I wanted to ask about
the influences for your food and whether
those come from your family or do they
come from a wider culture?
I think as I see it, my starting point
has always been the way I was
brought up in Israel, in Jerusalem. And
I've had - my parents are from a
European background, my dad's Italian and
my mom's from Germany and we've had that
kind of European, both Northern European
and southern European food so I was
lucky enough to be exposed to that world
but then obviously we're in the heart of
the Middle East so you had a lot of
Palestinian and Arab food all around. So
those are kind of the building
blocks of my palette that's how I think,
that's how I eat, that's how I design
dishes. But over the years I've kind of
strayed further afield and have been
visiting both physically and kind of
vicariously in South East Asia and North
Africa. I mentioned areas like
like Eastern Europe, the Balkans. So
I've kind of started to borrow from
other parts of the world, I've traveled
to Malaysia a few years ago and I was
kind of mesmerized by the diversity and
interest in the food. There's just so
much going on and it's also a kind of a
cross-cultural country so
it's got Malay, you've got
Indian, you've got Chinese. And I think
whenever cultures meet you get the most
incredible foods. So this is why I don't
like to restrict myself. I like to kind
of meet other cultures and try their food
and you know nick some ideas while I'm at it!
As you say, it's a conversation that can
happen between cultures isn't it, food, you can
swap ideas. Yeah absolutely, I mean I
think food is not static, it's never been
static, it's always been about exchange
you know from spice trades and people who travelled
to modern ways of exchanging
the ways of exchanging culinary
knowledge like books, or TV,
or social media. So it's always been
about exchange, it's never been a one thing.
You mentioned there about
recipes that are sort of child-friendly;
you have a family yourself now. I
want to have an idea of - what is
dinnertime really like in the
Ottolenghi household? Because of course
you know I've seen your very polished
restaurants and books but what's it
actually like at home? Yeah it's not
very polished!
My kids are, Max is 5 and Flynn is 3
So, I would say that they
occupy somewhere in the middle
of the range in terms of flexibility and
and bearing eating and palates. They're
good with certain vegetables but they
wouldn't touch a raw tomato, they just
find it too acidic for some reason.
They leave any tomato sauce.
That's just got one example. They would
never touch leaves or you know
things that they feel like they've got tons
of herbs in them (imagine in my home!)
And so it becomes a bit like oh I
want this/I want that, which I'm trying
to, we're both trying, my husband and I,
Karl and I, are trying to put a limit on.
But it's never as easy as that so yeah
it's a long conversation that I
don't want to have about what
they're gonna eat but I find myself
engaged in it more and more. So it's a
bit of a mayhem. But I have to say that I
find with children, young children, if
you are going to try to force them or
convince them to eat something they
don't want to eat, you are normally gonna
be on the losing side. Because they're
just more strong-willed, they really are.
So I just put the food out there, I find
them being adventurous one day and not
very adventurous the next day and I just
kind of try to just go with the flow
if I can. Although I have to say it's
really frustrating sometimes because
you've cooked something, spent a lot of
time making it look and taste good and then they go... I'm not hungry today.
Which makes you want to tear your hair out
Exactly. I mean do you eat with them
do you eat together as a family or do you
sort of save yourself to eat later.
It depends. On the weekend we eat together, on
weekdays they eat early and we tend to
often skip dinner because it's like
I eat all day long. I really, I
start my my tastings at 11 o'clock in
the morning and by 5:00 I'm just like I
don't know if I'm hungry or not, I don't know
anything, I'm kind of delirious on food!
So I tend to come home and sit with them,
they have their dinner and then I go and
around 8:00 or 9:00 I might have a glass
of wine, a piece of cheese or you know
get something, but just a nibble and then
I would kind of just save myself for the
next day.
Well there is plenty for me to get my
teeth into with Simple, I'm gonna go and
invest in some rose harissa right now.
Right, rose harissa's what you want in your cupboard.
Exactly, it is my new pantry
ingredient, thank you so much for talking
to us about it. Thank you, Will.