My earliest memory, at three or four, is Dad, by the fireplace, passing the poker and me getting it red hot in the flames, plunging it into a glass of Guinness, then sipping this lovely warm fizzy brothy brew. I loved it. It’s a typical Irish thing in winter and sets you up for perfect alcoholism in later years.
A food I associate with Dad is Kitekat. He’d get paid extra on building sites for making everyone’s lunch, but they didn’t appreciate his sandwiches so he started putting cat food in them. I tasted them and they were delicious.
Our flat in Benwell Mansions [in Holloway, London] was a slum, but didn’t feel so at the time, knowing no better. It didn’t have a kitchen so much as a space with a cooker and kettle; the fridge came much later. Mum, Dad, me and my three younger brothers shared one bedroom and I’d always eat while sitting on a bed. Today, at home [in California] I’ll still not eat at a table – it’s uncomfortable and too much of a procedure.
Mum and Dad would take us for especially tortuous Catholic endurance courses called High Mass. The creepiness of holding out the tongue and the priest putting the little wafer on it never bothered me too much, or the connotation of it being the actual “flesh of Christ”. That’s because I loved the taste of the host. Everybody did. It tasted so good.
Childhood involved a lot of Heinz 57 Varieties. The worst was mulligatawny, a curry soup with a red-hot ugly taste. There was the odd Doctor [sic] Kipling cake and Mum made some great fruitcakes, but her salads were pretty sad. A slice of Spam and one very pale green leaf and half a tomato – which meant summer had come – and salad cream; Heinz again, which I loved. Mum would boil Brussels sprouts and cabbage for hours. Years later, as an adult, during one of the occasions I had pneumonia, with a collapsed lung, a friend brought a cabbage round and I couldn’t wait to eat it, so it was only boiled for three minutes and the pain I suffered afterwards from the indigestion and appalling farting was staggering. I learnt my lesson that day.
I loved my pickles. I’d eat whole jars of pickled beetroot as a kid. And I loved gooseberries. They were a particularly English thing in the summer, dipped in sugar, and seemed utterly fantastic. But I tried them again a couple of years ago and they didn’t taste anything like I remembered. They turned out to be deeply unpleasant balls of acid.
I caught meningitis at seven. I went into a coma for three months and stayed for much of a year. I’d had a pork chop the night before I was hospitalised and I’ve associated pork chops with illness to this day. I can’t go near a pork chop, I just can’t, although nothing will keep me away from my smoky bacon.
I suppose I was fed intravenously in the coma, I’ve no idea. I don’t remember hospital food. I lost my memory completely and had no idea who my parents were. I had no idea who I was; it took three years to fill in the gaps. It was difficult comprehending even how to use a spoon – I’d get the skill back, then it would go again. When I went back to school, the savage teachers and the evil nuns, who thought left-handed kids holding a fork in their right hand was a crime against God, would call me ‘dummy dumb-dumb’. But the dinner ladies would say, ‘Never mind, John’, and were very kind. I liked their desserts because the custard was Bird’s. And the semolina, because of the syrup in the middle. I really loved that red syrup.
Walls Ice Cream’s factory was at the top of Queensland Road and they’d leave the van doors open while loading and a Cornish Cream or Raspberry Split was a luxury to nick. But I got my fingers stuck to a block of chemical ice. And stealing’s really not in me - not food, or anything. That’s how I am. If it doesn’t belong to me, I don’t take it.
Around the age of 11, we moved to a new flat with an inside loo on the Acre Estate [in Finsbury Park]. I revisited the flat last year and the Turkish family who lived there were very hospitable. I most associate the kitchen there with writing the lyrics to God Save The Queen while eating Heinz baked beans on toast.
I’d moved out when my mum’s sister’s family were due to visit from Canada. Dad had said he couldn’t stand my extremely long hair any more, so I’d had it cropped short and dyed bright green. Dad’s brilliant line was, ‘Get outta the ’ouse – ya look like a fuckin’ Brussels sprout!’
I went to live with Sid [Vicious] in a derelict squat behind Hampstead tube station. Sid and I did a couple of hours a day cleaning at [the department store] Heal’s vegetarian restaurant [on Tottenham Court Road]. Back at the squat, it was Heinz 57 Varieties and lots of baked beans, all eaten cold. But there were places like an Italian caff doing very cheap risottos and it was probably there I was introduced to proper coffee. God I loved cappuccinos. Now I’m a constant tea drinker - 20 a day, at the very least. Until America started importing PG Tips and Yorkshire Tea, my tour cases were full of them whenever I arrived home.
When I first got to California, one of the biggest surprises was avocados, which had been exotic and beyond expensive back in Britain. I love avocados and loved discovering different ways to serve them. The spicy Mexican way is thrilling, but mostly I have my avocados sashimi style, sliced with soy sauce.
The other thing that turned out to be shockingly cheap in California was boating. I’d always felt a deep connection to water and the sea. It goes back to my dad’s dad in Galway, when I’d visit during summers, taking me fishing on a row boat for herring and mackerel. Mackerel is my favourite fish – I love it roasted. But I’ll never get bored of sushi. Raw sea urchin is currently my terrain.
The ‘Rotten’ name came from my teeth. I had dirty, real dirty teeth, for a long time. There’d been no concept, growing up, of cleaning them after eating or any time. A toothbrush was just something Dad polished his boots with. I always had a tooth missing, it seemed to be the story of my life, but eventually in California, after a constant series of abscesses and all manner of gum diseases, it took about two to five years of reconstructive surgery to get things right. It was very hard to eat during that time - really difficult to know where each new titanium tooth starts and the tongue ended before it was too late. The only way to mask the furious flavour of your own tongue blood is eating steak, medium rare, with plenty of salt.
I like farmers’ markets because they’re extremely colourful. I have to shop for food but I don’t have anything like a shopping list and I think things like, ‘Oh, that’s bright red, I must have three of them.’
I do all the cooking at home. Because (wife) Nora’s idea of cooking is sweetcorn, freshly squeezed orange and that’s it. Water cress soup is my speciality but I can come up with anything out of a fridge. Odds and sods and dead things left over. I find ways of mixing it all up that pleases both of us. One thing I know how to do, from my mum, is lambs’ hearts and beef hearts, which I roast, stuffed with proper bread and sage and thyme. They’re considered waste, them hearts, but they’re stunningly tasty.
Public Image Ltd’s album What The World Needs Now… is out now. New single The One is released on 13 November
