Comedian Katherine Ryan is the first guests in the new series of food podcast Dish, presented by Nick Grimshaw and the culinary maestro, Michelin star chef Angela Hartnett OBE.
Ryan talks about J-Lo, bread, her husband Bobby, growing up, working at Hooters, her first comedy show, being a mum and touring, UK vs. Canadian food and going global.
Future guests include actor Richard Armitage, Anna Maxwell Martin, as well as Lashana Lynch and the globally renowned singer-songwriter Joe Jonas. Judi Love and Sandi Toksvig also join the line up alongside the legendary Stephen Fry and the multi-talented comedian Alex Horne.
Nick Grimshaw shares his excitement: “I can’t wait to kick off series six of Dish. Working alongside the iconic Angela Hartnett has always been the most fun and I’m so excited to be back together again after the summer break.”
Angela Hartnett adds, “Teaming up with Nick for another season of Dish from Waitrose has been nothing short of a blast. The laughter, the cooking, the incredible guests – it’s all pure joy. We hope our listeners enjoy the show as much as we love creating it!"
KATHERINE RYAN QUOTES
KATHERINE ON BREAD
No. But I feel that bread is in the way of food. I don't think that it even counts as food. We are advised not to give it to ducks, it's like quack cocaine now. It's bad for them. And people, uh, I will have my children at the pond chucking bread to ducks and it's very right wing apparently to give ducks bread. And all the lefties in my, uh, comments will be like, ‘You must give them seeds,’ ‘They really enjoy sweet corn,’ and I'm like, you, you eat bread, you eat bread yourself. And they go, ‘It swells in their tummies.’ I'm like, and yours, Susan.
KATHERINE ON BOBBY
I have taken a husband, and I'm not sure why most days, but he…I love him so much, but I mean it, I just don't think it's wise to, to have a man full-time in your home, you know, they're quite- they're liabilities. Like men are one stupid mistake away from imploding their whole lives all the time. Yeah. They're just genetically defective, so…um, he's- But he loves bread, and he doesn't believe in the gut microbiome. And he's a hillbilly, and he calls loo roll s*** tickets and he gives my kids bread. And he doesn't believe in the moon landing. He thinks that the government in America, uh, were really committed to showing themselves up against the Russians and they'd spent too much money on the Vietnam War, so then they just went underwater and filmed a fake moon landing. He's a great, he's a great guy. And that's what guys are like from my hometown. And, um, I don't blame him in not trusting the government.
KATHERINE ON GROWING UP
Um, I was definitely a show off. And I liked. and making plays with my sisters. I was like the director from hell where I had little sisters that I would just force to- Yeah, boss around. But they liked it. They were really entertained by me, um, and then my, my, my parents liked it. My parents were entertained by me, but they were quite of the generation that they thought you needed to go to university. And I was, yeah. And my dad worked for an engineering company, and he was quite, you know, Irish, and um… I don't know what I mean by that. He worked for Cork County Council for a while, and then he opened his own business with his friend in Canada, and he saw that, you know, engineering was reliable, he thought that I should be a teacher or do something like that, be a doctor. That immigrant parent mindset. And then I was quite academic, but I just wanted to do more showing off. So, and I also thought for a long time that the best thing that you could be was pretty and soft. Cause my mum is super glamorous. Like really hot, really nice body. And I kind of always looked like my dad and I would cry and I'd be like, ‘Why couldn't you have fallen in love with an Italian?!’ I'd be like, ‘At least then I could get a tan!’ Cause I grew up looking like Ed Sheeran.
KATHERINE ON HER FIRST COMEDY SHOW
I wore my Hooters uniform. I thought it was funny. I did like a character and it was really offensive, like way more offensive than I am now, uh, because I liked Sarah Silverman and I understood like I was attracted to shock comedy, but I didn't really get the nuance of what made it funny so I was just like really offensive. I was always a bit of a paradox.
KATHERINE ON BEING A MUM AND TOURING
I'm gone at like 3pm every day. I tour like a mom, I don't tour like a dad. So the boys in my industry, they just disappear for like ten months, and uh, I have to go back and forth and zigzag, and I still sleep with the children. I know, because they wake up in the night and I just kind of don't feel like an infant should be unattended ever. Yeah, north of Leeds, I'll sleep over. Um, but anything like within three hours, if I can get home, I get home. Yeah. It's fun, but I miss a lot of- So Bobby's totally in charge, and I'm just happy to eat. Like, I'm always hungry. And then I'll pack a little takeaway of the dinner the night before and take it on tour and eat in the car. It's tricky because my daughter, Fenna, is a year and a half and she really doesn't like, like she will vomit with rage when I leave her room. Yeah. Because I'm a professional entertainer and the kids know that. Like, I'm really fun. And they don't deal with me leaving we- very well right now. But I didn't tour for a year and a half after she was born, so it's time. It's just time, and she'll be fine, I think it'll strengthen her independence and her relationship with her sister, and her brother, and her dad, and sh- I've got so many kids now, that they basically form their own society, and I think they'll be fine without me.
KATHERINE ON UK FOOD
You have many wonderful qualities. I love the UK. I think people are really funny, I think people are really self-deprecating, I think it's a beautiful multicultural landscape. I think you don't even have to go abroad to enjoy a holiday, there are many different climates here, most of them wet. But your food… It's like you guys are panicking and you're just eating as though you're hunkered down and there's only scraps left. You're like, hurry, let's get the bits of the roast to make bubble and squeak. Let's put bread around meat for some reason and call it a pie. And let's just keep, like, stodging up in case something kicks off. And like, I don't know what you guys are afraid of.
I love chips and gravy. That's where it ends though. Like there's no need to roll an egg in pastry or a sausage in pastry, or like make a little weird breakfast thing out of blood and… Yeah. And like baked beans. Like you guys are all around a campfire. I don't get what you're doing.
KATHERINE ON CANADIAN FOOD
Well, because of colonialism, a lot of our food is quite British actually. So we have British food, we have Irish food, we have our version of that. Um, we have American food. I mean, it's not great in Canada either, though now Canada is populated by so many different cultures that we get really good Mexican. And I think we have quite good Chinese and Thai, Indian never hit us though the way it hit here. So one thing I was completely blown away by when I came here were the curries and like the vindaloo flavours and tandooris. And then when I had Thai food here as well, it was so much more authentic just because of the proximity to like the East. Um, but in Canada, like we, we’re northern. So there are parts of Canada where my ancestors are from, we be like screeched in, which means they slap you with a fish and they give you a shot of whiskey. Yeah. And there's a lot of seafood, obviously, near the sea. And my ancestors were from Poole, actually. I mean, my dad is from Ireland, like, yesterday, but my mom's ancestors came from Poole, and they were cod fishermen, and then they did fishing in northern Canada, where it was really cold and they would eat salted fish, dried fish, and then potatoes came in, and if we had, you know, if we had, you know, good crops that year, we would eat a lot of just stodgy food. But we didn't get the sausages, and the spotted dick, and the pies, and we didn't go the full…We stopped at Manchester.
KATHERINE ON CALLING HER TOUR BATTLEAXE
Well, it is a negative word to describe women historically who were like disruptive, or outspoken, or masculine, or difficult. And I just like repurposing those words to be a good thing, and I've been called difficult before, I speak out about things that I maybe shouldn't. I have impulse control issues. It gets me into trouble. But I, I'm looking forward to my over forties era, and I love belligerent older women, I really love them. Eccentric, they got too many dogs. And, you know- yeah, they’re just having a good time and I think it’s aspirational to me, being a battleaxe, and I’m unapologetic about being difficult. And I’m also quite easy, like-ask anyone in my family, who gets to kick back and do whatever they want, while I’m on tour.
KATHERINE ON GOING GLOBAL
And now thanks to streaming services and the availability of British comedy worldwide… it’s amazing, when I started on TV in this country in 2012, I could still go back home, even to Canada, and be totally anonymous. And then now, every country that you go to they’ll know the panel shows and they seek out Taskmaster especially, and they will have seen, I have some specials streaming on different international platforms, and they know, and I don’t think a lot- well first of all, Finnish people specifically are very well-educated and they all speak like, English and ten more languages. But my best friend also lives there and my children’s godmother, so I go to Helsinki quite a lot. And maybe it won’t translate in certain places. I certainly do smaller venues abroad. Than I do here in the UK, but that’s fine.
Dish from Waitrose is available on all podcast providers.
Picture credit: Harriet Langford
