The secret appetites of the stars

Roger Daltry loves trout, Noel Gallagher has a passion for Yorkshire Tea and Sheffield’s Richard Hawley can’t get enough of the city’s Henderson’s Relish. They are among the 60 stars who reveal their tastes and food cravings for a book designed in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

Who would have predicted Sophie Ellis Bextor’s obsession with fish and chips? Or the partiality of Siouxsie Sioux for a plate of beans on toast? For Brandon Flowers, it is pastor tacos and elotes while Tony Christie can’t resist Singapore noodles. Patrice de Villiers, who took the pictures, says: “No matter where you are in the world, no matter how far you’ve travelled from your roots and how much you’ve fulfilled the dream of becoming the person you always wanted to be, you always remember the food you ate when you were a child.”

Noel Gallagher

“I am obsessed with Yorkshire Tea. I even bring it on tour. It was always on the Oasis rider. ‘Tea – must be Yorkshire.’ Why does a man whose formative musical years were characterised by cigarettes and alcohol feel the pull of this most homely of English beverages? “I’m a Northerner and it’s part of our staple diet, plus I’m of Irish descent. The kettle always seemed to be on when I was growing up. It’s part of the fabric of your life.”

Noel drinks about five cups a day now, but he used to have a debilitating 20-bag-a-day habit. Like a true tea drinker, he’s got rules that must not be broken. Milk goes in last. Put your sugar in first, with the tea bag, then fill it up to about an inch from the top and leave it for a good while. And what colour should the tea be? ‘You know the Quality Street toffees in the yellow wrapper? It’s got to be the exact same colour as them or it’s going down the sink.”

In London he brews his own because: “there’s a lack of good tea-making down here. Paul Weller’s tea-making leaves a lot to be desired. It’s pretty watery and the colour’s not right.”

Noel wonders why can’t you get a decent cup of tea in America and why, as Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers has pointed out, do people in London never use teapots? Tells you a lot about London, that,” says Noel.

Most mystifying of all, where did all these bizarre tea varieties come from? His kitchen cupboards are full of his partner Sara’s fennel tea, camomile, green tea, Lady Grey with a hint of orange, nettle tea. Years ago, when Oasis were in the first flush of success, Noel stayed over at a girl’s place and in the morning she asked what kind of tea he wanted. “I was like, what do you mean? There are different kinds of tea?” She made Earl Grey. Noel thought it was like drinking his mam’s perfume.

Richard Hawley

When was the last time a bottle of table sauce brought you to tears? Many years ago, Richard Hawley – later guitarist with Pulp, then a solo artist – arrived home from a gruelling American tour with his band The Longpigs. He had barely seen his wife or daughter in nine months and mentally he was, “like a sausage frying in a pan. I was all over the place”. His wife Helen made him sausage and mash with peas, onion gravy and cabbage. Beside it she set a bottle of Henderson’s Relish.

“I poured the Hendo’s out,” says Richard, an otherwise undemonstrative man, “and I just burst into tears. I was home.”

In Sheffield, any cafe or chippy will have a bottle on the table. Richard’s own merchandise stall sells bottles of it after gigs, and to expatriate Sheffielders it is as precious as memory itself.

“Hendo’s do a good export business with these huge tubs that look like they’ve got anti-freeze in them,” says Richard. “The drummer out of Def Leppard gets it posted to him in LA. And I carry a card with me that says: ‘In case of accident, please put some Hendo’s in me instead of blood’.

“It’s older than Worcestershire sauce and it’s got no anchovies in it, so it’s vegan. We don’t say the “W” word in Sheffield,” he continues. “It’s a local tradition and we’re really proud of it. You wouldn’t go to those extremes to get it if it wasn’t that good. And if you don’t like the taste you can always clean car windows with it.”

Richard first tasted Hendo’s at his grandfather’s table at Sunday dinner when he was maybe two years old. Now his picture is on the wall of the factory among the Friends of Henderson’s Relish. Richard and his band were the first to play a gig at the factory, balancing on wobbly pallets and inhaling the aroma of the city’s history.

For Richard, food goes hand in hand with good times and family gatherings. A Sunday dinner with everyone gathered together was important because his family worked hard, his grandfather sometimes putting in 14 hours a day at the steelworks, so Sunday lunch mattered.

“Families don’t sit down to eat any more, but the point of a family is to spend time together,” he says. “Food should bring you together. Proper family dinners are even harder for me now because things are so irregular in my life. The kids and our lass, they’ve got a routine. I’m the random one.” His children are aged 17, 10 and 8.

Juliette Lewis

Juliette Lewis appears in the book in both sinful and redemptive modes. On the cover she’s slathered in chocolate; inside she presents a detox cocktail of cleansing coconut and papaya. “It’s yin and yang,” says Juliette. “I love the healthy stuff and I love chocolate and ice cream too. You have to balance it.”

Unlike certain film stars’ vanity bands, her music actually stands up on its own – a raw but poppy garage-punk noise with Juliette as its focal point. With her former band Juliette and the Licks, she supported the Foo Fighters and Muse, and loves she sang on The Prodigy’s album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. But how does one move from the comfortable world of movie-making to the grind of the touring rock band?

“When you play rock festivals you’re always pathetically grateful if the catering is good,” she says. “You always remember who feeds you well, like the German festivals or Leeds, Reading and the Isle of Wight. If you’re tired and you haven’t had a shower in days you are so glad of any home comforts.” But she does love the touring life, only occasionally missing favourite restaurants at home in Los Angeles, like Little Dom’s in Los Feliz or La Loggia in Studio City where “everything is so tasty, the appetisers are just stunning. Even if it’s a salad you can’t believe the flavour.”

Movie versus rock and roll – who’s got the best food? “There’s so much more money in the movie world for food. I make a nice living from my touring but half the time we live off bread and lunchmeat. It is two different worlds. In movies there’s a lot of waiting around but when you’re acting it’s pretty juicy, creative stuff. In music I’m like a lead actor-writer-director and I have to promote the band too. Every night I’m trying to create the most exciting, interesting show I can, so it’s much more creatively stimulating. I love every second of it, but you have to live on lunchmeat sandwiches.”

Interview extracts by Andrew Harrison, recipes: Sarah Muir.

Love Music Love Food: The Rock Star Cookbook (£30 Quadrille) published in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust on September 5. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. Postage and packing is £2.75..

TRY ROAST CHICKEN WITH A REFRESHING COCKTAIL

Richard Hawley: Spatchcock roast chicken with smoked bacon, mushroom soy, Marsala and Henderson’s Relish sauce

Serves: 4

Ingredients: 1 free-range chicken about 1.5kg, groundnut oil for brushing, sea salt; 1 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns, crushed; 4 rashers of smoked bacon, cut into small strips; 1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced; 50ml Marsala wine; 150ml chicken stock; 1 tbsp tomato puree; 50ml mushroom soy sauce; 3 tbsp Henderson’s Relish, plus extra to serve; 2 tbsp arrowroot.

Method: Preheat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6. Using kitchen scissors, cut along the backbone of the chicken, then press firmly on the breastbone to flatten it. Place the chicken in a roasting tray lined with baking parchment. Brush with groundnut oil and sprinkle with salt and Szechuan pepper. Roast for 30 minutes or until the juices run clear and the skin is golden brown. Set aside in a warm place to rest, saving any juices.

Heat a saucepan over a medium heat, add the chopped bacon and fry gently for 2 minutes. Add the onion and fry until softened and browning at the edges, then add the Marsala. When it is gently simmering, add the chicken stock, tomato puree, mushroom soy, Henderson’s Relish and the juices from the resting chicken. Bring to the boil, turn down the heat and leave to simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix the arrowroot with a little cold water to make a smooth paste. Skim off any fat from the surface of the sauce. Now add the arrowroot a little at a time (you may not need all of it), stirring as you do so, until your sauce is the desired thickness.

Remove the chicken from the baking tray, and portion into four. Serve with the sauce.

Juliette Lewis: Virgin Detox Cocktail

Serves: 2

Ingredients: 50g papaya; 3 fresh mint leaves, shredded; juice of 1 lime; juice of 1 fresh coconut, chilled; 4 cherries.

method: Put 2 Martini glasses into the freezer to chill for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, peel and deseed the papaya, then cut into small cubes Spoon the papaya into the chilled glasses, add the shredded mint and squeeze over the lime juice. Pour in the chilled coconut juice and garnish each with a couple of fresh cherries to serve.