Food Stories episode 9 - London part 1
Food Stories episode 9 - London part 1
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00:00I've been a chef for over 50 years and I've come to realise that the food we eat tells
00:08a story about who we are.
00:13So I'm on a mission to find out what we all like to eat today.
00:17Oh, that is good.
00:19From our traditional dishes.
00:21Long live the Yorkshire pudding.
00:23To those we've made our own.
00:25I mean, that is multi-faceted Britain on one page.
00:28Our meat producers.
00:29There you see a robot, he's picking them.
00:32I find a lot of craft beers too hoppy.
00:34I don't know why, but it tastes alright.
00:38Some of our best chefs.
00:40We're picking scurvy grass.
00:42Why pick it?
00:43It's pretty punchy.
00:44Plus those keeping traditions alive.
00:46We've just got to finish.
00:48I have no hope.
00:49I'll see how food brings us together.
00:52Dig in!
00:53Lovely, that sort of hot garlic, fabuloso.
00:58And from my home in Padstow, I'll bring you great dishes of my own.
01:02I love stuff like this.
01:04So join me as I unearth the stories behind the food we all love to eat today.
01:18London, surely the greatest city on the planet.
01:24It's where I started out as a chef and it still excites me every time I come here.
01:31I love London.
01:32I remember when I was young, living in Cornwall, my mother had this plaque halfway up the stairs,
01:38Samuel Johnson, when a man is tired of London, he's tired of life.
01:43The writer Paul Theroux later added that a person tired of London is not necessarily
01:49tired of life.
01:51It might be that he just can't find a parking space.
01:57Which is why I've engaged a good old Hackney carriage to take me on my food odyssey around
02:02the capital.
02:06I think the great thing about London is the sort of areas that are different.
02:10I mean, Chiswick has its charm, then you go to Islington and it's a different place altogether.
02:16It's one big city but it's got these sort of almost like villages that have their own
02:21special feel about them.
02:23And also so full of great food.
02:27London is driving the British food scene of today.
02:31There's one nationality that has had the biggest impact on what us Brits put on our plates.
02:39The Chinese.
02:44Sat right in the heart of the capital in Soho is Chinatown, dedicated to a community who've
02:50been here for generations.
02:56It's where I fell in love with Chinese food.
03:01I first came here about 1972 because a friend of mine had said, you need to go to Chinatown,
03:07you need to find a restaurant, any restaurant in Gerrard Street, and find the worst looking
03:12dish on the menu.
03:13Oh great, it's still there.
03:17Steamed eel with black bean sauce.
03:20So I chose steamed eel with black bean sauce because it sounded terrible.
03:24It was delicious.
03:27It was a revelation to me because up to that point, my knowledge of Chinese food was my
03:32parents taking me out for things like chop suey, very anglicised versions of Chinese
03:37food.
03:38So this was the real deal.
03:43Since then, Chinese food has become a much-loved part of the British food landscape, with thousands
03:51of restaurants and takeaways all over the country.
03:59I've been invited behind the scenes at a legendary Chinatown restaurant, the New Loon Fung, famous
04:06for a particular style of Cantonese dish, dim sum.
04:23What dim sum means is touching the heart in Chinese.
04:27It's that whole idea of very small portions of something exquisite.
04:33There are over 2,000 dim sum recipes, with an endless variety of shapes and sizes.
04:43With fillings from water chestnuts to chicken, pork to pak choy, I can't believe how much
04:55work goes into every mouthful.
05:00Even preparing a dumpling dough is an art in itself.
05:05A mix of wheat starch, potato starch and boiling water.
05:09It has to be spread paper-thin before the filling's added.
05:15In this case, prawn and bamboo shoots.
05:23Then they're ready for steaming.
05:32I suspect that all those multi-course menus in sort of Michelin three-starred restaurants
05:37have quite a lot to owe to the dim sum which touches the heart.
05:44The British-Chinese food story didn't start in Soho.
05:50It began in London's East End when Chinese sailors arrived on the ships of the East India
05:57Company in the late 1800s.
06:00They settled around the docks of Limehouse and opened up their first food joints.
06:09But when the bombs of World War II flattened the area, they found a new home in Soho.
06:18And over the years, tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants arrived, many from Hong
06:24Kong, hoping to seek their fortunes.
06:29One such man was Shun Bun Lee, who came here in 1975, having trained as a dim sum chef.
06:38He now runs the new Lun Feng and won the prestigious Observer Food Lifetime Achievement Award.
06:46I'm joining him and his son, Sonny, for lunch.
06:51Yeah, yeah, I think so.
07:06They're so... They're exquisite.
07:10The dumpling paste is really... You can almost see through it.
07:15Lovely, lovely prawn flavour.
07:17Just tell me how proud you were to get the Observer Award.
07:21Ah, I'm so happy because I've been working hard for over 48 years.
07:29Yeah, I'm the same. I can't give up restaurants.
07:32I also enjoy my job.
07:34And then to continue to keep the traditional Hong Kong cuisine, Hong Kong-style dim sum
07:42culture, keep it going.
07:44Yeah, I don't want it disappear.
07:47So what do we go for next?
07:50It is prawn and pork dumpling.
07:53Open dumpling.
08:02It's so lovely.
08:04I mean, I just wonder if you could tell me how much influence you think Chinese cuisine
08:09generally has had in the UK over the years.
08:11Every Sunday, most Chinese people leave their family, their children, their grandchildren
08:20to join the lunchtime for the dim sum, so they can connect each family together.
08:31You understand? It's a...
08:33It's very attractive.
08:35So I'm sure that's why a lot of English people have sort of bought into it.
08:39Some families even have a Friday Chinese as their staple meal,
08:45just as much as fish and chips or your curry.
08:48In the family, as soon as there's food on the table, everything's OK, right?
08:53I think you've hit on something there, though, that actually when you're eating
08:57like all these people are communally, you're happy, you're at peace, you're enjoying things.
09:03And other people will look at this and say,
09:06I want some of that, I want some of that food.
09:09It makes you happy.
09:14Chinatown really is my happy place.
09:19And one thing I love to do is have a poke around an old favourite,
09:24the Si Wu supermarket.
09:29I love places like this. I mean, first thing I notice is durian.
09:33You know, apparently you can't take a durian on a plane because of its smell.
09:37I actually rather like the smell, but it is very, very heavily scented.
09:42Here we've got a couple of onion family chives.
09:48They're really nice in stir-fry. They're very garlicky.
09:51In fact, those are called hotbed chives.
09:53What's really good now in these sort of markets, these supermarkets,
09:57is that things are labelled.
09:59When I used to come here in the sort of 70s, 80s,
10:02I didn't know what anything was.
10:04So I just bought it, took it home and tried it.
10:07Sometimes it was nice, sometimes it wasn't.
10:09Let's have a look. Oh, yes.
10:11You should be able to get these easy.
10:13They're a type of radish called mooli,
10:15which you often get with sushi or sashimi,
10:18very thinly cut into long strands.
10:21A special machine you need to do it.
10:23But you wouldn't get that in a supermarket either.
10:26So I do buy the odd one like that. Lovely.
10:29And there's some horseradish.
10:31I mean, you know, that's a horseradish.
10:35Fabulous.
10:37What we find next.
10:39The meat counter is also an eye-opener,
10:42and not for the faint-hearted.
10:48On this trip down memory lane, there's one thing on my mind.
10:54A Chinese classic,
10:56and one of the top ten dishes ordered by our spritz.
11:00Beef chow mein.
11:05I've sort of done quite a lot of research into chow mein.
11:08It's one of those dishes, I think,
11:10that has been slightly sort of messed about with
11:13over the generations and over the countries.
11:15So I've gone back to the original Cantonese dish
11:19with a very special piece of steak.
11:22This is sirloin steak.
11:23So I'm just going to put that in the bowl.
11:27Next, sprinkle in cornflour
11:30and add oyster sauce and white pepper.
11:35Just stir that in so that the beef is all nicely coated.
11:39Grate garlic and ginger together.
11:42Then prep your veg.
11:44Spring onions and shiitake mushrooms.
11:49Very important when you're doing a stir-fry,
11:51just make sure everything's chopped and ready to go,
11:54and then you can just whoosh through the stir-fry.
11:57I'm a great joy.
11:58Time to fire up my trusty wok,
12:00and I'm going to start by stir-frying the noodles.
12:07You have to cook them on a high heat to get them crisp,
12:10but you have to notice when they're starting to burn
12:13and get them off.
12:14It's really the most important thing, I think.
12:16Chow mein actually means fried noodles.
12:21When they're done, put them to one side
12:25and get that beef sizzling again on a high heat.
12:31When it's cooked through, you can throw in everything else.
12:37First of all, the garlic and ginger.
12:43Lovely smell, that.
12:46Then add mushrooms, beansprouts and the Manchu peas.
12:53That's looking very nice, so in go the spring onions.
12:56I always leave them to last so there's a good crunch to them
12:59in the final dish.
13:01It's looking rather lovely.
13:04Now for the sauce, a classic Chinese combo.
13:07Water, sugar, white pepper, soy and oyster sauce.
13:13There's a lot of liquid in there,
13:15but I'm going to make sure that it reduces down
13:17because it's much more satisfying
13:19than if it's a bit on the thin side.
13:28Well, now, a big dish of beef chow mein.
13:31Memories of the 70s.
13:34Really lovely contrast between the beef
13:37and the softness of the stir-fry veg
13:40and the crispness of the noodles.
13:43Very nice. Quite nostalgic for me, really.
13:49Chinese cuisine isn't the only food to capture the hearts of us Brits.
13:56The Italians have had a huge influence on what we eat,
13:59with their food being voted the most popular on the planet.
14:03And here in West London, there's a new dairy in town.
14:09Bringing the true taste of Italy to our doorstep.
14:18Making one of my favourite cheeses, mozzarella.
14:24La Latteria is the brainchild of owner Simona Di Vietri.
14:30She ditched a successful career in investment banking
14:34and now supplies some of London's top restaurants
14:37with freshly made cheese.
14:41How come you make such good mozzarella in the UK and not Italy?
14:46Well, the answer is very simple,
14:48because what makes a good product is not the place where you do it,
14:53it's the people who make it.
14:55Mozzarella is usually made with the milk from Italian buffalos.
15:01But Simona gets her supply from the British dairy herds
15:05of the West Country.
15:08Most of the year, animals in this country are on grass, on pasture,
15:12and that has a huge impact on the colony,
15:15on the quality of the milk,
15:17on the quality of the cheese.
15:19Most of the year, animals in this country are on grass, on pasture,
15:23and that has a huge impact on the colour of the milk,
15:26the quality, the taste, the flavour, the consistency.
15:30Well, I was just looking at the cheese there.
15:32It's quite yellow.
15:33Yellow, yes.
15:34I once complained to a farmer,
15:36was he putting yellow dye in his milk?
15:39Because the cream was so yellow.
15:41You know, when I came here and look at the milk,
15:43I'm like, eh, the mozzarella yellow.
15:45I'm like, sure, we put some white in there.
15:48There's nothing we can do, it's the colour of the milk here,
15:51and it's just a consequence of the cow eating grass.
15:57Simona has brought in skilled Italian cheesemakers.
16:03First, a collection of enzymes called rennet is added,
16:07kick-starting a chemical reaction
16:09which makes the milk thicken into curds.
16:13Just half an hour later,
16:15it's ready to be broken up with a giant whisk.
16:23The solidified chunks are separated from the liquid whey
16:27and you're left with these huge slabs of curd,
16:31or cagliata, which sounds far more poetic.
16:36Come, Rick, come try some freshly made curd.
16:44That's gloriously tough, isn't it?
16:46It is.
16:47It tastes really fresh.
16:48It is, and you can see, look, breaks.
16:51So there is really not much you can do with this.
16:53No.
16:54And then eventually, once it gets to the second stage
16:56with the cheesemaker, when they go through the cooking process,
16:59it will transform completely.
17:01The cooking stage is where the mozzarella magic happens.
17:06So it pours the boiling water into the curd.
17:09Right.
17:10And now, slowly but surely, it will start cooking.
17:13And it will go through this process a few times
17:15until when the consistency of the curd,
17:17like a paste that you can stretch, or stretched curd.
17:21In order to stretch, you need to cook it,
17:23which is what we're going to do now.
17:25We're going to cook it for a few minutes,
17:27Remember, that's boiling water.
17:28So as you can see, it keeps putting hands in cold water.
17:31It's cold water.
17:32I was just watching it and thinking,
17:33but of course it's got its hands in the cold water.
17:35I mean, they're used to it.
17:36So I wouldn't be able to do it.
17:38But you can already see the consistency.
17:40Slowly.
17:41It's starting to melt down.
17:43It's starting to go into long strands.
17:45Exactly.
17:46Now it drains the first water.
17:48Now we just have to wait for it to cool down.
17:50And then we're going to take it out.
17:52And then we're going to take it out.
17:54Now it drains the first water.
17:56Now we repeat the process again.
17:58And it will continue the cooking.
18:00It's very labour-intensive, isn't it?
18:02It is very labour-intensive.
18:03It's up to the cheese-maker expertise.
18:06To judge.
18:07To judge.
18:08When it's ready.
18:11In just a few minutes,
18:13the melted mass is ready to be turned into the finished product.
18:20Now we're starting to shape it.
18:24So this is the classic ball.
18:27So that's a mozzarella.
18:29That's how it's done.
18:30That's how it's done.
18:31Wow.
18:32That's how it's done.
18:33So what does the word mozzarella mean?
18:35So mozzarella comes from mozzare,
18:37which in Italian means tagliare.
18:39Mozza.
18:40Chop.
18:41You can see when he does the ball,
18:43he feels it.
18:44And then once the ball is ready,
18:46the last bits, when he chops it off,
18:48there.
18:49It's mozza.
18:50That's a mozza.
18:51That's a mozza.
18:52That's why it's called mozzarella.
18:54Great.
18:56I can tell you're very enthusiastic about it.
18:59I'm very passionate about it, yes.
19:01Why did you do it?
19:02I mean, you had a perfectly good job.
19:04I did.
19:05My mum asks me the same question all the time.
19:08I've been living in this country since 2000.
19:11So when I moved here,
19:13I couldn't find a product which was part of my childhood.
19:18I grew up with it.
19:19I grew up with my grandmum sending me to the shop
19:22where you have this guy making the mozzarella
19:24and then the guy will pick it up and give it to you warm.
19:26And I'm like, I want my kids to kind of have the same,
19:30to be able to enjoy and experience.
19:33Well, this is the freshest mozzarella I've ever seen.
19:39You go first.
19:40Cheers, Simone, thanks.
19:41I'll try it too.
19:42It's got a very lovely, fresh flavour.
19:46And the texture, you can see, it's quite rubbery.
19:50That's a signal that it's fresh.
19:52Well, thank you very much indeed.
19:53Thank you, thank you so much.
20:05I'm braving the British West
20:07to try the most expensive mozzarella
20:10I'm braving the British weather
20:12to make an al fresco salad of mozzarella and roasted peach
20:17with grilled chia batter.
20:20A taste of sunshine, even if there isn't any.
20:25Well, there's no accounting for the vagaries of the British summer,
20:29but hey-ho, I really wanted to do this outdoor salad
20:32celebrating that gorgeous mozzarella.
20:36Brush the peaches with olive oil
20:38to stop them sticking to the grill.
20:42I do think fruit in savoury salads are really good.
20:45Obviously, the star's going to be the mozzarella,
20:48but I want some nice sweet notes as well.
20:52Slice up your chia batter.
20:56I mean, the idea for this salad actually came from Australia.
20:59I just love that in Australia they have these big salads
21:02with lots of fruit.
21:03It's just a nice way of having an al fresco lunch.
21:07I think the reason I love outdoor cooking with a barbecue,
21:10it's just the thought of everything tasting a bit grilled,
21:13a bit smoky.
21:14Once the bread is lightly charred, rub with garlic
21:18and brush with olive oil.
21:22So, now, just the assembly.
21:26And on top of that, I'm going to put some of my salad,
21:29which is a mixture of pea shoots and rocket.
21:32Now the most important element, the mozzarella.
21:37I hoped Simona would approve of this recipe.
21:40I'm leaving her wonderful cheese untouched
21:43so its flavour can sing out.
21:46Now I think we go for the peaches.
21:51A few tomatoes.
21:55Prosciutto.
21:57Prosciutto.
21:58This is actually Serrano ham.
22:01Same difference, but Spanish.
22:07A few sprigs of thyme, a drizzle of olive oil
22:11and, of course, some basil.
22:15You gave me four ingredients, you know, last supper stuff.
22:19I'd go cherry tomatoes, basil, olive oil, mozzarella.
22:26So there we have it.
22:30Sometimes in food, as in life,
22:32it's the simple things that give the most pleasure.
22:36This Italian-inspired salad with home-grown mozzarella
22:40is definitely one of them.
22:46British food has been influenced so much by those who have settled here,
22:51but there's one dish that I reckon we can call our own.
22:57MUSIC PLAYS
23:02It is, of course, a meal eaten all over the land
23:06that starts the day like no other.
23:11The full English.
23:14Here we are, gentlemen.
23:16Two lovely classic breakfasts with crispy fried bread, my favourite.
23:20And we're going to have some bubble and squeak
23:22and black pudding and hash browns and all the rest on the side.
23:25Oh, my God, thank you.
23:28Radio DJ and travel writer Stuart McCurney
23:32has written all about this important British tradition.
23:37Well, this looks a bit special, Stuart, I must say.
23:39Yeah, classic.
23:41I don't think I've ever experienced a bigger breakfast.
23:44This is about as big as one can humanly enjoy, I think, isn't it?
23:47I guess so, but I imagine if you'd had quite a lot of beers the night before,
23:51maybe it would be a massive soak-up of alcohol.
23:54Well, one of the reasons I love full English breakfast
23:58is that no-one in the history of the world, with a hangover,
24:01has ever, with their head in their hands,
24:03said, oh, I could murder a continental breakfast, you know?
24:06I mean...
24:08I think it is quite a celebration, isn't it, really?
24:11A Britishness. Absolutely, yeah.
24:13And I do love the fact that, you know, English is in the word,
24:16full English breakfast, but there are national variations too, aren't there?
24:19And the Ulster Fry, which has white pudding instead of black pudding.
24:23Yeah. I hesitate to think why.
24:26I never want to dwell... What is it?
24:28Two things you should never see being made?
24:30Laws and sausages. Ha!
24:32And my particular favourite, I have to say, is the Scottish breakfast,
24:36where you've got a tatty scone, the lawn sausage.
24:39I love those. Bit of haggis occasionally.
24:41Bit of haggis in there.
24:42I mean, you can feel your arteries furrowing just by looking at it.
24:45Well, a little of what you fancy, you know?
24:47I mean, you know, once in a while...
24:49All things in moderation, including moderation, is my watchword.
24:54And I love how different waves of immigration to this country,
24:58from Turkish people, Italian people, Iranian people,
25:02work their own riff on this quintessentially English dish,
25:05so I've had a Turkish English breakfast,
25:07which has spicy sucuk sausage instead of the old Gloucester Old Spot or whatever.
25:12I once did some filming with a Japanese ambassador to Britain
25:16and he really liked going out at the weekends
25:19and having things like English breakfast, fish and chips,
25:22and he sort of saw it as being a celebration of Britishness.
25:26It was what we do here.
25:30And it's what we've been cooking up since the hunt breakfasts of the 1500s,
25:36where they served a spread of dishes like broiled kidneys,
25:40stewed figs and sheep's tongue.
25:44Since then, the concept has remained the same,
25:47but the components continue to evolve.
25:52There are divisive elements here.
25:54Now we're getting on to dangerous ground. OK, what's divisive here?
25:57Well, there's a hash brown here. Yeah.
25:59I'm not sure that that's not an American incursion
26:02into the full English breakfast.
26:04Well, what about your baked beans, then?
26:06Happy with the baked bean, but, see, now, these fellas here,
26:09now, these... Tomato?
26:11Now, cut like this, yes,
26:13because they're slightly blackened, slightly charred, perfect,
26:16but too often the tomato in a full English breakfast
26:19is essentially a bag of boiling hot water
26:22that clings to the roof of your mouth
26:24and prevents you from speaking for the rest of the day.
26:26And I once was in a B&B... Yeah.
26:28..where they said, we haven't got any mushrooms. Yeah.
26:31And I said, well, they said, can we provide you with something else?
26:34And I said, yes. And they said, what about quavers?
26:37I love it, you love it, but it sort of flies in the face
26:40of what people are eating these days much more healthily.
26:43I mean, why do you think it has lasted the test of time, I suppose?
26:48It's a classic comfort food.
26:50And I think people are beginning to realise that, well, as I say,
26:53life's meant to be enjoyed, not endured, you know? Yeah.
26:56You can't beat this as a start to the day.
26:59This remains a cornerstone of English cooking, I think.
27:02It will never leave us.
27:03Also, it's like the ravens in the Tower of London and things like that.
27:07The full English has to remain, I think,
27:09otherwise we'll slide into the sea.
27:11Albion will be no more.
27:13I think that's right, but I actually think that's how important food is
27:17to all of us, you know? Oh, my gosh, yeah.
27:19It's memory, it's home, it's family, it's friends,
27:22it's all those things. It's more than just sustenance.
27:25When people say, oh, food's just fuel to me,
27:27I always think, what a dreary way to live, you know?
27:30Cheers. Cheers.
27:33And what better way to cheers than a cup of tea?
27:40I'm in complete agreement with Stuart.
27:43When it comes to identifying Britain on a plate,
27:46it's hard to argue against the full fry-up.
27:50It definitely wears the crown.
27:53Long may it reign.
27:58If you'd like to see more episodes of Rick Stein's Food Stories,
28:02press the red button now to watch on BBC iPlayer.
28:08Next time, I'm continuing my food tour of the capital.
28:12So good. No wonder it's so famous.
28:15I find a lot of craft beer is too hoppy.
28:18I think I'm going to be able to persuade you.
28:20I don't know why, but it tastes all right.
28:23The best borscht for Ukrainians is the one your mother cooks.
28:27This will actually make a very nice sauce.
28:30I wonder if the trendy people of Eastland will enjoy this dish.
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