playlist to listen to in the morning because I knew that she needed help getting up. Like that's my love language. But the other thing that I was thinking of is I made a just an on the fly cocktail for people, which was HealthAid Mint Limeade Kombucha and Mezcal with tahini, which I do think is a good thing. Yeah, that's my personal taste. A rim of tahini. Yeah. And it was like a kombucha mezcal drink.

1:00:34I feel like if you know me, that's a very like Eliza taste thing. I love it. Yeah. Because like we definitely have our foods that we lean into that we love like expressing ourselves with. And I love that you're like wellness mezcal tahini. Yeah. The nightlife wellness combination is especially when I was editing the publication Healthy as Siobhan Appetit back in the day. That was kind of like the inside joke with my friends was like the nightlife wellness overlap. That's really funny. But I do think Playlist, you're great. Like you've shared some of your music with me and I've really enjoyed listening to it.

1:01:07It's a real cool, cool thing of your, you know. Yeah, you too. I feel like whenever you send me an NTS set, I get really excited. And if you subscribe to the Taste newsletter, sometimes we sneak radio shows or songs we really like in there too. Absolutely. So bottom line is This Is Taste. It's the new name. Same, we have a lot of interviews that we have planned. I cannot wait for the next 100 episodes. Thank you all out there. Our numbers, we've been growing so fast. Like, it's amazing to look at the charts and look at our every month, the number. It looks like a great chart. It looks like stocks.

1:01:40Oh, my God, the stocks are up. It looks like that. Yeah, I don't even know what that looks like. So I think we'll take it. I mean, I'm kind of kidding. But it means that you out there are connecting with us and listening time after time. And we really, really appreciate that. Yeah. And we're excited to be doing more.

1:02:02This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumber. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.