Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A chef who turned a small Cornish restaurant into a temple of fish cookery, becoming a TV celebrity and bestselling cookbook author.
On the island
Eight records
May Day means just everything to me. I mean, it's it's just so lovely that that I live in this place where they have this festival that that counts for everything.
I mean, I did have a very secure childhood and I mean it actually reminds me of my sister Janie who died about ten years ago. But it it's just when you've got sort of records like that in the back of your memory, nothing can go wrong really in your life.
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Well, I mean this comes from that period of traveling around the world. I mean I was on my own a lot of the time because I decided to do it on my own, which was probably a mistake because you get so lonely.
Well this is I love Van Morrison. ... And I d this is this is a celebration of of mundane things and but it just gives it such a sort of aura of nostalgia that I just love it.
Four Cornish Dances, Op. 91: III. Vivace
Malcolm Arnold ... lived just outside Padstow in the early seventies and uh I was really friendly with him at the time and it was just great funny
actually for my wife Jill because uh it just reminds me of uh when I met her when I was twenty one and just come back from Australia on that mammoth trip.
Well, um I love this. I mean any record that has a a couple of lines i in it saying um two degrees in bebop, a PhD in swing, he's a master of rhythm, he's a rock and roll king, it's got to be worth it.
Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major, K. 299: I. AllegroFavourite
Werner Tripp, Hubert Jelinek & Vienna Philharmonic
It has to me all the sort of Mozart themes, that slight sort of resignedness to the sadness of life, but done in a very light way. And it's not his greatest piece, but who cares? It works for me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:32What is it that you've got [as a cook] that we haven't?
I think it's enjoying giving pleasure to other people. Um um it's sort of living vicariously. And the way I cook, I'm always thinking, would they like that? and putting myself in their position.
Presenter asks
6:21What happened in the end [with the disco club in Padstow]?
Well, we got closed down by the police. ... We were devastated. I mean I was held to be not an f a fit and proper person to hold a license. ... But in retrospect, it was just the best thing that happened could have happened to me.
Presenter asks
10:56Did you see [your father's suicide] coming? Was it a terrible shock?
I mean it was a it was quite a shock to me'cause I I mean I knew he had these sort of mood swings, but I mean at that age I didn't really know the full implications of it. I mean the the way I reacted was to almost pretend it hadn't happened, you know, that it hadn't affected me. And the and the initial s uh way I dealt with this was just run away, was to go to the other side of the world.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
Well, Anna Karenina, um, it's just I just think it's the best book in the world. I mean, it just because all her life's in it. And um and I mean, Tolstoy was just s so human, you know, and in every way. I know he had his faults, but I mean, not not in the books. They're just all encompassing. And I just think it's a greater book than War and Peace.
The luxury
Well, it's Thai fish sauce because seeing as I would be catching a lot of fish, it's made by fermenting anchovies with salt and then using the liquid that drains off as a flavouring agent. And it just lifts fish. If you had a bit of citrus fruit on the island as well, and maybe the odd chili, well, I'd be certainly happy eating my fish.
Presenter asks
14:47Did you feel that you had something to prove [by going to Oxford]?
Yes, I did feel, but it didn't really work very well. I mean, I think looking back on it, I just think it still was a bit not for me looking back on it. ... I was, what, 23, I think, at the time, and I finally got there. So I was a bit of an outsider then, anyway. But I really enjoyed the course.
Presenter asks
17:58Did you think during that time about moving up country [to London or Oxford]?
Well yes, I mean funnily enough that the Bob Dylan track that on earlier, I remember thinking, is this really the end to be stuck inside of Padstow with the August blues again? There's this sort of slightly frustrating feeling we weren't getting anywhere and I was. I was thinking of upping sticks and going to maybe Oxford or maybe London where I mean what you're looking for is p inform people that know about food.
“I do now think that cooks are born, not made. Really good cooks.”
“I went into cooking to sort of like as my sort of salvation in a way.”
“it's a bad thing having a father that commits suicide because ... the chief emotion apart from sort of shock is sort of embarrassment really.”