Bonus: Declan Kelly On Going Vegetarian

0:00Speaker 1:Ruthie's Table four presented by Sky fifteen. What was the path of vegetarian? Was there one or did you just how did that happen? Because that's very young to make it.

0:17Speaker 2:In Ireland at the time, I think there were two vegetarians, but the other one I think he probably died of starvation, so I was left on my own. So, yeah, no, no vegetarians in Ireland in the in the seventies and eighties, that was a tough station, let.

0:31Speaker 1:Me tell you.

0:31Speaker 2:But now, of course it's you can have anything you want. But yeah, one day I just stopped liking red meat. And you know, it wasn't squeamishness. I mean, I've I've been to abbaturs, and I've grew up in a farm and had to kill animals and had to you know, I've I've seen you know, I've seen it. Not squeamish at all. Just didn't like the taste of red meat, couldn't process it. And then eventually that that went on too chicken, and then it went on to fish. And then one day I announced at the family table that I was no longer going to eat meat, and my father asked me if I was feeling okay, and I said, yeah, I'm feeling fine, and he wasn't quite convinced, but in any event, he let me do it. And yeah, since that day, I've never tasted me.

1:13Speaker 3:I've never had it again.

1:14Speaker 2:Never.

1:14Speaker 1:Yeah, and did you adapt with the other vegetables. There was a bounty of vegetables and beans and whatever.

1:24Speaker 2:And as you get older, you get smarter and you realize what you really need and what your body needs and so on and so forth. But that was not my intention when I stopped. I had no idea. I just stopped because I like.

1:34Speaker 1:We did an interview with Paul McCartney, and of course I would say that he kind of made vegetarian sexy because he and Linda said, you know, rock and roll, but we're not even They became very serious.

1:45Speaker 3:I was once there was a restaurant called Cranks, which was here. Do you remember that.

1:49Speaker 1:I remember when I first met Richard, So that must have been in the late sixties.

1:53Speaker 3:I was here and we went to have lunch. I've never told this story.

1:57Speaker 1:And we went to have lunch in Cranks, and uh, I was so happy to see him. I was so in love, and you know, my arms were around him and I was sitting on his lap and we were, you know, just having the best, best time. And a woman came over to a table and she said, I've been watching you two, and uh, you know that was a nineteen sh I've been watching you too, and I think what you're doing is appalling. It is so embarrassing and so impolite and so rude.

2:24Speaker 3:But that you should be doing it in a vegetarian restaurant makes it really bad horror. But that was the symbol of.

2:34Speaker 1:You know, until till McCartney's, until people start young people started being vegetarian, and it was very much a feeling that.

2:41Speaker 3:It was not fun to be a vegetarian. You couldn't have a good time, you couldn't you know, eat well.

2:47Speaker 1:And that I think that has changed so much now it's the opposite. How do you find it now? Other countries that are harder. Somebody told me France is harder.

2:57Speaker 2:Yea, France is hard because you know when you go there. France and Spain I find are particularly difficult if you're a vegetarian. Yeah, very meat centric.

3:06Speaker 3:Yeah.

3:07Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know Italy I love.

3:09Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I'm at home, That's why I.

3:12Speaker 2:Love the River Cafee, and you know, I love Indian food, and tonight we're going for dinner in an Indian restaurant. And you know, but you know, now it doesn't matter, but back then it was.

3:24Speaker 3:Now I mean, now, vegan now.

3:27Speaker 2:Hard?

3:28Speaker 1:Do you take?

3:28Speaker 3:Facan?

3:29Speaker 2:Is hard? I like my dairy, I like cheese, yeah, but it's hard, and that's a real commitment. My favorite restaurants in America, I believe it or not, are steakhouses, even though I've been a vegetarian for forty two years, because they have the best vegetables. And I don't know why, but some of my favorite restaurants are actually steakhouses.

3:49Speaker 3:And what are the vegetables? I have just all different ones, you.

3:52Speaker 2:Know, they have anything that's going, but always have a big potato.

3:56Speaker 3:What's the food like at home?

3:58Speaker 2:I'm very fortunate. My wife is a great cook and her mom, my wife, is Russian, and she came to America in nineteen ninety one, actually on the day of the coup, completely coincidentally, and her parents came the year later, and I knew nothing about Russian food. And I showed up in their apartment in Brooklyn having just met Julia, and I was introduced to you know, pilmeny and perro ghee and you know borsch and you know, some of the most amazing Russian food. And now that's become a part of my wet all kinds of food. But you know, one of my friends, it's Russian Easter coming up very soon, and I can't wait to go and have my mother in law's Russian food because she makes incredible Russian Easter cake and you know all the she paints the eggs by hand. And you know, my kids are now eighteen and fifteen, we still sit there and we isolate who's getting on eggs. We picked them all apart, and we tell stories about why the egg was decorated that way.

5:04Speaker 2:Of course, as you've proven a thousand times, food brings you a thousand stories. And so Easter in Russia of course is super important. And yeah, so I'm very lucky and.

5:15Speaker 1:Your daughter and both children are the great kids.

5:20Speaker 2:And when he was younger, my mother would always sort of pack my luncheon. We used to get up early in the morning because we would milk the cows before we go to school, and you'd go and feed them in the winter in the dark and bring hay, and my father would already be gone to work somewhere else. My mother would probably be milking the cows before she went to another job. And so you'd bring in the cattle, then you'd feed them, then you'd come and have breakfast, and then you'd cycle to the bus to go to school.

5:44Speaker 2:It's always like sounds like