The Netmums Podcast - S1 Ep63: Gino D’Acampo on raising good men

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Listen as Annie and Wendy chat to Gino D'Acampo about how he’s raising his kids to avoid the mistakes he made as a younger man, plus Gino shares his no nonsense approach to dealing with fussy eaters! Gino's new family cooking book, Gino’s Italian Family Adventure: Easy Recipes the Whole Family will Love by Gino D’Acampo (published by Bloomsbury), £22, photography by Haarala Hamilton, is out now!

You're listening to Sweat, Snot and Tears, brought to you by Netmums. I'm Annie O'Leary. And I'm Wendy Gollage. And together we talk about all of this week's sweaty, snotty and tearful parenting moments. With guests who are far more interesting than we are. Welcome to another episode of Sweat, Snot and Tears. It is chaos in both of our houses as we record this episode. That sounds quite Shakespearean actually. So expect lots of unexpectedness today. i've got two seven year old girls here on a play date i actually have no idea what they're doing if they're still

alive at the end it'll be a miracle wendy i have got six children under the age of 10 six adults quite a lot of alcohol going around and it's just all gonna go to pot quite frankly who is gonna be the worst behaved the six adults or the six kids no question the adults right so I think today's guest though this is the good news quite likes a bit of chaos so I think we're gonna be alright I think we're gonna to be all right. I think we're going to be in safe hands. Please, will you welcome Mr. Gino De Campo. Hey, buongiorno. Buongiorno. How are we doing?

Come stai? Good, how are you? Oh, no, we can do this in Italian. Se vuoi parlare in italiano, parliamo in italiano per tutta l'intervista. Per me non è un problema. If we were ordering drinks, I could probably do it. But we're not. Oh, I could probably do it. But we're not. Oh, come on, come on.

You started well when you say, come stai? I try, I try. And I can say, molto bene, grazie. Tu come stai? And then I sort of get a bit lost and don't know what to say. It's over. Sorry, I've let you down. No, ladies, how are we doing? Because I hear that there is a lot of chaos in your house at the moment Much chaos

But we're recording this lovely listeners On a Friday afternoon So this lovely man Is keeping us from the bar that is our kitchen And I'm going to ask you Gino First up Have there been any sweaty, snotty or teary moments In the De Campo household today?

No, absolutely not. You sound surprised. No, no, no, don't sound surprised. It doesn't usually happen. We don't have a very chaotic house here. Our house seems to be pretty much quiet. Everybody does their own thing, well organised. I'm very lucky. Everybody does their own thing well organized I'm very lucky everybody does their own thing which is quite cool but you've got three kids what's the secret yes I think the secret is probably their age difference

Luciano is 19 so he does his own thing you never you never see me you never hear him. Rocco, sometimes you hear the music going. He's 16 and then Mia, she's nine. But Mia, she has a place in the house where she goes and she can make as much noise as possible and nobody hears. So it's all good. That does sound good. I think we might have to invest in one of those, Wendy.

So one of my first questions is what language do you speak at home mr campo do you all speak italian to each other oh i wish we could i my wife jessica always says to me that i'm to blame for the fact that my children don't talk italian now they understand italian a lot uh my children but they don't talk because they're not confident enough although we are doing lesson uh at the moment my wife she talks english and italian both language quite well uh and i'm i just about talk a little bit of english and italian of course but i think the the problem that I had is when I had children, I had my first child when I was 24 years old and I was very very busy. You were a baby! I was a

baby yeah, I was a baby. I got married very early and I wanted to have children very quickly because I just wanted to be a young father. I never wanted to be a young father. I never wanted to be an old father. So I wanted children early. And I never had the time to actually teach them or whenever I used to come back home late at night, I really didn't want to be the guy talking another language and then I have to explain what it means. I was tired, they were tired.

So the timing was wrong, although it's not an excuse, but the timing for me was wrong when they grew up. So I always spoke to them in English and now I regret. Now actually is the time where I try to talk to them more in Italian than I ever did before. And do they like it when you do? Not always. Not always because most of the time I start to talk Italian

and they just go to me, you talk too fast and we have no idea what you just said so I have to repeat things slowly. But I'll try my best. Now that I'm less busy, I've got more time, I'm putting more effort. Let's put it this way. Well, I'm going to delve deep into your murky past, Gino.

I'm going to go back. It's not always been uncomplicated, your past. Annie's been doing some research and sending me snippets about things you got up to. And I was shocked, Gino. So how open and honest with your kids are you about your past? We know you had some time in prison for burglary for example. Do you talk to them about it or do you steer clear of it and are you going to tell them to shut up?

No, no, no, no. I talk to them about it because it's private things between me and them. They know the situation about my past, but apart from that, I don't really, we don't really ever talk about it. It's something that happened so many years ago, it's completely gone, it's like another life. Yeah, but does it make it easier to parent teens if they kind of if they know that you've made mistakes too because Wendy and I our eldest are each 10 so we're getting very nervous about the teens and all the wildness and the craziness and how we're going to manage it I think in some ways it's more it's easier if you're upfront and honest about the mistakes that you made do you think that that's how it's worked for you?

I think that's how it should work for everybody. If you're always honest with your kids, and I've always been, and tell them some of the path why they shouldn't go down that path, because I've been there, I've done that, and I was probably lucky to come out. I think children, sometimes we overprotect them. We think that there's little cutie things we can tell them anybody. They're quite tough. And they're clever.

Don't you think they listen more than you think as well? Oh my God, of course they do. Of course, and also they're very interested. You know, when one of the parents talk, most of the time, if you get them at the right time, they're very interested. They're less interested if you're saying, oh, bedtime or we'll go and have a bath they're not bloody interested then well depending depending how you say because if you say it's bedtime but

you don't mean it which many of us sometimes do true then they pick up on that. But if I say it's bedtime and I mean it, well, it's over. It's bedtime. Okay, teach us how to say it like we mean it, Gino. How do you say it with meaning? I think it's not the way you say it. It's the way you look in their eyes when you say it. Okay. You know, we all been guilty.

We say something, but really we don't, but really, we don't really mean it or we don't really want that to happen because we may want ourselves another 15 minutes of cuddles with them. Yeah. But when, I think we need to, they know when you mean it. Say it like you mean it.

Say it like you mean it and look into their eyes and make sure that they know you mean it and everything's going to be okay. Okay we're going to try that tonight aren't we Wendt? I might have had a glass of wine I might not be able to do it by then. Yeah I mean don't don't do it like you know don't do it when you're completely pissed no that is not going to work. So what would you do if your teens were I don't know if you were worried they were falling in with the wrong crowd or that they weren't quite being true to themselves? How would you parent then?

Oh, I don't know the answer. I don't know because my son Luciano is a really good man. He's the kind of guy that goes to war. You're going to make me cry now, Gino. That's such a lovely thing to say about your son. He's a good man. He's the kind of guy that works very hard. His head is in the right place. He knows what is right and what is wrong. I'm sure he's going to make a mistake in his life,

but he's not going to make the stupid one that I've made because he knows that that was stupid. And he's definitely not definitely not gonna he's clever enough not to be able to do that uh the other one pretty much the same is still a bit too young he's 16. they're gonna try a little bit of drinking they're gonna try a little bit of things that we all tried when we were teenagers just let it go and make sure that you keep telling them that this is not the way to do it but you can't stop them to try otherwise they're going to be more curious than ever it's true i think don't encourage them but neither be one of these parents that is going to be on their neck every two seconds they you know funny enough i believe that any teenagers know what is wrong

what is right and what is wrong uh is's only a question are they going to push their luck too much to try what is wrong and see what's going to happen or they're not. Do you think you parent Mia differently? Do you think you're different with a girl than you are with the boys? I don't think so. I don't think so. Not yet. She's only, she's going to be 10 very soon. Not yet. I've always been, believe it or not, because not many people then, unless they see me parenting, they believe what I say because I run a house with rules. Probably because I had a restaurant for many, many years. So for me, the restaurant has always been following the rules. Yeah.

Keep the restaurant clean, so it's the same thing with the house. I hate when my house is messy, when they put dirt all over the place. We never seen toys around the house. Whenever they play, they always put the toys back. When we eat at the table eat at the table is always everybody need you to move in with me gino can you come and whip my family into shape please as i always said to my wife i was always and still i am today i'm always up for a fight so i'm always up for a fight i don't care with the home if it's my wife if it's my children if it's my daughter because I think

I think the extra fight that I'm having today they pay off tomorrow oh pays off in the long run yes

yes yes and it's happening you know most of the time when kids are bad behaving it's pretty much our fault

we can't be bothered to have the fight we can't be bothered to always argue I can and they know that so I love that much our fault we can't be bothered to have the fight we can't be bothered to to always argue i can and they know that so i love that attitude they know that i mean for a fight so they give up very quickly because they just go no this is never gonna end so they may as well say sorry yeah which is quite cool dad's gonna win not worth the man i'm gonna go and stir up some trouble

tonight and see if it works. Yeah. You know, when people say you need to pick your fight. No, no, no, no, no. Take every fight. One by one. One after the other. Take all of them. You have to write a parenting book all about being prepared to fight.

Lessons for Life by Gino De Campo. Lessons for Parenting. You know when people, they say, they talk to me about fussy children with food? Oh, yes. I was going to ask you about this. What do you do? Well, ask me. Go on.

Okay. Ask me what do I think. What do you think? What do you think about fussy eaters? There is no such a thing as a fussy child. There is no such a thing. It's created by the parents. No, there is no such a thing as a child, but there is a thing of modern parenting. Right. Did

you say modern or moron? No, no, moron. Moron. Moron. I mean, idiots. I thought you did. Great. Idiot parenting. Idiots, morons. I don't know what to say. I mean, you know, a child that doesn't grow up fussy. It's not possible. It's the parents that they can't be bothered to fight. They can't be bothered to have the argument at the table. They can't be bothered to see their children go to bed without having any food. I can.

Okay, so let's say a four-year-old comes to tea at Mr. De Campo's and you put a plate of beautiful, I don't know, ravioli down and he says, no, I don't like ravioli, I only like spaghetti. What do you say? Don't eat the ravioli, it's fine. Finito. So Mia would be at the table not eating anything. Of course, if you're not hungry because you're not having the ravioli, that means you can't eat anything. We finish finish off eating she will go to bed without food

and guess tomorrow morning instead of a milk and complex what she's going to find on the table gino you wouldn't you wouldn't give her the ravioli back. Seriously. The same ravioli that they were there last night. Oh, Gino, you're tough. You only have to do it once. And would they eat it? Of course.

Well, of course they will eat it because what they don't want is to have the same ravioli at dinner time when they come back. True. He's got a point. You only have to do it once. You only have to do it once. You only have to do it once. So, you know, not that I'm comparing a dog with a child,

for God's sake. But, you know, it's the same thing when you have, like, a little puppy. You only have to tell him off and pretend to smack him a couple of times, not to do the wee on the floor. And then eventually he's not going to do a wee on the floor. He's going call you to go outside that's it it's same same thing okie dokes this is the Gino method of parenting that is not to be messed with right here oh yeah but it clearly works because he says his kids are nice kids yeah and and it works for me it works for me really

really beautifully and as I said you need to have, though, at least one of the parents who's in for every fight. That will help. Now, when you were growing up, was your dad like this? We saw you, I think, was it this week, getting weepy on TV, visiting your dad's grave? Yes, obviously, yeah, on the new show. Do you think you parent like your dad or do you do it quite differently? No. My father was the opposite of what I am.

My father couldn't care less of things going on around the house. He was always happy and joyful around the house. He didn't care if the things were dirty or things were in the wrong place. But my mother, oh, my mother, she was a military lady. This might be where you get it from gino that 100 i get this from my mom yeah but i think she was right i think she was absolutely right i i wouldn't change anything that my mom did to bring me up because now i can do my own ironing i can do my own cooking i can do my own cleaning i can can run a house pretty much by myself with no help from anyone.

I think you can do the cooking. I think we can probably agree you're all right. Yeah, I'll tell you what, if you see me ironing, I'm the master of the iron. Are you a better ironer than a cook? Oh, impossible to compare. I can say probably I'm more precise on the ironing than cooking. Oh, interesting. I can tell you that. Now, Gino, where did the love of cooking come from then?

Is that Mama de Campo or Papa de Campo? None of the two. Oh. Mama de Campo, she was okay at cooking. She used to do about five or six great dishes. One of them was spaghetti vongole and risotto with seafood. Oh, vongole is my favorite. Oh, awesome.

Apart from that, she didn't really have a big kind of repertoire as far as cooking is concerned. My father was rubbish at cooking. Couldn't cook to save his life. Not even a seriously, not even a fried egg he couldn't do. Absolutely rubbish. The passion came from my grandfather, Nonno Giovanni,

which was my mum's dad. He used to be a chef. He used to have a restaurant. And when I used to bunk off school, I used to go to the restaurant and help him out. Sensible place to go if you're going to bunk off school. And it obviously worked. You learned something there. Yes.

The reason why I learned cooking, because I remember I used to watch him in the restaurant. And my grandfather was always surrounded by ladies. Oh, Gino. the restaurant and my grandfather was always surrounded by ladies oh gino ladies you know guests or ladies that they used to work in the restaurant and i used to watch him and i used to think hey this is awesome i think i'm gonna become a chef so then all the girls they want to talk to me and that's what happened and is that how you got together with your wife yes when we were 17 years old i i went to spain to work and i used to be the chef she used to be the waiter and she used to use one of the fridges that i used to use in the kitchen to put the butter in there for the tables and i used to go there for my for the meat so we

used to meet about four or five times a day and eventually uh we fell in love in the meat fridge you know yeah so romantic gina you fell in love in the meat fridge tell me more i need this story in full please well she used to put the butter there. So it was a walking fridge. I used to keep all my meat and the chicken and everything there. She used to put the butter and, you know, you go there once,

you go there twice. I think on, after the first week, we kind of accidentally locked ourselves into the meat fridge. Gino. Let's put it this way. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Wow. And it was cold. I remember it was cold. Okay. We won't go any further than that. No, no, no. If it's a meat fridge, I remember it was cold. Yeah.

Right. Changing the subject. What's next for Gino De Campo what projects have you got on the what are you tackling what are your new challenges okay right now I've got a few projects that I'm tackling please don't get me wrong I'm not I'm not trying to plug anything or anything like that but just because you asked me um i got four new restaurant that i'm building for next year okay so uh i'm actually quite focused on those restaurants that where are they going to be uh one is going to be malta one is going to be in mil. One is going to be... Milano. Milano. You're right.

One is going to be in Manchester. Great. And one is going to be near Bristol or Sheffield. One of the two. I haven't decided yet.

So that's my... How are you going to choose? How are you going to choose? I don't know. It depends who's going to give me a better offer on the deal of the premises

to be honest. Nowadays it's all about trying to get good premises with not very high rent. The restaurant business has suffered quite a lot, so we need to be very careful now. So that's my next big thing. Then I'm working with my daughter Mia on a range of ready meal for children. Ah, tell us about them. Well, I'm designing this range with my daughter. This range comes from Italy. So we are doing a range tomorrow with no preservatives,

no added flavor, no funny colors or anything like that. Literally, we go to Italy. There is a big kitchen where we work with. We cook them, we we freeze them and we send them in the uk straight away so whatever we cook there you just have to put in the oven and it's going to be just seriously just like the way you would cook at home that sounds fantastic yeah because at the moment i don't know if you know but i got a quite a big range of product in asda yeah i know it's in asda yeah where i have all my meals the

pizzas and ingredients and all of that so uh i'm actually adding my daughter's meal range next year will happen probably about april time so you're quite busy then he's very busy yeah i'm writing a new cookbook for next year. So at the moment I'm trying recipes. We are working on the new Gordon, Gene and Fred, the new show

that we're going to go next year. That looks like so much fun to do that show. Yeah. Is it just a total bum fight the whole time? I mean, to be honest with you, it's a lot of fun to do that.

It's one of those shows that we we go nobody knows what we're doing we usually have far too many drinks we stay up we stay out far too long in the middle of the night so can we come it sounds brilliant you know voicing now you make me say something that i didn't want to say to two ladies go Go on. It's a boys' trip. It's a boys' trip. I cannot invite girls into a boys' trip. You wouldn't invite a man into a girls' night out, would you?

Well, we might ask you because you're nice. Although, actually, you know, I would really like that. I prefer to have a chat with women than with men, generally. Do you? Why do you think that is? Oh, because men are boring. Why are men boring? I find them boring, most of the men that I talk to. They talk about the same thing all the time.

If it's not cars, it's about aeroplanes. If it's not aeroplanes, it's about how big their boat is. If it's not about the boat is about something else you know women are much more interesting i find and what do we talk about i'm glad you said boat there by the way um boats yes seriously you two stop it it's not me it's wendy i know it's always wendy i said both and wendy things about i don't know what she's thinking about it it's always me but listen i want to know why you think girls are more interesting because they're more clever because they're more clever women I find women who I found it's a fact that women are more clever than men

so it's very interesting and what I love about women is completely it's completely opposite way way than men think so if you are a man like me I find interesting to learn about women so then I can I can win it's all about the fights again it's all about a fight again see see we're going back to the fuck my wife always says to me how the hell we always have a fight and you always have to always seems to come on top of this fight because I talk with a lot of women and I learn the secret of how to win the fight. Tell us, what is the secret? No, if I tell you,

then no woman is going to want to talk to me anymore. No, that is my secret. If I can give one suggestion to every man, don't waste your time to talk to men, talk to women. You're going to learn much more in life. Okay, now I can see there's a relationship book coming as well right now when we get near the end of the podcast we always ask

the same two questions first up from me and i hope the answer is you and not i'm sorry the question is why i've twisted it around is are you cooking tea and what are you cooking? Tonight I'm not cooking tea. Why not? No, because tonight I'm having fish and chips. Oh, I can't imagine you eating fish and chips. Yes, no, no, no. I like to have fish and chips once a week.

Always on a Friday? Always on a Friday night. And what will your order be? Will you have cod and chips, scampi, battered sausage? No, no, no. What are you going to have, Gino? No, no, no. I like small cod and chips. I like my chips to be cooked well done because I like them well cooked. Then I get a pot of mushy peas. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. I get one pickled egg. Oh. Awesome. I don't know who invented that recipe, okay? Why would you pickle a boiled egg?

But whoever invented, genius. Absolutely genius. Because it doesn't taste like an egg at all. The only thing you taste is vinegar, to be honest. But it's quite a cool thing to eat because it's rubbery. I eat it like a bush tucker trial i eat it with always with my thinking what the hell am i eating here so uh i always buy that as a as a kind of an experience like an endurance just to get you you know people they eat chilies

because they they kind of say i want to see how much how much spice i can get out of this chili that's what i do with my pickled boiled egg oh dear i'm absolutely weeping gino you're gonna have to try you go have you ever tried one i have i grew up in wiltshire pickled eggs were a big thing in wiltshire i've had many a pickle do you get them in it Italy or is it just an English thing? No, no, please. If this podcast goes to Italy, it doesn't, does it? No, because if Italian people are going to find out

that I, Gino D'Acampo, would consider to eat a pickled boiled egg, my reputation is over, yeah? Girls, don't laugh. My reputation will be over. So this stays between three of us and another few other people that are listening, but don't start to spread rumours that I like pickled boiled eggs.

This is our little secret. Your secret is safe. Thank you. You're a lover of the pickled egg. Thank you. Right, Wendy, last question over to you. Oh, God. I'm dreading this question.

Well, this could go one of two ways, quite honestly, couldn't it? I think I can guess which way it's going to go. So, you have to imagine that you are tucking Annie and I into bed. In a nice way. But we can't sleep. One second. I'm tucking you and Annie into bed yeah I'm imagining but we can't sleep Gino so you've got to sing us the lullaby that you used to sing your kids

when they couldn't sleep oh wow so you can't sleep and now you want me to sing and that's how you want me to put two ladies into bed by singing yeah please sorry can i ask you now a question i will answer to your question but why would gino put two ladies into bed and want them to sleep make them to sleep should we not i don't know ever some kind of jokes going around or having some chats after we've had the chat and the jokes we're gonna need to go to sleep and it's the song that you're gonna sing us to help us go to sleep that we need you to sing please oh god i'm guessing that you didn't sing to your children i'm guessing. I'm guessing that maybe you fed them ravioli. No, see, the problem is that I sang to my

children the same song and it's an Italian song. I don't want to admit that because, well, I've just did. I didn't want to admit that because now you're going to force me to sing. We are. Okay, let me try. Remember, I haven't done this for

me as she's nine, so i used to sing well i did about three four years ago so okay let's see if i remember the word this is in italian okay okay and it goes like that Sei così piccolo e quasi, ho paura di svegliarti. E tu sei lì che mi guardi, mi stai chiedendo qualcosa. Non ti capisco, ma forse non è poi così importante. And then he goes on and on and on and on. I think that's beautiful. What does it mean, Gino?

This is an Italian singer who wrote a song for his child. And he's hoping that this child would have a happy life just the same way that he did, really. That's the story. Well, it's very sweet. Thank you so much for singing it to us. Are you asleep yet? Well, we've relaxed and calmed down a bit, haven't we, Wendy, after all the hilarity?

I've stopped giggling, so that's a plus. I literally had to take my jumper off. I came over all funny. Now, I think we'd better leave you to go and get that pickled egg, Gino. Oh, we've got time. It's still early. No, we've got time for you to go and get that pickled egg, Gino. Oh, we got time. It's still early. No, we got time for that. It's okay. It's not pickled egg time yet. Don't rush me. The pickled egg comes about nine. Oh, that's very late to eat, Gino. No, because I like to eat my fish and chips at 8.30. Okay. In my house, we eat two times. We eat 8 o'clock Monday to Thursday,

and then we eat 8.30 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Okay. Why do you change it? Well, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Yeah. Because we stay a little bit late at the table because Mia doesn't have to go to school the day after. Okay.

Well, that makes sense. I like that you have all these rules. You said you had rules and you clearly do have rules. Oh yes, I do. Anything else from you, Wend? Wend, are you still hot? It's not often, Gino, that I am rendered utterly speechless.

That's what I asked my husband. This is a first. I'm done. It's time to go and have some wine, Gino. That's what it is. It's wine time. Time to get drunk. Yes, that's a good plan. I like that. It's time to go and have some wine, Gino. That's what it is. It is. It's wine time. Time to get drunk. Yes, that's a good plan. I like that. I like that. Right. Thank you so much, Mr. Gino De Campo. You've been absolutely fabulous. Thank you very much. And I'm going to send you both a very big kiss. Oh, thank you. Grazie mille. Ciao, Gino. Ciao, ciao, ciao. Bye-bye.