"The problem with journalists is that they don't really want to research the story properly. They start with a preconceived idea and then fit the questions to suit the answer," pronounced Rick Stein.  Not necessarily what you want to hear when you're a journalist trying to build a rapport with your interviewee. Fortunately his comment was not an all-out attack on journalists, more a reflection on his personal experiences at the hands of the press. I'd asked him if he was guilty of serving up threatened species of fish at his Padstow Seafood Restaurant, as the Independent had claimed back in April 2006. The paper accused Rick of selling skate, monkfish, turbot and local cod, all of which, the story said, appeared on the Marine Conservation Society's (MCS) 'fish to avoid list' at the time. Rick explained his side: "They [The Independent] didn't really give me a chance and they didn't want to. They wanted to say 'look here's this famous chef who cooks fish and has a load of dodgy species at the restaurant'. I gave them plenty of opportunity to research why they weren't, in my case, dodgy fish."
 Rick remains adamant that it wasn't skate, but ray, that was on his menu. He called it skate because 'people don't know what ray is'. He admits to serving local cod but points out that while it's endangered around most of the UK, it is (or was at the time of the story) plentiful in the West Country. "A lot depends on where you are," he said, "I tend to just talk to the local fisheries people and the local fishermen and find out what's plentiful." This is a dilemma for anyone running a restaurant - the lesser-known types of fish are plentiful, but it's the endangered and better-known fish, such as lemon sole, that so many customers expect to find on the menu. "We do try to promote less well-known species," he explained, "but then it can go the other way. A lobster fisherman had a go at me the other day for having gurnard on my menu. It used to be lobster bait but he said he can't afford to put it in the pots anymore because I've made it too expensive." As to whether enough's being done to protect fish stocks, Rick remains undecided: "I remember in one of my earlier books I wrote that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone. Quite a lot is being done; I don't know whether it's enough. I mean you can't keep taking fish out of the sea at the rate we are. "When I started my first restaurant fish was just a commodity. It wasn't good or bad, it was just there. Now that it's all disappearing, everyone's taking notice."
 When asked what he'd most like to be remembered for, Rick said it would be for his cooking and for "doing something fairly obvious" by starting his restaurant in the seventies. "Restaurants are bloody hard work but I wouldn't look back and say it was too hard. I mean it was too hard, but I was pretty happy most of the time." It seems that food never lost its appeal for Rick, either as a passion, a business venture or as the subject for his numerous television series. But doesn't it get monotonous over time? "I think that if we always have food as the base of a programme it's a very positive place to start," he replies. He cites his recent stint of filming in Morocco, for his series Mediterranean Escapes, as an example of when food managed to break down his own prejudices: "We were very nervous about going to Morocco, particularly after a bad experience in Puglia where the crew's Land Rover was stolen (it was mysteriously returned after a few phone calls to the local mafia). "Having to take all that equipment into Morocco, we were just a bit nervous. But when we got to Tangier it was lovely - the food was lovely, the people were lovely. "But it was the food that started the sort of realisation that these people can't be bad, they cook very nice food. It's almost a way of grounding yourself and saying to yourself 'anyone who cooks food like this has got to be alright'. And of course they are alright. "Most of the stuff that we feel about Muslim countries is engendered in Europe and when you go there it's not quite as it appears. I mean I'm probably guilty of being a bit naive but that's actually often a good thing because being cynical is a bit dangerous sometimes."
 In person he comes across as a conflict of personalities - there's the jolly raconteur, and the considerate, contemplative man who, one could perceive, may even be suppressing an innate shyness
It's this deeper-than-average, somewhat poetic side to his nature that makes him stand out from so many other 'celeb' chefs and has arguably led to his successes in life. In person he comes across as a conflict of personalities - there's the jolly raconteur, and the considerate, contemplative man who, one could perceive, may even be suppressing an innate shyness. He seems to want to show this poetic side to the public now more than ever before. Maybe it's the fact he recently turned 60, maybe it's just time for another challenge, but he seems intent on showing the world that there's more to him than just fresh fish and Food Heroes (his popular TV series and books that championed local British producers). He's recently fronted two food-free programmes for the BBC - one about Daphne du Maurier and the other about John Betjeman - and now hopes to make a programme about Ireland. "There's so much history, both good and bad, that it will really make for a fascinating programme," he explains. "It really interests me as a departure from just pure cookery. I'd like to see if I can do it." "People say I must be really stressed. But I don't really feel it. When I was cooking I was stressed, I mean that really is stressful. I know what stress is. This is a doddle. Chefs know how hard things can be."
 But what drives him to keep working when he surely doesn't have to? He has the opportunity to live a lifestyle many would dream of. He already spends several months a year in Sydney, Australia, where his girlfriend Sarah Burns lives and owns his own vineyard in the idyllic Hunter Valley just outside Sydney. But you get the sense that Rick is not the kind of man who'd be happy to simply fill his days sitting around sipping his own Semillon and eating shellfish. He admits that sibling rivalry has a part to play in his determination to succeed. He describes his brother John Stein, a professor of physiology, as 'very, very bright'. "Lots of people who do well in things are driven, and it's not necessarily healthy, but it's a go-for-broke attitude - it's what you find yourself doing. "I think from an early age I've felt that I wasn't particularly good at anything. I think I've just got this obsession with trying to say to people 'look, I'm here!'. It's a bit of a problem I have. "Other people might be able to say 'yeah okay, you can have a bit of a rest now', but I just don't seem able to do it. "I'm afraid I'm going to keep on going." - Interview by Louisa Carter, BBC Food
|
