In this era of the chef as a celebrity, it is refreshing to come across someone like Ricardo Larrivée, host of the hit Food Network show Ricardo and Friends. Ricardo is a passionate man who believes that food and the sharing of food can result in positive changes in our society. And he is willing to put everything he has into pushing for those positive changes by opening his heart and his home to his viewers.
One of the first things that strikes you about Ricardo Larrivée is that he loves to talk, he loves to engage and converse in a robust and stimulating way. Ricardo is movie-star handsome. He is a friendly person who claims to have fallen into his current position as one of the hottest and talented cooking show hosts in the country by accident. He explains his success by saying that he has always had an innate knack and talent for cooking. This tells me that his current success is nothing near an accident, but rather a harmonic convergence of the right guy being in the right place when the right opportunity came around. And most importantly, making the absolute most of that opportunity.
“Well, if you think about it like that, yes, that is quite true,” says Ricardo. “When I was just five-years-old, I would make cakes simply by watching my mother make them – I couldn’t read, so I was doing my cooking simply through observing and experimenting.”
Professionally, Ricardo had his sight set on working in the hotel business and even went to school to pursue that avenue. Later on he discovered that that wasn’t exactly what he was looking for. “I loved the social aspect of the hotel business,” says Ricardo. “But the day-to-day financial aspects of running a hotel was not something that interested me in the least. And because that is such a crucial aspect to the hotel business, it wasn’t really for me.”
Ricardo went back to school to study broadcasting and ended up at the CBC in Regina one summer. Because he didn’t know anyone there, he would just invite people from the office and studio to his house for dinner so he could meet people and make friends. Quickly, the word spread that Ricardo’s place was the place to get an invitation to, as the food was fantastic. Not long afterwards, Ricardo found himself being offered his own cooking show, something he was a bit nervous about but embraced wholeheartedly. “I was scared, of course, and there was this feeling that because I was French I would not get an audience, but people seemed to like the show right from the start.”
Caught in a massive wave of CBC layoffs, Ricardo returned to Montreal to start over again – and it was in Montreal that Ricardo was approached again by a broadcaster who offered him his own cooking show that would celebrate, among other things, his French background. “I love Quebec and I remain based in and my show is shot in my town of Chambliss, but the more I have travelled around the country and the world, the more I see that despite our language differences and cultural differences, we are all a lot more similar than we are dissimilar,” says Ricardo. Ricardo practices what he preaches on this level by doing his show, Ricardo and Friends, in both French and English.
The element that makes Ricardo and Friends a unique show is that it focuses not only on recipes and cooking but on an examination of food, the manufacturing of food, the various local traditions and the stories behind the traditions – so each episode offers a one-of-a-kind culinary adventure. “I am interested in sharing my excitement for things,” says Ricardo. “I want people to be excited about food and cooking because food is the one thing in this world that unites us and brings us together. Food is an important part of how our culture and the cultures of other countries is defined.”
And when you get Ricardo talking about food and culture and national identity, you can practically see the passion cracking around him like an electrical charge. “On a visit I made to New Zealand, I was fascinated to see that the customs and foods of its Aboriginal population (the Maori), were proudly incorporated into the mainstream culture of New Zealand,” said Ricardo. “But here we need to do some work on that . . . many of the dishes that we call indigenous to Canada or Quebec specifically actually do have their roots in Native cultures. I want to talk about that and I want to show that so people can appreciate it.”
But Ricardo is trying to take it one step further – he is trying to spread the word to children in schools in the towns and regions he visits. “It is an indisputable fact that parents that make it a habit of sitting down to meals with their children encounter far fewer social and developmental problems with their children,” says Ricardo. “So I am trying to work in a love of food, a curiosity about food and where good food comes from in children from an early age so that my enthusiasm and curiosity then becomes theirs as well.”
Ricardo has a lot of practice when it comes to relating to children. He and his wife have three little girls, aged four, seven and nine. “They are very much a part of everything that I do – since we shoot the show partly right here in my house – they are always around and can feel that they are directly a part of the celebration of food and culture that is going on around them,” says Ricardo.
What it all comes down to is having fun with food and with cooking. “Most definitely,” agrees Ricardo. “I want everything I do on the show with food and cooking to be wrapped in fun. You take more away from a fun experience you have had than from any other kind of experience.” And when asked if he feels himself to be something of an ambassador for Quebec and French culture, Ricardo laughs.
“I am not a political person, even though I understand the power of politics, but if you wish to call me an ambassador I think I would only be defined as such in that I take very seriously my role in bringing the positive aspects of French culture, of this beautiful province and all its unique little regions and cities and towns, to people that might not otherwise have thought that way about Quebec.”
And what about away from the show, how does Ricardo define relaxation? “Well, it is very interesting,” he says. “I don’t really see much difference between what I enjoy away from my work with what I do when I am working. I love what I do, I am constantly excited and enthusiastic about what I do and because I have my family and friends a part of it all, every day seems like I am on an exciting, adventurous vacation.”
When Oscar Wilde said: “Find a job that you love and you will never work a day in your life,” – Ricardo Larrivée was definately listening.
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