Off Air... with Jane and Fi - De-moulding a jelly rabbit

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Jane and Fi's friendship may be over after a terrible Kent-based ant-breeding company name suggestion. They're joined by journalist and food critic Jimi Famurewa, to talk about his new podcast Where's Home Really? If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producer: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can Stig have written three books already? I mean, that is the difference between women and men. I swear to God. No, you see, you can't say that. I can, I just have. Because some of my most favourite, favourite authors are incredibly prolific and they've got kids and they're women. It's not just men.

But he's also a DJ. Yes. But that's... He's not a full-time writer. But that's like, he wrote a book whilst having a job. It was during a lockdown and I didn't really have a job. I'm just on a mission. I think it's absolutely fair enough to call out the men

when they need to be called out. But I think being able to do something with your day between 10 and 3, I don't think that makes you a bad person. Well, all I'll say is when I did breakfast shows, when I did breakfast shows, I spent all afternoon asleep in bed. Well, there you go. Maybe that's when I should have started writing novels. I think you should. I was just a lightweight. I have to accept it. No, no, you can't say that either, because sometimes I find

that kind of, you need to be doing something with every hour of your day thing just exhausting, don't you? To think about that in other people's lives, because I quite happily just do my day's work and go home and bother my children and

annoy my cats and take my dog for a walk and cook some supper and watch something terrible on television. I'm six episodes into The Night Agent. A ten episode non-starter on Netflix that I've started so I'll finish. That's my day.

Yes. Is that a recommendation from you? No. Avoid it. Don't get caught in the trap But you're in the trap now I'm in the trap now I've got to finish it Well can I do a positive recommend? Yes

I've already told you There's a great book called At the Table by Claire Stewart It's out in paperback now It has actually been regularly endorsed in the Times and the Sunday Times as being a book that you should read It's fantastic It's just about the year in the life of a family where the middle-aged couple announce their separation

at a family lunch right at the start of the book. And things just... You really start to care about everybody in this family unit. There's a son who's about to get married, there's a daughter who's a little bit older and isn't in a fixed relationship and is... I don't know, it's a big recommend from me. At the Table, out now.

It's got a very distinctive cover because there's a young woman with her face, it's fallen into a cake. So have you already managed to finish In Memoriam before starting that? Oh, I read it. I bought In Memoriam weeks ago. Oh, OK. Yeah.

Oh, yes. Well, you see there, you could just write books instead of read them. Maybe Stig doesn't read any. Oh, OK. the podcast that comes your way. I've said this already, haven't I? Monday to Thursday. Well, that's okay. Okay, so our guest is, who's our guest today? Our guest is Jimmy Famarewa, and his podcast is called Where's Home Really? And you might know Jimmy as one of the judges on MasterChef and also on a Channel 4 programme with Jamie Oliver

called The Great Challenge. I didn't see that, actually, did you? No. No, I didn't. There's a lot of telly to catch up with and we can't we can't watch absolutely everything but first of all let's have some of your emails oh okay that was just a tease that was just a tease these are the emails that have come in to jane and fee at times dot radio and i really wanted to mention this one

it's from jules who says i've been listening to you uh talking about the reality of a first night with a new baby versus the expectation. And I wanted to share my experience with you. I'm a paediatrician and I've been looking after babies and children in hospital for 10 years before my own daughter was born. After a very difficult 24 hours culminating in an emergency cesarean, I was left alone with my new baby for the first night. Well, I just switched into doctor mode. I was on shift, and this was just another child I had to care for, albeit in my pyjamas, with a large surgical scar and a slightly hysterical fervour. I stayed awake most of that night, because that's what I'm trained to do,

and I provided pretty good care, something certainly to pop in the portfolio. It was only the next day, when I saw my husband kiss my daughter on the head that the penny dropped, that this baby was actually mine and this particular shift was never going to end. It was only when we finally got home 24 hours later that I realised just how much I loved her. In the trauma and the surrealness of the first couple of days I hadn't had time to stop, breathe and realise what a wonderful thing had just happened up until then it had just been painful and messy um jules thank you very

much she says that she wants to thank us for providing witty warm intelligent conversation as wonderful stress relief um well i'm really glad we've had that effect we drive each other up the wall jules but um it's really good to know um that you've taken comfort and we hugely appreciate it and actually I do find that fascinating and I think she's expressed it brilliantly this particular shift was never going to end I mean that is parenthood isn't it it's it's I think it's that that plunges some not all women into really severe postnatal depression. It's that thumping great realisation that you've never cared so much in your life

and that weight of care will simply never lift. Yeah, it is a massive change. Yeah, it's a huge change. But do you ever worry, because I think there's quite a fine line between being honest and realistic about what motherhood entails, parenthood entails and actually painting it in a rather darker than it needs to be huge just about it's about the middle the middle ground because it's it's not um do you know it's

not part of our current culture to extol the joys of motherhood. The trend at the moment is to go there with your authentic self. And I think women who try and say, I really love it and I'm happy, especially actually women who want it to define their identity and to only be mums, I think they're given quite a short shrift at the moment. And i worry about that a tiny bit because it should be a club that everyone can join but it's not read more about the email about molly may haig oh there's one from sophie yep i was actually um this is where we were saying that we need to get a new folder don't we let it disorganize because uh i might have put that in my pile of things that were coming out of the studio that I've put in the bin.

Don't worry, Sophie, I can find it. I can find it. But you might have to wait until tomorrow. No, I've got it. Have you got it? Shuffle papers, shuffle papers. I made a documentary once about the changing fashions of motherhood post-war. And one of the clips we used was so terrifying.

It was from a kind of early clips we used was so terrifying. It was from a kind of early evening chat show on the television. And it was a woman who was suffering from postnatal depression. And she was literally brought on and spoken to as if she was something out of a zoo or a circus. You know, this woman can barely speak. She is suffering from postpartum depression. And it was just it was one of the most uncomfortable things that i've ever listened to but it you know it was it

was a happening and the point of our documentary was to look at how the fashions of motherhood affect the individuals within those fashions and it was about a good 10 years ago when the scummy mummies had just entered onto the scene with their really wonderful, do you remember they used to do their gigs, they probably still do, in gold jumpsuits because they were just always on the receiving end of various bits of goo

or something shooting out of a child's orifice. They wore white clean jumpsuits to do their thing. But that was a very new phenomenon to be able to tell your all about your darkest side of motherhood and we've gone from that place of regarding a really serious mental health problem in new mums as something to kind of poke and prod to actually being able to say this might be your reality you know and we're all in it together we might be able to help each other in a very short space of time.

I'll just tell you that out of interest. You can find it on the iPad. What's it called? It was called Listen Without Mother. Right. I don't really know why, actually, the producer chose that title. I think I was coming up with some wacky title. Yeah, I mean, I can see what it's based on, but I don't.

Maybe it was just meant kind of don't sit there with your mum and listen to it. A sort of punny title that almost works. Yep. With some dark bits and pieces in it. So this is the other part of Sophie's email. So if you weren't listening today we read out your first bit about Molly May on the programme and this is because Molly

May has uploaded a YouTube video where she's talking about how overwhelmed she felt in the first months of motherhood. And Jane and I were saying that is a jolly good thing to do. Sophie goes on to say, another thing I wanted to mention is about single mums. I have a good relationship with the father of my kids, but it is much better and healthier now that we're not partners.

When we split up, I had a lot of people tell me how sorry they were and how hard it must be. So I was brave and how I was so brave and I found this very patronizing and annoying one day I was talking to my neighbor upstairs who's also a single mum and I told her my partner had moved out and she said wow congratulations I was so happy and grateful for this response for me this was a much more appropriate reaction to the situation I didn't want people to feel sorry for me I wanted them to be happy for me that I'd made the right decision for my children my family

and me and Sophie goes on to say I'm not saying it's not difficult for many single parents but I just want to say we don't always need pity or to be looked down on as lesser families or broken families my single parent family is a fixed family and me and my two daughters have a strong triangle of love and I've never been happier. And then Sophie says, P.S. My 70 year old dad recommended your show The Old Place to me a few years ago. So there's clearly

no shortage of fantastic male role models in mine or my daughter's lives. He sounds a very sound individual doesn't he? But how lovely Sophie and you are so right. We need to move the bar on that very patronising, stereotypical vision of single parenting, because it's just not many people's experience of it at all. It really isn't. There's a hard relate going on there. Pamela says, hello, attached is a map of Canada

gloriously highlighted for your convenience now this is because you got into we both got confused yesterday by the sheer scale of the size of Canada oh yes and my bad because I referred to the provinces as states and they're not, it's not like America they're provinces they don't have states do they?

you can understand why we get confused I mean it's basically the same country, isn't it? No, I didn't say that. Various distances came up while searching, says Pamela. But Google tells me that the driving distance between Vancouver in British Columbia and St. John's in Newfoundland is 4,001.1 miles. That's a very, very big country, isn't it? Huge! That is, I mean, Britain really rates itself, but we are absolutely tiny. We're just this tiny, very self-involved,

busybody little clutch of islands. So when you see a country that vast, doesn't it make you think how stupid it is that we mark out our cultural territories in the UK in the way that we do? So, you know, the idea that you have a northerner and a southerner who might be at war with each other, when actually you can drive from one hometown to the other in under four hours. to the other in under four hours. Well, no, I mean, it's like the gloriously parochial rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool, which has been dragging on now

since they think the construction of the Manchester Ship Canal, that caused upset. Yeah, that is truly pathetic. No, it is pathetic because they are separated, but I think it's 38 miles, 38 minutes it takes to drive between Liverpool and Manchester. And how do you feel when you go to Manchester? I can't stand it, I never go. Right, okay. Hello Queen, says Nina, having listened to your podcast from last week on my way to work, I felt the urge to write in. Fi was talking about

the magic of playing in a full orchestra and the shared experience of creating something unique and wonderful together. And Nina goes on to tell us about her urge, which is this. Jane, I feel you have the right qualities to become a viola player. It fits, it feels right, and I can picture it easily. We are a unique breed of people, good sense of humour, generally self-deprecating, not taking ourselves too seriously. We leave that to the male violinists. And my challenge for you jane is to get

to grade one on the viola in a year you'll easily do it and i'm sure you won't regret it i can recommend people to teach you near ealing where i'm very happy to do it myself would you take up the challenge near ealing i think the viola is lovely it's less squeaky yeah can you explain to me what uh role the viola plays in an orchestra well Well, the viola itself is bigger and deeper than a violin, so the notes don't go as high. It's got a much more rounded sound to it, and they kind of tend to be the... They're the bass guitar in the wind band.

That's what they are. Well, if it's so lovely, why don't more people play the viola and not the violin? Because you don't need as many violas in an orchestra as you do violins, and there aren't as many pieces of music written for violas. So it's a kind of supply and demand thing. And in an orchestra, what are the traditional rivalries? Is it common for everyone to hate the first violinists?

Well, I think the first violinist probably does get quite a bit of stick, because you're kind of the... Is there only one? Yes, the soloist in a pack of no soloists. So that is quite weird. But I've only played in three orchestras and obviously we were all within a peer group of students or whatever. And the first violinists were just incredibly talented people. So you kind of steered away from them.

The brass section, so people may really object to these stereotypes. Brass section were always funny because you don't, I don't know, there's just, there is something,

I find there's something kind of humorous about a brass. Yes. And can we just be honest? It's like, it's usually a fellow stands at the back with a huge drum.

Yes. They don't have a lot to do. Oh, no, don't say that. No, but I could easily do that with absolutely no trouble. I don't want to learn the viola. It sounds exhausting. But just occasionally going... No, but that's the thing.

How hard can that be? So if you got it wrong, then everyone's going to notice way more than if you just slightly slip a note. It's like being the goalkeeper in a football team. In the violins, yeah. And the wind instrument people, I think, obviously they're lovely because those are the only instruments I ever played.

And don't make a face. Don't make a face. And I think I can see you playing the viola too. Or the cello. Well, my great-aunt played the cello in a quartet. I think she was shooting a quartet really well into her 90s she was still and um the talent this i haven't this group uh used to go out and entertain other elderly folk and uh yeah well it's always a little bit of a family joke quite

how entertained were the elderly folk but anyway i think it unlikely, Nina, that this is going to happen, but I should keep going. Nina's PS. PS, my neighbour is an editor on the Urology Journal and they're fascinating. So anything you need to know about this, she's your lady. We've had many interesting fire pit chats in lockdown about all sorts of things. The micro penis discussion was particularly enlightening. sorts of things the micro penis discussion was particularly enlightening you can't just go dot dot dot and then not fill us in follow-up email required there nina yeah did you keep your penis lipstick that was given to you by josh arnold from the sunday times i took it home and it's now on my mantelpiece and it's awaiting i have a friend you may laugh I have one friend. And she will genuinely welcome the gift. Also, I know she can't be arsed listening to this.

When she sees it, it'll be a genuine amusing moment. Why will she like it? She's just that sort of person. She just likes penises. Or lipsticks. No, I'm genuinely asking. Here's an email from Tracy. I don't want to answer on her behalf.

I gave mine away. I just couldn't get rid of it fast enough. Well, who did you give it to? Eve. Oh, right. Tracy says, Dear Joan of Feet, It's with a heavy heart that I attach photos of my jelly mould disaster.

After listening to your podcast discussion about jelly moulds, I was prompted to dig out the mould that I was given by my now departed grandmother. She bought it when my son was a toddler. He'll be 21 in September. And to my shame, I've never used it for fear of such a disaster. My hope was that I could make the jelly rabbit and perhaps it could be adopted as the podcast mascot. You can see from the photos, the poor rabbit resembles roadkill and is unrecognizable has anyone ever managed to demold a jelly rabbit in one piece perhaps another of your listeners could give me some tips I think it must be one of life's great mysteries it does look shocking and also because you've used the red jelly there it does properly properly look like roadkill and I

remember having exactly the same problem I used to put two lots of jelly into the mold so that so it was revolting it kind of tasted like uh well it had the same consistency that the jelly did in the package it was great it would come out of the mold so I'm just I really loved some of these emails about babies so can I just read a couple more absolutely and then probably we need to get to Jimmy. Well, this is from Rachel. During the birth of my second child, which was not traumatic, but just chaotic for various reasons, I think the team who managed my eventual caesarean temporarily lost my glasses. Now, I'm really quite short-sighted. And so when I was handed the new little chap for the vital skin-on-skin contact everyone seems to assume you want,

I could just make out his features by peering closely, but everything else was just a total blur. I wanted to protest, please, I can't see him. And I do think that reminds me that I didn't have my glasses on during the caesarean, but did put them on immediately afterwards because you do need to see the thing, child, as it turned out. But all the sort of they're terrible the photographs i've got you know in the immediate aftermath of my children's because i just look shocking oh god i think yeah well actually but that's another thing isn't it the you know people

people who now insta themselves oh i mean how could you why would you want to keep their makeup and keep they've got full face of makeup yeah i. I mean, I've just got, you know, if you wear glasses, you've never needed your glasses more because you really do want to see the child. I keep saying the thing. That's because I'm quite cross with my children at the moment. Okay. Have you got a quick one? Because I just want to do one, a very funny one about blood donation. Okay, this is Jules.

I really loved hearing about birthing. I'm only cross because they annoyed me on what was our replacement Mother's Day by going out for dinner and then just looking at their phones all the time. Sometimes, do you not just get so hacked off by phones? No. She's looking at her phone now. I'm not.

Hi, Fee and Jane. I really loved hearing about birthing experiences, says Jules. My own darling twin boys were born at half-time during an England-Germany game. My husband left as soon as they'd been delivered to watch the second half. I was finally wheeled up to the ward with both babies just on the bed. No bassinets, no help. I was convinced one would roll off it. But we all survived and thrived and have a fabulous relationship.

Not so the marriage. Okay, Jules. Right, well, there we go. I mean, if he wanders off to watch the second half of a football match after you've given birth to twins, then I've got to say. I refer you to our earlier email correspondent, perfectly happy in a single-parent family having a great time. Yes, well done.

Right, final one from me, Philippa in Teddington, regarding your listener who considered a lockdown appointment for a smear test to be a great trip out. And Fee's admission that her smear test was a lovely break from looking after young children. It reminded me of when I had an appointment to donate blood during the first lockdown. I really did look forward to it like a holiday. I had a legitimate excuse to leave the kids at home, go on a train journey, had some lovely NHS staff attending to me. I had a lie down. Then I was given a chocolate biscuit and a cup of orange squash. I recommend blood donating heartily to those who have young children.

Keep up the great work. It's a good idea, actually, because our blood donation supplies are down, aren't they? So if you're looking for something to do that will make you feel good about yourself, good about the world, and someone else can benefit from it too, then just head off, leave the kiddies. No one can say no to that. If you say I'm going to go and donate some blood, no one can say, no, you can't do

that, you selfish hussy. No. No, they're not going to say that. You selfish hussy. You blood-doning scarlet woman. Hussy's a good word. Bring it back. Hussy. So, Jimmy Femawera was our guest this afternoon and he has made a new podcast.

Jane and I listened by coincidence. It's not because we share a brain by coincidence to the same episode with Stephen K Amos as the guest. And Jimmy has hit upon quite a brilliant way of asking people to talk about their cultural identity and their heritage. And the podcast is called Where's Home Really? We started by asking him a little something about why he had chosen that question as the title. Yeah, the podcast is called Where's Home Really? And it is an interview podcast, but it's an interview podcast that just goes straight for those conversations about culture, heritage, identity, where we're where we come from and why we are the people that we are kind of focusing mostly on people that just like me have got immigrant heritage, like kind of second or third or even sometimes first generation immigrants. And it's kind of digging into your kind of adoptive homelands, like where you live now,

but also where you actually feel like you most belong to in a weird way, like kind of looking at that overlap between the places that we feel we most identify with and that have shaped us into the people that we are. So that's it really. It kind of, I'd say that one of the things that I hope that we're getting and I hope that we're doing is that it's, it might be people that you're familiar with like Asma Khan and Stephen K

Amos and Big Zoo. But the conversations that I'm having with them, kind of untangling this knot of identity, are quite different to what you've heard them speaking about previously. And is the way that you phrased that question, Jimmy, to make it deliberately different from the where are you from but where are you really from all rolled into yeah yeah I think I think obviously that that is a very loaded phrase and question isn't it like where are you really from but that's ultimately it like you know we've kind of differentiated it in our title um where's home really but yeah it's kind of the same thing really it's kind of um uh and i don't know i guess i guess maybe one we wanted to kind of lean into you know the the spikiness of that question the

kind of it's it's obviously something that a lot of people are conscious of but i think also i think it's quite nice that it isn't the sort of very loaded phrase that, you know, especially recently has kind of like made headlines and is this quite charged emotional thing for people. Because the show and hopefully it feels like this is less about kind of being accusatory and more kind of just talking about all the different forms of identity that we all have and the different places that we call home. And I always try to make this point that, you know, in the same way we had Nihal from Radio 1, Arthur Nayaka, always good to meet somebody with an unpronounceable surname as well. I was really stumbling, which was making me feel bad about all the years that I probably expected people to just get on with my massive

syllables. But anyway, we're talking to him. And he was talking about being of Sri Lankan heritage, but so much of it was also about being Essex. And you know, he's living in Manchester now, he's lived there for quite a long time. And I'm just always fascinated in the degree to which, if we're in an environment far away from the ancestral motherland, whatever that may be, whether that's just like a part of the UK or a part of the world, that that kind of concentrates those traits and that version of yourself. Like Nihal was talking about becoming more Essex

when he encounters people that kind of are from the place that he's from and I just think that is endlessly fascinating to me. It is so you've got this clever conceit as well Jimmy the way that you that you run the podcast which is to ask your guests to define themselves and their connection with that kind of sense of home to do with a person, a place, a phrase and a plate. So can we play that with you? Would that be all right? Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah, we do. We do give them homework to do, which again, is always a bit, you know, it's always it's always a battle to get people for podcasts anyway. So, yeah, no, we can definitely play that that

handily I kind of have been giving one of my own ones at the start of each episode and of course you know we're quite a few episodes in now and so I've got like a deep bench of them um the person is probably the easiest that's probably my mum who is a figure that I reference a lot in my writing. She is hugely important to my relationship with food. And she is this, I remember describing her once as a kind of Nigerian Peggy Mitchell. And she kind of is like that. She's kind of diminutive, formidable, kind of, you know, the kind of the mob boss of our entire family, an incredible cook, an incredible force. And of course, as you get older, and I'm having

conversations with other people who often have, you know, parents who were migrants and struggled, like I'm realizing as I get older, and now that I'm a parent myself like how much she sacrificed and the amazing value she instilled in me and my brothers and also hugely importantly the pride that she gave me in you know in my Nigerian identity as well as my you know British identity as well like I was kind of I was never allowed to kind of stray too far away from it even even though I was a you know as many teenagers are you're looking to kind of sand off as many edges as possible and melding to the background when you say diminutive Jimmy just how tiny how tiny is your mom pretty tiny she's pretty tiny like I mean I mean obviously I'm I'm not the tallest but yeah she's I think like if i say that like my oldest my 10 year old is is getting close

is you know is is kind of is gaining on her as it were like you know as a in that way of uh the way size operates but yeah but but as i say like her i only mention her size because she's like such a sort of tireless titan and such a like force to be reckoned with as well she's um yeah she's uh like um i had my book out uh last year which is kind of a you know the podcast is almost a spiritual successor of the book it's called settlers it focuses on the black african diaspora predominantly west african diaspora in london and the uk like the kind of the world i'm from and at every one of my book tour events like she cooked despite me saying i don't know if you can even bring food here mom she brought food and you know within a few moments you know at the

end of those events she's essentially like taken over the whole thing that's directing people enlisting strangers to kind of help like carry these uh these amazing uh nigerian donuts called puff puff that it became the puff puff tour in in in all but name and that was down to her really um she'd be the person yeah she'd be the person um a phrase uh there's there's an amazing eurobell word that um uh in that way that we had with things like huger and uh you know there's all sorts of these um words that don't have a direct translation i don't think it has got a direct translation but i always think of it particularly in relation to my childhood. And it goes like this. It's called, it's Pele, Pele, like that. And it means, it kind of means sorry,

but it also is like just a consoling term that like a parent would use if you aren't feeling well or if something's not going your way or if you bash your knee. And it's kind of this, it's kind of this word that, yeah, it's kind of more than sorry in a weird way. It's kind of like, I understand,'s kind of more than sorry in a weird way it's kind of like I understand I feel your pain these things happen as is as is often the case with these words that that don't have a kind of direct uh translation they seem to like carry so much food ah I'm what's interesting is you you interview a lot of people and you get their choices

and of course you you think what your answers would be but then you also get informed and you almost change your mind based on what they come up with and what I've really liked it's not aired yet but we did an

episode with Andrew Wong the Michelin starred British Chinese chef. And a lot of his answers were related to his own family now, like the family he's built. And I think so often, you know, people, the way in which we kind of establish our own families and run our own households is is shaped by the way we were brought up and culture and religion and all these other things but it's also it can be a bit of a like indictment on like the way you were raised you can sort of be you can be sort of quite keen to do things differently and he was just talking about kind of learning the value of spending time with family from his wife and from his own children

now and I think my plate would probably be something that I associate with my own um wife and my two young kids and that would be pancakes um it's like a real Saturday ritual and I I've noticed that there's a lot of recipes that do this thing of saying oh we we've saved you the time of doing pancakes one at a time you can put them all in a big dish and put them in the oven and I think that is absolutely what I do not want from pancakes I like that they take time I like that they're methodical I think that's what makes them very special and very like meaningful and delicious and so I really take my time the kids are off somewhere I've got the paper out. I've got the radio on. It's a Saturday morning. I'm kind of running my own sort of little fantasy diner. And so Jimmy, sorry, I've got to stop here. Just on the grounds of feminism,

you sent your family away so you can make your own pancakes. They're for everyone else. I don't even eat the pancakes. No, pancakes no no no that is the thing i barely even get a look in i'm lucky if i get the scraggly first one that's been like warming in the oven no the the family gets sent away because i just well they don't get sent away they're just in other parts of the house because i you send them away we've established that i send them away i send them far away uh for the for the weekend because I really need to lock in to making these pancakes. No, the pancakes are very much for them. And I think that's what I love about it because it's but but I think maybe in, you know, in almost like armchair therapist style,

you've probably hit upon one of the secret facts that i really love about uh making that dish and that's because i am kind of left alone even though i'm doing something that that on the face of it is um is is generous and for the benefit of my family i also get some time to myself it's good to be honest it's very good to be honest you get some points back for that um listening to you talking about um all those associations with home and comfort and food it strikes me i'm sure all three of us in this conversation are fortunate people who grew up in homes where we are able to associate that place with happiness and security and food but have you ever come across people who just can't conjure up

a dish from their childhood because quite frankly there was nothing going on I mean there was very little provided yeah I think it's a really good point and I think obviously working in the world of food and restaurant criticism and you you know you read recipes and you live in this world of it being, you know, almost everybody having, there being a lot of assumed knowledge of what people's lives were like. And I think it's a really good point that for a lot of people, it was just kind of like convenience. And actually, to be fair, I talk about my childhood

and I talk about like my mum, like making us food. And I vividly remember she would kind of get home from from her work she worked in in central London we lived kind of on the edge of southeast London in Kent and she'd kind of without with barely breaking stride she'd get home and like make us dinner straight away like shuffle straight in and like you know that is definitely an occasion of wastrel sons not pulling their weight but but i also really do remember that a lot of it was convenience food like there wasn't kind of there wasn't always time and we were kind of grabbing what we could and a lot of it was you know clanking fish fingers or you know um yeah uh chicken nuggets

into like a tray and putting it in the oven or the king of the microwave. Yeah. The resentful clank of the woman who just got back from work and then has to start her other job. The hollow clank. Yeah. Yeah. Big time. So, yeah, I think I definitely there probably needs to be more people feeling like they can be upfront about that, because I think there is this feeling that food is the possession of people

that, you know, have got, you know, time to throw together some lavish Ottolenghi and feast and have got this kind of, and are reading books and are in this world where it was like, as you rightly say,

everyone has associations with food but they possibly aren't always the most kind of happy or kind of romanticized and you know we're seeing more and more that it can just be a bit of a burdensome thing for people and there needs to be more conversations about how unequal it is in a lot of ways. And you're right, we're the lucky ones if we've got kind of these positive associations with food. Can we talk about some of your other work too, Jimmy? And maybe ask some of the big questions. Would you agree that the celebration of high-end food has always had one cultural slant on it. That Michelin-starred type of food is about one particular way of cooking food.

It's kind of just European. It doesn't include anybody else's cultural diaspora at all. And it is fated, isn't it? And I wonder, coming at it with a different cultural heritage, whether you found that a bit offensive? Yeah, I would say that there are, it is an issue. There are attempts by bodies like Michelin and also other kind of arbiters of good taste, whoever they may be, to broaden it out, essentially. of good taste whoever they may be to to broaden it out essentially to kind of to push against this notion that you know french classical cooking and those established uh european regions culinary regions are the only places worth knowing about and the places that are continually rewarded

um i do think that you know you look at like even in london there's there's a there's a restaurant called akoyi that you know is it's its own thing now but it's it's west african in origin it's spicings and it's flavors there's jollof rice on its menu and that's got two michelin stars so that does show that there is this attempt to kind of broaden things out. But I think the issue probably is more to do with class and money, like more so than, you know, even though those cultural battles are still to be fought, I do think that there is, because these are businesses at the end of the day,

there is that top level where you do get, you know, experimental East Asian or Southeast Asianrican or mexican dishes but they're just in this inaccessible kind of uh like upper eerie of like you know wealth really and i think that that is that's that's interesting in the sense that it that it informs and inspires things that the rest of us eat in the kind of similar way to fashion that you have kind of couture at the top of it and then you have kind of high street uh lines that kind of um are shaped by that but i do think that we all know and i definitely feel it like as somebody coming from a background that you know I didn't grow up with a kind of like

restaurant going culture and I come at it from what I'd hope is a very sort of like quite ordinary place or a place that speaks to like people that haven't necessarily been been part of the conversation for a long time and it does inform the restaurants I'm especially interested in the ones that I want to champion the ones that I want to kind of give a chance and i think that there's more of it but there needs there needs to be more still uh done in that in that school jimmy we've only got you for a couple of minutes longer so can we can we do a quick fire round with you please yeah go on what's the daftest thing that you've ever been uh asked to eat in a restaurant i mean i have eaten ants no yeah i have eaten i have eaten ants they they um they have like a kind of a citrusy

pop and they were like from kent i think it was ridiculous oh well that's fine yeah as long as they're kent ants brilliant should should anything ever be fermented oh it's a tricky one isn't it because i think fermented has become such a cliche but that is where flavor comes from like so many of the things that that we love and that umami which is another cliche does come from things being uh fermented and having that time to kind of steep and uh pickle and uh gain flavor so yeah it's it's maybe we need a new word for it have you ever been served something on masterchef that you thought was truly terrible because you're a very nice guy you've gone along with it and said, you know, that it's really fabulous, but it just hasn't worked on the day or something like that.

You have, haven't you? I always try to accentuate the positive. But having said that, as we're talking, I'm remembering, I think it was an ice cream with tobacco in it. And I just could not see why they had flavoured an ice cream like an ashtray. It made no sense and it's still haunting me to this day. Brilliant. And do you think you could ever have a fusion too far?

I mean, if you had something that was kind of, you know, Balkan-Scottish-Pacific tie, do we need those? Does everything always work? I sort of am up for it because again to go back to the podcast i think that there are so many untold stories of people having mixed heritage mixed identities people of one culture working with the kind of the larder of whatever's available in one country and even though fusion is kind of like, you know, it's the kind of the F word that all critics kind of really hate. I'm sort of up for it.

If it's good, if it's delicious, I'm kind of into it. Jimmy Famuera was our guest this afternoon. It was very lovely talking to him. Who knew that Kent had fine ants? Fine ants? Oh, fine ants. And we also had a great guest Towards the end of the show today

Toby Yes Toby the gardener Toby Buckland Talking about gardening And about slugs And I don't know whether We've got any slug fans listening

But I've never I've actually been quite spooked by slugs When I've come across them in the garden Because there's something Genuinely otherworldly about them Isn't there they're really quite vile to look at and to see them slithering and slopping around really does slightly more than frighten me I just think they're alien type creatures but his suggestion that you could drown them in beer did seem quite brutal I think a lot of gardeners have been doing that for a long time.

Have they really? I just didn't know. Put a bucket of beer out and the snails and the slugs crawl into it. And I think you're slightly deluding yourself if you think that that is a humane way to go, although who knows. Somebody in Kent should start breeding ants and actually give it the company name of Fine Ants. Get it? I do of Fine Ants. Get it? I do, yeah.

No. Well, that, ladies and gentlemen, was the tumbleweed of a close friendship. I do get it. I mean, no, it's clever. Right, our guest tomorrow is Mel Gedroych. Oh, I can't wait to see her.

Come in now, Mel, come in now. I think finance is great. Yes, yes, it's not bad. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us.

And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener. I know, ladies. A lady listener. I know, sorry.