TALK TIME:Trish Deseine Writer, TV presenter and tripe connoisseur, originally from Northern Ireland
I should warn you in advance that I know absolutely nothing about food. . . Oh, that's no problem.
In 2001, you published your first cookery book, 'Petits Plats Entre Amis' in France – which I understand is roughly comparable to my opening a soccer school in Brazil.I was aware of the in-built irony of it all, but the book wasn't about me telling people what to do or teaching them anything. It was really just about me sharing recipes I had tried out and that had worked. Luckily for me, fusion cooking – which was and is my way of cooking – was all the rage back then, even in France.
Did anyone pass any remarks about your nationality?In my very first review, I was absolutely crucified for teaming foie gras with dried fruit. And the woman who wrote the review did make some tacky comment about my being Irish. I actually bumped into her a few years later. Of course, in the interim, serving foie gras with dried fruit had become a very normal, natural thing to do. So I just smiled quietly to myself. I don't even eat foie gras myself anymore. So, I suppose, things have moved on now from everyone's point of view.
And I still have no idea what foie gras is – so all's well that ends well.To be honest, I expected more hostility at first, I think. But there never really was any. I'm somebody who takes frivolity seriously and, I think, there's a certain current in France that appreciates that. I think we silently, tacitly agreed that this was something not terribly serious, but done with a lot of enthusiasm. It wasn't War and Peace – it was just a cookery book.
The French regard food as being on a par with art or literature. But it's so ephemeral. You can spend all morning chopping, and peeling, and sautéing things. Twenty minutes later, all that will be left is a pile of dirty dishes.No, no, no . . . If you've got any type of sensory memory, you'll have had a wonderful experience that you'll carry with you for the rest of your days. It's true that, from time to time, there is a debate about whether food is art. I'm not sure that it is. But I think the fact that this debate even takes place is extremely healthy and productive. There's no barrier in France between food and cooking and design and music. I love that. Ireland is similar in that respect, in that art is very much on the daily menu.
How did your TV programmes 'Trish's Mediterranean Kitchen' and 'Trish's French Country Kitchen' come about?Well, they mainly came from RTÉ needing a show that was entertaining, mildly escapist and pretty, that would introduce their targeted audience to new aspects – or slightly new – aspects, of cooking.
It's a bit like a holiday programme, isn't it? The audience is just sitting at home thinking "Wow, I wish I was there . . . I wish I was eating that . . ."It was an absolutely beautiful, gorgeous trip. A French journalist friend of mine did a lot of the research. The people and the characters that he came up with for RTÉ really added a lot of meat to the context, despite the fact that it was meant to be very cosmetic, really.
I was particularly taken with the glamorous tripe seller [in Trish's Mediterranean Kitchen]. . . . Wasn't she fantastic? But there are so many people like that in France. The woman who sells me chicken on a Sunday looks like Julia Roberts.
Was the tripe really as nice as you made it sound? I've always imagined it would taste revolting.I did the recipe because it's thrifty and there's a huge tradition of eating tripe in that region. So it was kind of unavoidable. But I might have been turning it on a little bit for the cameras.
If I wanted to broaden someone's musical palate, I might lend them a Miles Davis or Captain Beefheart album. What would you suggest to broaden my culinary palate?Well, that's probably RTÉ's goal in the show – to broaden people's minds. But when I'm cooking for people, it's never my goal to give anybody a lesson. I want to make them feel good, to have an enjoyable time, to give them an extra delicious ingredient with which to cook. One ingredient I mention a lot in the show is olive oil. I know it's readily available everywhere now, but I don't know if people at grassroots use it enough as a pure simple taste. So buy a really good one, use it sparingly and concentrate on what it does in your mouth. That's my best advice.
Trish Deseine's new show, Trish's French Country Kitchen, is on RTÉ1, Fridays at 8.30pm
