Rick Stein says surviving open heart surgery has made him simplify the way he cooks for his new book. And watching the next generation cut corners in the kitchen has been the biggest lesson… the way the young cook is bewildering

• READ MORE:  A very candid Mary Berry reveals a few secrets… and the comfort she takes believing she’ll be reunited with the child she lost

Rick Stein has been under the knife and was afraid he might not survive. ‘It was scary before I went into the operation,’ says the chef, talking for the first time about his open heart surgery last year. 

‘Afterwards you realise if you had died you wouldn’t have noticed, because you were under the anaesthetic.’

When he came round at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, the 76-year-old had a revelation that he says has changed his life and his work. ‘I started thinking hard about how I live and how we cook. I want to simplify things.’

His post-op philosophy is outlined in a new book called Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers, full of intimate essays as well as brilliant recipes. 

‘An operation like that stops you in your tracks and makes you think about who you are,’ Rick says. ‘It’s time to review your life. You’ve been through a very life-threatening experience. 

Rick Stein (pictured) has been under the knife and was afraid he might not survive. ‘It was scary before I went into the operation,’ says the chef, talking for the first time about his open heart surgery last year

‘The surgeon says it’s no more dangerous than the appendix these days, but to have your heart taken out, repaired and put back in, personally I’d say that’s big!’

There was no alternative for a chef who has loved the good life, including lashings of butter, cream and wine in his cooking and travel shows. 

‘I had a valve in my heart that had to be replaced because it wasn’t working properly. It was getting worse and worse. The cardiologist finally said, “You’re gonna have to have the op.”’

How much did it hurt afterwards? ‘Your lungs are sort of flattened during the process. They don’t want a build-up of horrid stuff, so they make you cough. It must be like childbirth, it’s so painful.’

Even so, he was reluctant to help himself. ‘I think it’s a British thing. I don’t like making a fuss,’ says Rick in the gentle burr viewers find so soothing, influenced by his half a century in Cornwall. 

‘They give you morphine which is self-induced, you pump the drugs when the pain is getting intolerable. I stopped, though. 

‘This Aussie nurse came up to me and said, “How come you’re not using it?” And I said, “Well, you know, it’s morphine.” She said, “Do you think you’re gonna get addicted? Don’t be such a fool! Just use it.”’

Rick looks well enough today, though, and he’s happily chatting about his wife Sarah, or Sas, and her son and daughter, who are in their 20s. ‘I’m on my second wife, I’ve been married to Sas for how many years? I should remember, 23?’

Er, the wedding was in 2011 actually, although they met back in 1997 when he was on tour in Australia. She was a publicist, 20 years his junior. Rick was married. 

‘My stepchildren, who I’ve known ever since they were tiny, are a second family. Zach and Olivia came into the ward with a present so I knew they were pleased to see me. 

‘But I remembered visiting a poorly aunt when I was young and thought that if I was them, I really wouldn’t know what to say after a while. So about a quarter of an hour in I said, “Do you know, I’m feeling a bit tired. I wonder if you’d mind going.”’ 

When he came round at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London , the 76-year-old (pictured) had a revelation that he says has changed his life and his work. ‘I started thinking hard about how I live and how we cook. I want to simplify things.’

He chuckles. ‘They said later that it was the best thing I could have done. It works for everyone concerned.’

Rick’s middle-aged sons Edward, Jack and Charlie help run his business empire and their mother Jill, his first wife, still has a stake too. 

Being alone in hospital meant there was plenty of time to think – and of course he thought about food. 

‘It was slightly morphine-induced because I was so drugged,’ he jokes, but in the introduction to Simple Suppers Rick says that the catalyst was an unexpectedly great meal at the hospital.

‘The night before the operation they brought me a haddock fillet seasoned with salt and cracked black pepper, then lightly fried, served with a dressing of olive oil, thinly sliced spring onions, diced roasted red peppers, lemon juice and, I swear, a touch of soy sauce. It was divine and so simple. Who said hospital food was so terrible?’

Hang on, was this an NHS hospital? ‘Yes, but I was on an insurance job.’ 

So he was eating from the private menu, which must be very different from the awful experience so many NHS patients across the country complain about – although it must be said the Royal Brompton has won awards for the food it serves to patients of all kinds.

‘I was thinking, “I could write something about how great hospital food is now.” Then I woke up, completely bamboozled with drugs. I had chosen roast lamb and mint sauce for lunch, but it was terrible,’ he says, grimacing. 

The lamb was so overcooked it stuck to the roof of his mouth, the mint sauce was gummy with flour. In contrast, his mental juices started flowing. ‘I thought, “How did they get this so wrong? What do we cook at home?”’

Rick became emotional at the memory of simple childhood dinners, as well as the meal he’d enjoyed on the eve of theatre. 

‘Having a major operation and surviving it induces mixed feelings of pain and euphoria,’ he writes in the book. 

‘I decided there and then, light-headedly, to write a cookbook about simple food and how to concentrate on doing simple dishes, like that haddock.’

The chef’s post-op philosophy is outlined in a new book called Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers, full of intimate essays as well as brilliant recipes. Pictured, Rick and his wife Sarah

His definition of simple is to keep the number of ingredients down, use things you might have in the fridge or freezer or can get easily in a supermarket, and cut preparation time. 

‘Ideally, no dish should take more than an hour,’ he says, and some are far quicker. 

‘I’ve tried to find simpler ways to make complicated dishes. I’ve made fish pie simpler by using shop-bought pastry rather than mash. Instead of making a proper béchamel sauce I use cornflour and stock, which works a treat.’

He speaks like a man who has had an epiphany about his own work. ‘There are so many really pointless processes, like frying your onions, garlic and chillies separately. 

‘A lot of the time there is no difference if you do them together. I look at some of my early recipes and think, “How could I have been so stupid?” So I’ve cut out my own verbosity.’

Rick is also taking lessons from what he calls ‘the bewildering way the young cook these days’. 

He means his stepdaughter Olivia, who fills her cupboards with ready-made pastes, sauces and pre-chopped ingredients, and picks up ideas from TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

‘I asked Olivia to give me a taco recipe and she bought lardons with pimento, prepared tomato sauce and grated Parmesan. 

She’s been to catering college so it’s not that she can’t make these things, she doesn’t see the point. If there’s a quicker way of doing something, she will,’ says Rick. 

‘I’m not being critical about this, I’m taking it on board. I’m learning from the next generation about how to cut corners.’

It’s quite a change for someone who’s spent his whole life teaching us how to cook from scratch – although he does still love doing things the old way. 

‘I like the smell of fresh ingredients when you’re making a stock or using a pestle and mortar. The whole process is meditative. Cooking is a sort of therapy. It’s an affirmation of who we are.’

Rick grew up on a farm in the Cotswolds and the family’s food came from their land. His father took his own life when Rick was 18 and the grief-stricken lad went travelling to Australia, America and Mexico. 

When he returned he took an English degree at Oxford and then moved to Padstow, a small fishing port in Cornwall, where he met Jill and they opened The Seafood Restaurant in 1975.

Rick pictured with Keith Floyd (right) in the 80s

This man who is so genial on screen admits he was a shouty chef back in the day. ‘I was. Not because I’m aggressive, but the conditions were tough, the hours were longer and I never had the back-up staff I needed, so when I lost it, more often than not it was caused by panic.’

Much has changed. ‘What’s lovely now is that you go into The Seafood Restaurant kitchen and nobody’s shouting.’ 

Chefs can’t get away with that kind of behaviour these days can they? ‘No. There’s quite a lot of females in the kitchen as well. You couldn’t be a shouty chef, it just wouldn’t be acceptable. But I never picked on anybody. And I always apologised when I lost it.’

TV producers spotted Rick as a guest on a Keith Floyd show in the mid-80s, and his own programmes followed a similar style, including travels in France, Spain and India. 

Through it all he kept Padstow as his base and now has the original restaurant, a bistro, a cafe, a seafood bar that is also a fishmonger, a cocktail bar, a chippy, several shops and various places to stay. 

He also has several other restaurants in England and Australia. ‘I get back to Padstow every fortnight. I’m never happier than when I’m there,’ Rick says.

Surviving the operation seems to have made Rick (pictured) much more optimistic. ‘Yesterday I met a professor who was talking about omega-3 and how we all need to eat more fresh fish. He was 93 years old. So I think there’s plenty more to do!’ He smiles.

The Cornish nationalists who dislike his presence in Padstow have quietened down after nearly 50 years, but new controversy erupted recently when chip shop customers complained at paying £2 for tartare sauce. 

‘Comparing our sauce to cheaper ones is like chalk and cheese,’ he says gruffly.

‘We’ve got decent olives, capers, gherkins, fresh eggs, parsley, sunflower oil in there. Yes, it is £2, but you’re getting £2 worth of bloody nice tartare sauce. It’s not like we’re trying to rip anybody off.’

Simple Suppers is out in a cost-of-living crisis, but Rick says it is timely, because the price of dining out has caused a surge of interest in home cooking. 

’We’re in tough times, but food in this country is in quite rude health. You couldn’t have published a book like this 20 years ago, people wouldn’t have been so involved in home cooking.’

He’s filming a new series around Britain and is off to Australia soon. It all sounds exhausting for a man of his age. ‘If you’ve spent most of your life cooking in a busy kitchen, nothing’s hard.’

Does the new simplicity mean cutting down on other things – like booze? ‘As you get older you naturally drink less, but I still love drinking. I love beer and wine. I’m not that fond of anything else, apart from the odd negroni. 

‘God, the thought of having to give up wine is not good! You get stiffer as you grow older but I swim every day. I was lucky the operation was a success. You’re given a new lease of life. 

‘I did recover really quickly, in about six weeks. It was quite a positive experience, to be honest.’

Surviving the operation seems to have made Rick much more optimistic. ‘Yesterday I met a professor who was talking about omega-3 and how we all need to eat more fresh fish. He was 93 years old. So I think there’s plenty more to do!’ He smiles. 

‘I love cooking, I love filming. As long as you’re working, you’re doing things that you’d like, you just go on until you can’t. So generally I’m quite optimistic. It’s good to be alive.’

Simple Suppers by Rick Stein (BBC Books, £28) is out on 26 October

Source: Read Full Article