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BBC World Service


The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.


The Food Chain

Which food do you associate with your favourite sport? 

Pie and chips at an English football match, biriyanis at the cricket in Pakistan or grilling meat in the parking lot outside an American football game – there are some tasty traditions which go hand-in-hand with sport across the world. 

Ruth Alexander hears how a traditional rice dish can bring two rival nations together over a game of cricket, and how a disappointing sausage roll before a football game led one man on a country-wide quest for better food for fans. 

Over a pile of warming chips on a frosty night in South Manchester, Ruth discovers how getting the food right off the pitch might help a team’s fortune improve on the pitch. 

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk 

Presenter: Ruth Alexander 

Producer: Hannah Bewley 

Additional reporting: Ben Derico

(Image: a box of chips with gravy and curry sauce held beside a football pitch. Credit: BBC)

Stadium food

Prosecco flavoured crisps? Eggnog chicken? Sticky toffee pudding trifle? 

The innovation for novelty Christmas products seems endless, but is there the appetite? 

Ruth Alexander lifts the lid on an industry churning out festive food hits, and flops, in the race for Christmas tastebuds. 

She visits the Good Housekeeping Institute in London to take part in an opulent dessert testing event, deciding which puddings are the best on the shelves this year. 

Eric Nummelin and Mike Vahabi from Hela Spice in Toronto, Canada, reveal the wacky inventions they have come up with for this year, and how inspiration can strike at any time. 

A former buyer for a large European supermarket chain talks about how to “win” Christmas with headline-grabbing products, and what happens when shoppers try things once and don’t go back for more. 

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk 

Presenter: Ruth Alexander 

Producer: Hannah Bewley 

(Image: Colourful Christmas treats and biscuits. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)

Has Christmas food gone mad?

When there are so many recipes available for free online, why does anyone still buy cookbooks? 

In this programme we look into the business of selling cookbooks, what future the format may have and hear about the treasured tomes you turn to time and time again. 

Ruth Alexander visits Books for Cooks, a specialist cookbook shop in London, to chat to Eric Treuille who cooks lunch for his customers from a different cookbook each day. 

She speaks to cookbook writers Mogau Seshoene in South Africa, author of ‘The Lazy Makoti’ books, and Joanne Molinaro in the US, author of ‘The Korean Vegan’. 

Doris Cooper tells Ruth what a publisher is looking for in a cookbook. She tells Ruth about her big hits and misses as editor-in-chief of Simon Element, a division of Simon and Schuster in New York. 

And listeners in Italy, Malta and the US tell us about their favourite cookbooks. 

If you would like to contact the programme email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk. 

Presented by Ruth Alexander. 

Produced by Beatrice Pickup. 

(Image: Ruth Alexander with her grandmother’s cookbook, which still holds her handwritten pastry recipe. Credit: BBC)

What's the point of cookbooks?

Kale, quinoa, chia, blueberries, all members of a group of foods that have been around for a while, but have seen a sudden surge in global popularity. These so-called super foods are touted for their health benefits, but does their popularity stem from genuine science or robust marketing?

Many super foods are grown in developing countries but have seen a rising popularity among consumers in the global north. Angela Saini explores what happens to a country when the local superfood becomes a global superstar.

Super Foods or Super Fads?

About a third of what’s produced for human consumption isn’t eaten. We look at why the food we grow doesn’t always make it to our plate. 

It's not just the leftovers from a big meal. There are many ways that food gets wasted along the supply chain: the wheat that escapes the thresher, the apple that rolls off the truck on the way to the factory, or the tomatoes that rot while they are waiting to be sold. In emerging markets like China and India, attitudes toward food waste are changing. 

Elsewhere new technology is being developed to keep our food lasting longer.

Why Do We Waste So Much Food?

As politics changes does our food follow suit? We hear how food tastes and names have altered according to the politics of the day. 

Mangalitsa for example - a type of hairy pig - fell out of favour in communist times in Hungary, but is now back on the menu as a premium dish.

In China Kung Po chicken became known as Hongbao Jiding or Hula Jiding during the Cultural Revolution because it originally derived its name from an imperial official. 

And 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Domklause restaurant in the DDR museum is serving up food from an era when the city was divided.

Food and the Fall of the Berlin Wall

Does food maintain its national identity once it's cooked abroad? We'll look at why a recipe by chef Jamie Oliver for Jollof rice has many West Africans talking about their culinary heritage. Also,can you patent a recipe? We look at the relationship between intellectual property and food, and whether our food is for sharing or protecting. And how Parmigiano Reggiano may play a part in holding up EU- US trade talks.

Whose Food is it Anyway?

Who should decide whether a food-related technology is safe? We hear from Mike Mack, CEO of Syngenta, one of the world’s biggest agri-businesses and from Bart Staes, food spokesperson for the European Parliament's Greens Group.

We look at the science behind crop farming, from genetically modified crops to pesticides. Professor Ottoline Leyser, director of the Sainsbury Laboratory at Cambridge University, explains how exactly a crop is genetically modified. And could some types of pesticides be harming bees?

Are you a food technophobe or technophile? We get views from across the globe, from Nairobi to New York, on the best way for science to help feed the world.

Food Technophobes v Technophiles

Audrey Tinline looks at the political and economic history behind having a great big meal with a large group of people. We find out what happens to your body when you eat too much: the science of over-eating.We look at how festive food has been used as a hallmark of social and political dominance - beginning with how it came to feature so prominently in still life art. And how the recipe for a the British Christmas pudding was hijackaed as a stealth marketing tool for the Empire.

Feast

On average we consume some 27 kilos of sugar every year - and that figure is on the rise. But is that a good thing, or is sugar the root cause of many of the world's biggest, not-so-sweet, health concerns? Ed Butler speaks to professor Robert Lustig, who is leading the fight against sugar, and gets a response from Sugar Nutrition UK. We go to Berkeley, California where a tax on sugary drinks has just been implemented. And we hear from a couple who rowed from California to Hawaii on a sugar-free diet.

Sugar: A Love-Hate Relationship

How food, identity, religion, and politics are changing the way India eats. Anu Anand visits Mumbai’s biggest slaughterhouse to assess the economic impact of a total ban on beef and explores the right of an individual to choose what they eat in the world's largest democracy. Plus, we visit a holy town that is seeking to become fully vegetarian, leaving some of its residents feeling unwelcome.

India: Faith, Food, and Politics

India: Faith, Food, and Politics

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