Interview with Fergus Henderson on 774ABC

[Shinboners]

I caught most of John Faine and Tonya Harding (thank god it wasn't the apalling Jill Singer as co-host) with Fergus Henderson today.

With some of Faine's questions, I think he was a bit bemused by Henderson's philosophy of Nose To Tail Eating, and asked a couple of very questionable questions about whether eating offal had anything to do with his Parkinson's disease. Nonetheless, Henderson treated everthing with the same warm and quirky humour that he shows in his cookbook.

Anyway, he spoke about his Parkinson's disease and how the operation has helped him immensely. He dryly noted the irony of spending a lifetime eating brains, and now the cause of his problem is within his own brain. Harding spoke of how her father got her into eating lambs fry and Henderson noted that lambs fry in England is the testicals, not the liver. He loves having lunch, and spoke about the honesty of his food (noting that Faine got it wrong by describing his food as gastroporn).

Faine is usually a good interviewer, but I would have liked him to explore more of Henderson's philosophy rather than trying to debate it. It's a shame that Virginia Trioli or Derek Guille couldn't do the interview.

Ferguson wil be doing a dinner at the Point tonight (sold out), but he will be doing a talk and doing some cooking demonstrations this weekend at the Abbotsford Convent as part of the Slow Food festival.

[Shinboners]

By the way, the interview is available by Podcast or MP3 download.

Go to http://www.abc.net.au/melbourne/podcast.htm

Go down the page to John Faine - The Conversation Hour and you will be able to download from the links provided.

[PCL]

Thanks Shin... you're a godsend...

[Ylee]

Thanks for the link!

I didn't like John Faine's questions. Some seemed a bit condescending or ill informed.

Meanwhile am very much looking forward to eating at St. John when I'm in London in October.

[Shinboners]

I didn't like John Faine's questions. Some seemed a bit condescending or ill informed.

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I think it's a mixture of being ill informed and his interviewing style not suiting what Henderson (well, foodies) would like to hear. Faine usually plays the devils advocate and asks his guests to justify their views. This works well for issues like politics, but not for something like food, music, and many forms of art.

That's why I think Virginia Trioli or Derek Guille would have been better. When Trioli did the drive time shift, she'd have a weekly interview with a Melbourne chef on Wednesdays. Meanwhile, Guille is one of the best interviewers in the media - he has a skill in getting his guests to open up. He'll ask a question, get out of the way, and let his guest talk.

Still, it would have been worse if it was Richard Stubbs interviewing Henderson. Stubbs is more interested in the sound of his own voice than letting his guests talk.