Food Stories episode 12 - Glasgow
Food Stories episode 12 - Glasgow
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CreativityTranscript
00:00I've been a chef for over 50 years, but 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 all right.
00:38Some of our best chefs.
00:40We're picking scurvy grass.
00:42Why pick it?
00:43Pretty 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.
01:02Love stuff like this.
01:04So join me as I unearth the stories behind the food we all love to eat today.
01:18I've been a chef for over half a century, but this food journey is all about learning
01:25new things, which I love.
01:29Today, I'm heading to a city whose food I don't know much about, and that's great.
01:35I'm really looking forward to going to Glasgow.
01:37I've been there a couple of times.
01:39I love the sense of humour and the sort of ruggedness of the people, and it's a very
01:43beautiful city.
01:45So from that point of view alone, I'm very happy to be going back there.
01:49Glasgow is Scotland's most ethnically diverse city.
01:58It's been a destination over the centuries for immigrants from all over the world in
02:03search of a better life.
02:05And that has shaped what I'm told is now a truly multicultural food scene.
02:12Lots of Italians have made Glasgow their home.
02:15And over the years, right back to the late 1800s, they've opened sweet shops, ice cream
02:22parlours and chippies.
02:25At a recent count, there were about 35,000 Italian Scots living in Glasgow.
02:32And there are some wonderful Italian restaurants, like Eusebi's, run by Giovanna Eusebi, a
02:42third-generation Italian Scot, who's offered to cook me lunch.
02:47Hi, Rick.
02:48Lovely to meet you.
02:49Good, nice to meet you.
02:50Nice to have you here.
02:51What are you going to produce now?
02:52OK, so I'm going to make cartoffi, Maria's cartoffi, which was my grandmother's.
02:56It's basically stuffed artichokes.
02:58I love the way Italians do artichokes.
03:00And you can do so much with them, and they're so good for you.
03:04Giovanna starts by making a breadcrumb stuffing out of good-quality sourdough.
03:11To that, she adds some finely chopped mint and some parsley, some chopped mozzarella
03:19and some ham, as well as a sprinkling of pine nuts and some grated Parmesan cheese.
03:27Then she adds an egg to bind the whole mixture together.
03:30I'm just going to have a taste.
03:32What are you looking for there, then?
03:33You really want the mint to come through and the texture, so it's like wet sand.
03:37Now for the artichokes.
03:39Preparing an artichoke is a simple case of stripping off the tough outer leaves, removing
03:45the stem, opening up the soft inner leaves and scooping out the fibrous bit in the middle,
03:53called the choke.
03:54I would say that, like, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, nobody would know what a dish
04:00like this was about and wouldn't have ordered it.
04:02In the 70s, Rick, I mean, you couldn't buy olive oil.
04:04You had to go to Kenneth to buy olive oil.
04:06I remember.
04:08I think when my family came here, they dumbed down the Italian side and they made peas and
04:13vinegar and lots of Italians made fish and chips.
04:16Look how far we've come since then.
04:20After stuffing the artichokes, Giovanna places them in water and olive oil, adding some bay
04:25leaves and garlic.
04:29With some cherry tomatoes in there too, she leaves the lot to steam for 20 minutes.
04:37As a result, it's an absolute feast of freshness and flavour, in the true style of cucina povera,
04:45Italian for the cuisine of the poor people.
04:47Buon appetito.
04:49Oh, lovely.
04:50Very simple.
04:51I love this idea of cucina povera.
04:56I guess it's about respecting every ingredient.
04:59It's a resourceful way of cooking.
05:01It's about not wasting.
05:02My grandmother, even if she had to throw a piece of mouldy bread away, she would actually
05:07sacrilegiously kiss it and ask for God's forgiveness, because she had no infamy.
05:12So they have a real reverence for food and a real respect.
05:15Well, I suppose this actually, stale bread in an artichoke, a tiny bit of ham with it
05:20and some cheese and making something really, really special.
05:24Whatever you have in your kitchen cupboard.
05:26What's it like being Italian in Glasgow?
05:29You are part of the community.
05:31People in Glasgow have been really good to our family.
05:33They've welcomed us over the years.
05:36The first member of Giovanna's family to arrive in Glasgow was her great-grandmother,
05:42Antonia, who left Italy aged just 16 to escape grinding poverty.
05:49Over the years, the family ran ice-cream vans and cafes, and in the 1970s, Giovanna's parents
05:56opened a deli where Giovanna herself later worked, bringing handmade pasta, olive oil
06:02and Italian wine to the relatively deprived east end of Glasgow.
06:08Eusebis, which Giovanna opened ten years ago in the city's west end, is the culmination
06:15of one family's hard work over three generations, a special place for Glasgow to have.
06:23Every immigrant, they come with hope, they come with dreams, and so all of that brings
06:28to society something fresh and something new, and I think tables are a great way of
06:33bringing people together.
06:35A table doesn't know differences.
06:38It welcomes diversity, and that's what's so beautiful about what we do.
06:42When I think about what Italians will have brought to Scotland, it's that sort of generosity,
06:47really.
06:48Yeah, yeah.
06:49Well, Giovanna, this is my first meal in Glasgow, and it's just lovely.
06:53All power to you.
06:54Cheers.
06:55Thanks so much.
06:56Cheers.
06:57Back in Padstow, my meeting with Giovanna has inspired me to cook an example of how
07:07the best Italian food has woven its way into our own cuisine.
07:12Osso bucco is something I'm always delighted to find in a restaurant, and I'm making mine
07:18with a saffron risotto on the side, as they do in Milan.
07:22Well, this is a great Italian favourite of mine.
07:25What I really like about it is it uses shin of veal.
07:29What I was thinking, Jack, is that every time a chef populises a cut of meat, like belly
07:34pork or something, the price goes way up.
07:37But not shin of veal.
07:39Still a cheap cut of meat.
07:42I've invited my middle son, Jack, round for lunch, but because he's a chef too, he'll
07:47have to work for it.
07:49So while he gets on with the onion, celery and carrot...
07:52Oh, there's the salt.
07:55..I'm starting on the veal with a sprinkle of salt.
07:58One of the things I really like about Osso is that you keep the bone marrow in the shin
08:02bone.
08:03I love hoiking that bit out, so we've got to do our best to make sure that the bone
08:08marrow stays in there.
08:09Now a little bit of flour, a very good way of thickening sauces.
08:12You can also get that lovely golden crust on it.
08:15Yeah.
08:16Coat the meat with plain flour, patting off the excess.
08:20Is that big enough for your veg?
08:22That's perfect, Jack.
08:25Heat a good glug of olive oil and fry the meat until it's nicely browned on both sides.
08:30It's almost done there, then.
08:33Yep.
08:34It takes the sort of stress out of cooking in front of a television camera, having Jack
08:37doing most of the work.
08:41Transfer the meat to a plate and sling the veg into the same pan.
08:44Colour those up now.
08:47Add some fresh rosemary and sage at this stage too.
08:51I think chefs love Italian food because it's so simple.
08:54But also they revere the repertoire, you know, the recipes are everything to them that they've
08:57had passed down from generation to generation.
08:59Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:00It's true.
09:01Do you want me to chop those tomatoes up for you?
09:02Oh, yeah, sure.
09:04Are these going straight in there on top of the veg?
09:05Yeah, I think that would be nice.
09:09Add a good splash of white wine and when that has almost evaporated, put your meat back
09:15in.
09:17Pour in some beef stock, then add salt, pepper and lemon zest and allow all that to simmer
09:27for an hour and a half.
09:32While we wait, Jack's going to rustle up the risotto milanese which is flavoured with saffron.
09:39You see we've got like Cornish saffron there.
09:40Do you remember that time you got ripped off for saffron in India?
09:43I do.
09:44I've got marigold petals.
09:45He's being clever.
09:46I said, well, I need to sniff that and I sniffed it, there's saffron.
09:49Bit like a conjuring trick.
09:51Next minute.
09:52Sleight of hand.
09:53Now here's a tip to make osso buco extra special.
09:57Combine freshly chopped garlic, flat leaf parsley and lemon zest to make a garnish called
10:04gremolata which you throw in right at the last minute to give the dish an extra zing.
10:11Oh, that's smelling good.
10:16Shall I deal out?
10:18Yeah, please.
10:19It looks lovely.
10:20I love the smell of that gremolata.
10:22It lifts it, doesn't it?
10:23Some salad there for you?
10:24Yeah.
10:25OK.
10:26Here's to it.
10:27Oh, it's lovely and tender.
10:29Mmm.
10:30You know what I love about it are these bone marrows.
10:32Yeah, you know in Italian, osso buco means bone hole.
10:35Is that what it means?
10:36Yeah, yeah.
10:37That's one of the great things about the dish, I think.
10:39Just digging the marrow out.
10:40It's the bit I look forward to the most.
10:42I used to cook this a lot when you were little.
10:44It's a great family dish, I think.
10:46I've cooked it quite a bit.
10:47Especially for dinner parties and stuff, it's brilliant.
10:49And very economical.
10:51Very.
10:52You don't mean risotto here.
10:53It's got the old al dente.
10:55Absolutely right.
10:56We've still got it.
10:58Cheers.
10:59Cheers.
11:03I've only been in Glasgow for a day
11:05and already I have the sense that food is something
11:08people are passionate about here.
11:11And as far as I'm concerned,
11:13I always like historical stories related to food and drink.
11:18And that's the reason I've come to the city's
11:21impressive Victorian cemetery called Necropolis,
11:25which means City of the Dead.
11:29Somewhere amongst the 3,500 tombs here
11:33is a monument to the man behind the famous
11:36Glaswegian brew, Tennant's Lager.
11:41I've been trying to find this memorial for some time.
11:44It's Hugh Tennant, who founded Tennant's Brewery.
11:47And it's in this very secluded part of the Necropolis.
11:50And the reason is that it faces the brewery,
11:53which is just over there.
11:54The company first brewed Tennant's Lager in 1885.
11:58At the time, Tennant's Lager was known as a madman's dream,
12:02and it's still the most popular beer in Scotland.
12:08Time to return to the land of the living.
12:12The district of Govan Hill is a microcosm
12:15of modern multicultural Glasgow, home to over 50 nationalities.
12:22I'm meeting food author Ben Mervis, who grew up in America,
12:26but now calls Govan Hill home,
12:29and is keen to show me the sheer culinary variety
12:33of what's on offer in this city.
12:36Ben. Great to meet you, Rick.
12:38Very nice to meet you.
12:39Well, let's discuss you. Why are you here?
12:41I came here on my exchange year at university,
12:44despite not understanding the accent at all.
12:46I was really taken by how warm and welcoming the people were.
12:50I was meant to just stay for one year,
12:52and I've stayed now for about 15.
12:54So just tell me about Govan Hill, then.
12:56It looks a little bit run down, but lots of very interesting shops.
13:00So Govan Hill has always welcomed new Glaswegians.
13:04There used to be a coal mine just around the corner,
13:06and they built all the tenements around here for the workers.
13:09You saw waves of immigrants from Donegal,
13:12from Tuscany, Jews fleeing persecution,
13:15Punjabi immigrants after the partition,
13:17and so you see all that kind of melding together.
13:21It's really special in that way.
13:23So, Ian, how come you brought me here
13:25for the first part of our mini tour, then?
13:27So we're here at Gomul Kimchi.
13:29Eddie here is a one-man band doing delicious Seoul-style kimchi.
13:33Now, kimchi, for the uninitiated amongst you,
13:36is a fermented Korean condiment made from veg, normally cabbage,
13:41garlic, chilli, ginger and fish sauce,
13:45and often added to dishes, as it is here, to fried rice.
13:49Eddie is of Korean heritage, but grew up in America.
13:53Hi, Eddie. Hey, how's it going?
13:55So, Eddie, what brought you here to Glasgow?
13:57I'm from Seattle originally. I fell in love.
13:59The next thing I knew, I was living in Glasgow.
14:02So have you been welcomed here in Govan Hill, then?
14:05Yes. I've actually been very surprised.
14:07Like, who knew that Govan Hill had such a high demand for kimchi?
14:11OK. Perhaps we could try some. Yes, of course.
14:14This is Eddie's family recipe, kimchi fried rice,
14:18with an American twist.
14:20What's with the spam? It's actually really popular in Korea.
14:23It came over with the American army after World War II.
14:27This is really lovely. It's that sort of savoury tartness.
14:30I love kimchi, cos we all need fermented food in our system.
14:34Helps with the gut bacteria. Eddie, brilliant.
14:37Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting us.
14:39I'll be back. Let's move on.
14:44For a taste of something completely different,
14:47Ben's next stop is a little place called Big Counter,
14:50which has a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere.
14:53Hi. Could I have a seat?
14:55Instantly walk in and I'll feel at home.
14:58This is a fantastic little quirky, very personality-driven place,
15:03run by my friends John and Claire, husband and wife team.
15:07Hi. Claire, hello.
15:09This is Lynne. Hello, Lynne. Good baby.
15:12We're training her up.
15:14Enjoy your wine. Cheers.
15:16Cheers.
15:18The food we've got on the way is what I would call comfort food.
15:22British, with some European flavours,
15:25and made, I'm told, with the best Scottish ingredients.
15:30Oh, look at that. Wow.
15:33So, what have we got here, then?
15:35Ox tongue with potato pav and my grandfather's sauce.
15:39And we've got lemon sole with clams, wild garlic and chicken sauce.
15:44How's it running a restaurant as a young family?
15:46It's great. We love it.
15:48We fed it around the kids as much as possible.
15:50You wouldn't do it if you didn't love it, I don't think, but we do love it.
15:54That's good. Shall we? Enjoy. Cheers.
15:57It's just really reminiscent, actually.
16:00When I started my place as a husband and wife team,
16:03work night and day, there's so much enthusiasm, so much hope.
16:06My heart goes out to them, cos I was that soldier.
16:09Yeah. I might let you do the fish.
16:11On the bone, but very nicely presented.
16:15Mmm. Is it good? Oh, very good.
16:18Lovely sauce. Nice umami flavour to it.
16:21Now, then, not everybody's cup of tea tongue.
16:25I spent quite a long time working in a hotel kitchen cooking tongues.
16:30Oh, that's a good sauce. So full of flavour, isn't it?
16:33Having tasted all this, I think you'd be so lucky
16:36to be in this part of Glasgow, at a place like this.
16:39Yeah, and just doing the food that they love, and you can feel it.
16:47For something different again, Ben's taking me north of Govan Hill
16:51to the area around Spears Wharf,
16:54which also used to be part of Glasgow's industrial heart.
16:59Here we go, the third stop.
17:01He tells me Civic House here was once a meeting place
17:05for left-wing activists.
17:08Nice space. Yeah.
17:10It's now where sisters Paria and Sahar run Parveen's,
17:15serving up modern, vegan, Pakistani-inspired food.
17:20Aha. Wow. Looks lovely.
17:23So you've got the coconut karai, which is the curry here.
17:27Yeah. And the green bean toran, coconut kale and a herby rice.
17:32Just try a bit of the karai.
17:35What do you think? Mmm. Very good.
17:38Lots of coconut in there. Very creamy.
17:41Also, they've got roasted rice in there. Mmm.
17:44Gives everything a bit of a crunch.
17:46Nice lot of chilli in there too. Mmm.
17:48Delish. You could live on this.
17:50Hi. Here are some donuts.
17:52Sahar, an ex-statistician,
17:55and Faria, a former communications officer,
17:58are the third generation of their family to live in Glasgow.
18:02Delicious. So how did you get into this?
18:05We've only been doing it for a year.
18:07Loved cooking from a really young age with our mum and our gran.
18:10We were kind of bored of our careers
18:12and we just kind of wanted to create a space
18:14that, like, reconnected us to our Pakistani heritage.
18:17But also, like, brought in influences
18:20and experiences of being Scottish.
18:22And it's really healthy food.
18:24Between you and me, when we're doing this filming,
18:26we just get toasted sandwiches for lunch.
18:28I just noticed when the crew came in here, they were like...
18:31Because it's so lovely.
18:33Do you think I could have a cup of chai when I leave?
18:36Of course. With the donut. Yay!
18:38Another donut.
18:41Well, Beth, it's been a real eye-opener for me.
18:44The Korean food, the British, but with a new angle.
18:47And finally, this.
18:49This really showed me how diverse the cooking is in Glasgow
18:53and what a great city it is to eat some really fantastic food.
18:58I'm in desperate need of a proper walk after all that food.
19:03So I'm heading from the north
19:06to the south of Glasgow's busy city centre.
19:10Last year, Glasgow was named the best place in the country
19:14to base a small business,
19:16which must be part of the reason this city
19:19has such a thriving, independent food scene.
19:24I'm in the area known as Merchant City.
19:27It's where all the markets used to be
19:29and it's now brimming with small businesses.
19:32Hello. Hello.
19:34So nice to meet you. Cameron. Nice to meet you.
19:37Nice place. Oh, thank you. Come on in.
19:40Bare Bones is one of a growing number
19:42of bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the UK
19:45who make their chocolate from raw cacao beans
19:50instead of part-processed ones, as the mass producers do.
19:54Cameron used to be an engineer in the car industry
19:58and is now chief chocolate maker.
20:01But it was Lara who first had the idea for the business.
20:05Lara, I know you were a photographer.
20:07How did you end up making chocolate with Cameron?
20:10Well, I did a lot of food photography
20:12and then I was on the train home
20:14and I was eating some bean-to-bar chocolate
20:16and I was just thinking, like,
20:18why can my job not be making chocolate?
20:21So I started reading about it
20:23and realised that it's a very scientific process
20:26and I knew that because Cam is an engineer
20:29that us together would be a very good recipe for making chocolate.
20:34So tell me, bean-to-bar.
20:37So we import cacao beans from small cooperatives around the world,
20:41all with different genetics and terroir and fermentation processes,
20:44so all the beans taste really different
20:46and it's our job as a chocolate maker to really showcase that.
20:51Cameron starts by getting rid of any bad beans.
20:55Then it's the roasting process, where the flavour is really developed.
21:00Cameron uses a coffee roaster he's modified himself
21:04and he wasn't keen for us to film his settings
21:07for fear of giving away trade secrets.
21:12The roasted beans are stone-ground with sugar
21:15for an amazing three days,
21:18which slowly eliminates any bitterness.
21:22So this batch is ready to be tasted.
21:24This is cocoa beans, sugar, a little bit of salt and cocoa butter.
21:31If all chocolate was like that, we'd be in paradise.
21:34Hazelnut can taste, caramel, smoothness, no bitterness.
21:39It does blow your mind, there's so much flavour.
21:42You must love doing this. I do.
21:44And it's like the best chocolate I've ever tasted.
21:47Thank you, Rick.
21:50To finish off the process, the chocolate is tempered into bars
21:54and wrapped in Lara's beautiful packaging.
21:57From this point on, it's Lara who's in charge of everything
22:01to do with selling the chocolate.
22:03Is the city supportive of young people like you starting a business?
22:07Everybody is so willing to try things, I think, in general in Glasgow
22:12and really appreciates well-made products.
22:15At last, the chocolate is heading my way.
22:19Lara is keen to show me how different beans can affect the taste.
22:24So this is 70% from the Philippines and also one from Madagascar.
22:28And purely the difference between these two is the origin
22:32and naturally the different characteristics of the bean.
22:35So which one's this again? This is the Philippines. OK.
22:40Delicious. Smooth. It's got lovely aromas. Very complex.
22:45This one, I would say, is like pecan tart, banoffee pie.
22:49It's quite boozy as well. And this is? Madagascar.
22:52So Madagascan chocolate is typically quite fruity.
22:55They have such wildly different taste notes.
22:58It's amazing, isn't it? I mean, obviously you, but really, it's the terroir.
23:02I like wine. And it's as complex as wine.
23:05In another life, I'd like to be doing something like making chocolate.
23:14My challenge now is to do justice to Cameron and Lara's delectable chocolate.
23:20I've decided to bake cream-filled profiteroles
23:23smothered in warm chocolate sauce.
23:26So, first of all, what I've done here is just taken a piece of greaseproof paper
23:30and just folded it in half to make a little sort of shoot.
23:34I'll need to shoot my plain flour quickly into a pan once I've sifted it.
23:39The reason for sifting flour is to get as much air as you possibly can
23:43into the flour, and for something like profiteroles,
23:46which are really light, this is particularly important.
23:50Heat some water and butter in a pan until the butter has melted.
23:55Just as the water boils, take it off the heat and in goes the flour.
24:02Stir vigorously until you have a lump-free paste.
24:06There's a nice thick dough there,
24:08so I'm just going to leave that to cool a little bit before I add the eggs,
24:12cos it's hot now and I don't want the eggs to cook.
24:17After about 15 minutes, you can add the eggs.
24:21Then stir it all together with a pinch of salt
24:25until you have a smooth, glossy dough.
24:29I find it easiest to use a piping bag to make the spherical profiterole shape,
24:35but you can use two teaspoons if you want something more rustic-looking.
24:41Bake the profiteroles at 180 degrees for 10 minutes,
24:46then at 200 degrees for another 15.
24:50This will make them crispy and ensure they hold their shape.
24:54Puffed up nicely.
24:58They are as light as feathers.
25:01I'm just going to let them cool down and then check
25:04just to see whether they're hollow in the middle.
25:06To do that, it's simplest to stick your little finger in.
25:09Look at that. Do you see how hollow they are?
25:11Then pop some whipped cream,
25:13sweetened with icing sugar and vanilla essence, in through the hole.
25:19Now for the chocolate sauce,
25:21for which you need a heatproof bowl fitted over a pan of gently simmering water.
25:27Very important that the bowl that you're going to put the chocolate in
25:30doesn't actually sit in the water
25:32because this 70% chocolate is so delicate.
25:37I do think that warm chocolate is the best way of savouring
25:42just how much flavour there is in a really good chocolate like this.
25:46I've just added some butter there.
25:49Adding butter increases the amount of fat in your sauce
25:53and makes it easier to work with.
25:55Oh, that's lovely.
25:57I'm going to add a little bit of water, about five tablespoons,
26:00just so that I can get the chocolate to pouring consistency.
26:04So what I'll do is just see how it coats the back of a wooden spoon.
26:09It's how I do all my sauces, really.
26:12Yeah, that looks good.
26:14Look at the lovely sheen on that.
26:17So now we'll serve them up.
26:28Gosh, I'm looking forward to this.
26:34Whoa! Profiteroles freshly baked like this with a beautiful chocolate sauce on it
26:39would be my go-to dish in any restaurant
26:41if I knew they'd been as freshly baked as that.
26:44I like eating chocolate-covered clouds.
26:49Before I leave Glasgow, I've time for one more treat.
26:53The University Cafe is over 100 years old
26:57and serves a show-stopping knickerbocker glory.
27:02Like so much of the food in this city,
27:05this is a sublime blend of different cultures.
27:08The dish is said to have originated in America.
27:11It's made here with Italian ice cream,
27:14but it's a dessert many would regard as a British classic.
27:19I do like a knickerbocker glory.
27:21For over 100 years, four generations of the Varecchia family
27:25have been producing Italian ice creams just like this.
27:28And I think Glasgow today is full of people producing food they love,
27:33bringing their own culinary heritage from far and wide.
27:37And through sheer hard work, producing bars, cafes, restaurants
27:42that are personal but very exciting as well.
27:49Oh, yum.
27:51Knickerbocker, I love you.
27:55If you'd like to see more episodes of Rick Stein's Food Stories,
27:59press the red button now to watch on BBC iPlayer.
28:04Next time, I'm in Yorkshire.
28:08Your tofu nuts, oh, we love it.
28:11That sort of hot garlic, fabuloso.
28:16This is so good.
28:18Brings family together, it's hearty.
28:21Long live the Yorkshire pudding. Absolutely.
28:23It's the beauty of the handheld blender.
28:26Not as good for the biceps.