Wanting for the sake of having: Jago Rackham

London-based cook and writer Jago Rackham is rough around the edges, with delicate taste and a naive way of working. His food is lush but not opulent, Dionysian without being ostentatious – greedy, yes, but never gaudy. Fittingly, Rackham has chosen the mono-syllabical sin ‘Greed’ to be the title of his newsletter, and frankly, his way of life. His girlfriend’s medieval-princess style has rubbed off on him, unsurprisingly, as they’ve been together since they were thirteen, and now his self described “un-themed” (though, to the outsider, extravagantly styled) dinners are just by his natural way of being, he assures me in an unpretentious and strangely convincing way. 

Our videocall welcomes me to the kitchen table of someone that lives by intuition – simply following his taste, whether in food, books, or life. There’s a lot of sides of him I’d like to discuss, as he’s a thrower of phenomenal dinner parties, apartamento-worthy house-haver, non-drinker but still a pub-enjoyer, a passionate book lover, and girlfriend lover, and cat lover. One thing he isn’t, though, is a gatekeeper – on the contrary, he’s the first to credit the people, often women, that inspire or came before him. But it must be said that he is also a hater which makes for great conversations. 

I love reading your newsletter ‘Greed’. How do you feel about greed being one of the seven deadly sins, and does that somehow attract you?
It absolutely attracts me. There’s two things inside me, kind of a Protestant feeling about the world (generally always feeling guilty for enjoying or doing anything excessive or fun), and then a rebellion against that. Greed as a sin is a nice place in which there’s a thin line to be trodden. And it’s also just how I feel about what I’m doing – I do think everything I do is essentially a bit useless and a bit sinful. And this is me trying to work out how to become comfortable with that. 

I looked up the difference between Greed and Gluttony. Greed is ‘wanting it for the sake of having it’ while Gluttony is ‘wanting it for the pleasure of consuming it or using it’. Is there any reason that you went for greed rather than gluttony?
Yeah, it’s a single syllable. 

I was hoping for that to be the answer.
I think that gluttony is a lot less conceptual because it’s just wanting to consume. A glutton doesn’t write about things they want, whereas someone who’s greedy does. 

So I’ve heard all about your dinner parties, they often seem quite extravagant for the outsider, and the food impresses even in simplicity. Can you tell me about the latest dinner party you’ve thrown? What went right, what went wrong, etc.
Absolutely. The last proper dinner party we had was quite a little while ago. They’re not themed at all, it’s just genuinely how we dress and how we cook and the things we’ve collected to serve food on. Another important thing is that my girlfriend dresses much more interestingly than me, to the point that its impression kind of rubs off on me. I actually just dress like quite a boring man.
I don’t think anything can go wrong at a dinner party. Even if all the food is burnt and dry, which it isn’t normally, I think that’s okay as long as everyone who’s there is happy. But then the last thing that went wrong was I tried to make hot cross buns for this Easter. And the yeast that I used was dead. So they were just like these horrible rocks that I had to throw away. 

You’re working on a book about hosting, called To Entertain. Without spoiling it, would you like to share your best entertaining tip, if you could pick one?
My best tip would be to don’t cook anything you haven’t done before and don’t do anything that makes you feel anxious. I’ve never gone to a dinner party and thought afterwards, ‘I was kind of disappointed with the food’. But I have often gone and the host has been anxious and not having a good time, and then you don’t have a good time. 

Have you ever gotten a really good hosting gift?
The nicest thing someone brought was some fancy cat food they bought from America. I thought that was so sweet.

I was reading a recent article you wrote about grotesque and lazy wealth signifiers, like massive amounts of truffle and caviar. I wonder what (else) are your biggest icks nowadays in the food world?
I have so many. I hate when people do a food video, and then when they try the food they make a surprised face. I also really don’t like people whose hobby is going to restaurants. I think that’s perverse.

Couldn’t you consider it to be greedy?
No, because that shouldn’t be your hobby. You should read a book. I don’t like people who think that cooking food is like being a rock star. I think cooking food is like a working profession, and it’s really difficult, and a lot of work, but the fetishization of chefs annoys me. I hate angry chefs. If someone tells me that someone they’re working with is angry, I’m like… What was the problem? I was in a fucking casualty centre, like where the sickest people come in to the hospital, and all the nurses and doctors were walking around really calmly putting on these vests, and then a young man was wheeled in who’d just been stabbed, and the vests were to stop blood from spattering on them. And no one was shouting then – whereas if someone is shouting about, I don’t know, a risotto or something, that’s pathetic.

Touch some grass for a second.
Yeah, I think chefs should touch grass a lot more than they do. And one more thing, I really don’t like it when people wear their hats inside restaurants. I mean, if it’s a cultural, religious thing, I guess that’s okay. But if you’re just a guy wearing a baseball cap, take it off. And sometimes people are like, ‘oh, it’s because I’ve got no hair’. Then you have no hair? That’s okay! 

So which book would you recommend to people whose hobby is going to restaurants?
Oh my god, that’s such a good question. They should read Honey from a Weed by Patience Grey, which is about cooking at home, and cooking in different parts of the world. It’s beautiful, it’s spiritually intense, it’s tactile, and it explores the reasons we cook.

That sounds like it would put them in place.
Yeah, it would. 

You’ve quit drinking, but you still enjoy places where people drink. Often when people quit drinking they get all shy and don’t know what to do with themselves anymore in a pub – why did you give it up and what’s the trick to still enjoy it all?
So I gave up drinking because I’m an alcoholic. I was drinking far too much, every night and by myself. And most of my friends, or all of my friends, didn’t really think I was an alcoholic. Because at parties, I always drank in a kind of socially acceptable way. Like I drank too much, but everyone was drinking too much. But in reality, I drank like a 50-year-old middle-class man, not like a youth. So I stopped when I was 28. And I was really scared that I wouldn’t be able to be fun at parties, but I don’t think I was ever drinking because I’m shy – I’m pretty gregarious. It took me about a year to feel back on my feet. Now, working across art and fashion and food, I can’t go anywhere without people drinking. And I have to be fine with that. The only real difference is that I go home a little earlier than I used to. I do still try wine, because I think it’s important for me to know what it tastes like for cooking. So I have a sip, but then I don’t have any more, and that’s okay, because I don’t want a glass of wine. I want like three bottles.

What do you order instead?
When I’m at dinner, I drink a non-alcoholic beer, just because I want something savoury. Or sparkling water. The rest of the time, I just always drink fucking Diet Coke. I wish I didn’t. I wish it wasn’t Diet Coke. I wish I had a more ethical thing that I had replaced drinking with. 

And did you quit cold turkey?
Yes. I was talking to a doctor about it and they said I shouldn’t have quit so suddenly, because I was drinking so much that I could have gotten really sick.

Damn. Was there like a moment in time, if you don’t mind me asking, that you knew you needed to quit?
I was going to therapy for a while, I kept upsetting people I loved, and mainly Lowena. And then I realised everything that’s wrong is because of the drinking. But I didn’t want to stop, because I really like drinking, but after a while I realised I can’t argue against this anymore, so I had to leave it after like five years of pretending things weren’t being caused by it.

Thank you for sharing. So to lighter subjects, is there one habit that you would say is the best example of enhancing your everyday life?
Every week on a Sunday I go to the farmer’s market and I put whatever I want into my little box, and it’s my food for the week, and I don’t ask how much anything costs. 

Being completely indulgent about the things that actually nourish you is a very lush way of living. You and Lowena’s house was recently featured in Apartamento. It’s so beautiful from what I’ve seen! If there was a fire and there was one thing that you would save, what would it be?
My cat. Or well, if I may say one thing, it would be a painting, but I’m not going to say which one because I don’t want to upset any of the painters who have given me paintings. 

You often used the word naive as a way to describe your and Lowena’s style, house, and the stuff you enjoy. Do you feel like this also applies to your cooking, writing, and hosting?
I really like that you picked up on that because it’s a word I really like. I think absolutely yes – about my cooking. I always think of myself cooking as if a bear saw Laila Gohar or Imogen Kwok’s work and tried to do it, but they’re a bear, so they can’t do it as neatly as them. Obviously, I have no culinary training. 

Lol. What is your background?
I studied politics and then I worked in magazines. Never worked in a restaurant.

Do you feel like your background in politics also seeps through in your cooking or writing?
My cooking, I don’t think of it as political. In my writing, absolutely. I write about food, not really because I’m that interested in food per se, but because I really am interested in people. And then I happened to have a food Instagram which was the way I could persuade people to read what I was writing about. But I also think it’s a very universal thing that everyone is interested in food, everyone eats. So I think it’s a really good way of getting to the politics of a situation or a place. 

Are politics allowed at your table?
Yeah, absolutely. I argue with people at my table. And I think if people aren’t talking about politics, then what are you talking about? 

Literally, everything is political.
I’ve been reading a lot of Biz Sherbet’s writing. She runs this podcast called Nymphet Alumni about fashion but it’s such great political writing. I’m also reading this book called Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition, which was published in the 1980s. It’s about male sexuality within the context of 18th century pirates. It’s not about men being gay or not being gay, but there was this sexual flourishing because they kind of were the only people to have sex with, but there were no taboos on it either.

It’s interesting because I feel like in, for instance, jails, it’s not as acceptable.
The academics contrast it with jails because in jail, it’s still very hierarchical. It’s very policed, there’s power structures, sex would be happening in between the guards watching you.

I guess that does change things. So my next question, to defer from the pirates–
I bet you didn’t think you were going to be talking about pirate sex.

I didn’t, but I do like that we ended up here. However, I was also wondering what you thought of the recent surge of fashion and brands taking a deep interest in food.
I think it’s really cool. It’s actually a nice way of making people think about food as art and expression. When I said I didn’t think of my own food as art, I don’t mean I don’t think food can’t be art. I think it’s the most universal art there is. I just don’t think what I’m making is art.

Come on, impostor syndrome!
Haha. But also, if there can be anything that convinces people and especially young women who are really into fashion that they should eat things, that’s a good thing in my book. 

Definitely. Cooking and fashion are also traditionally downplayed as merely women’s realms, but it’s nice that it’s been perceived as Fine Art now too.
That’s a really good point. Restaurant cooking is so masculine because it’s basically men in the kitchen being like, bro, I’m not a girl, because they don’t want anyone to think that they’re a girl because they’re cooking. But all my peers that are doing events the way I do them are women and the most successful people in this field are women.

It makes me happy that you’re aware and appreciative. If you had one last day on earth, then what or where would you eat for your very last breakfast, lunch or dinner?
So for dinner, if I was completely by myself, I’d probably have a magnum of really, really good burgundy. And I would have a pizza with speck and mascarpone on it. And then I would hope by the end of the wine and the pizza, I had pulled into a coma and not noticed the world ending around me.

And what’s the thing that inspires you most outside of cooking?
My true love is books. My favourite book is probably A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre.  I like all of it, apart from the bits where he’s trying to see what a woman would do. I think he doesn’t know how to escape his misogyny. But apart from that, I think he captures human nature in a very neat and beautiful way. And then the other book, I would have two.

Greedy.
The other book would be A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin. That’s the most tactile writing there is. She writes really short stories because she didn’t have time to write anything longer, because she was looking after kids and she was an alcoholic and she was poor. And I think the fact that one’s craft is so intimately controlled by one’s environment is really, really important. 

Then my last questions are a rapid fire favourite and worst. What would be your favourite and your worst tea?
My favourite tea is English breakfast. My worst tea is English breakfast without milk.

Your favourite and worst dessert?
My favourite dessert is chocolate mousse. I think my least favourite dessert is baked Alaska. I think that’s stupid and not very nice.

I can get into that. I also don’t like it when it’s a weird merge between… For instance, like matcha and cheesecake or something.
Yes. My least favourite dessert is matcha cheesecake.

Or even worse, matcha tiramisu.
You’re right. My least favourite dessert is matcha tiramisu. That is so annoying. 

I believe you don’t eat breakfast, so no favorites there?
I mean, I just feel really sleepy if I have breakfast. But my favourite breakfast would be cucumber with tahini and a Sri Lankan fish sambal. The worst is fucking Weetabix. Actually, the worst ever breakfast I had was when I was arrested because I was in a friend’s car when he was drunk driving. And for breakfast, the police bought me a pasty, which is like the English thing that’s from Cornwall, full of meat and potato. That was my worst ever breakfast. 

Definitely not the best start to the day. What’s your favourite song?
The Cold Song by Purcell. Because it’s a song that was from the 17th century but the lyrics are like a My Chemical Romance song.

Do you have a favourite movie?
I mean, yeah. Let’s say right now my favourite movie is this movie called Tin Man by Barry Levinson. It’s also the last movie I watched, but I thought it was pretty good.

And your worst movie?
I tried to watch that movie Cars with talking cars. I thought that was so bad.

Lol, I haven’t thought about Cars in maybe 15 years. And then my last one, do you have a favourite city and a worst city?
London is my favourite. And my worst city is Manhattan in New York. It’s scary and mean. It’s like all the bad things about London and none of the good things about London. 

Do you have any other favourites or worsts that you want to share with us?
Yes, I love this game! My favourite kind of shoe is a brogue and my worst kind of shoe is the adidas samba. My worst hat is the beanie hat. Especially those short beanies that men wear where it’s not even a full beanie. Because I hated the beanie and now it got even worse. My best hat is the cowboy hat. My favourite colour is dusty pink, my worst colour is orange. My favourite animal is cats and my worst animal is dogs. I hate when people are trying to be too clever with food, that’s probably the worst thing.

You mean like molecular chefs and the like?
Yes. My worst food is foam. 

Lol. Is there anything else we haven’t talked about but should?
I think one thing that’s cool is that if you mentioned Lowena in it, is that we have been in a relationship since we were 13. So that’s kind of cool. And I have a cat, a white cat called Andromeda. 

Glendronda?
Andromeda.

So what’s the secret to having a happy and very long relationship?
You just need a really forgiving girlfriend. And actually being crazy is really helpful. I mean, like, mentally ill. Not like kooky.

Got it.