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BBC Radio 4


Investigating every aspect of the food we eat


The Food Programme

Dan Saladino visits the annual Oxford Food Symposium and explores its theme of 'poverty food'.

Stories told at the event ranged from the historic links between breadfruit and the slave trade and the cooking demos organised for the poorest families in Edwardian London. We also hear about the oldest known cookbook to feature recipes for people in poverty, dating back to 14th century Persia.

How has poverty has shaped food cultures over the centuries? The symposium set out to provide answers.

As we face an ongoing cost of living crisis and the prospect of further food price inflation, 'poverty food' is an increasingly urgent and topical theme.
Are there lessons we can learn from history?

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
 

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Stories of Food and Poverty

On BBC Radio 4 we’re marking the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in London by exploring the impact of the Norman invasion. In this programme, food historian Dr Annie Gray travels to Normandy to investigate how the Norman Conquest changed what we eat and drink.

The Normans crossed the English Channel with new cheeses, different varieties of apple to make cider and introduced rabbits to our table. Annie samples the “Fantastic Four” of Norman soft cheeses – Livarot, Camembert, Neufchâtel and Pont-l'Évêque – and learns about their history with cheese expert David Raguet. She visits cider-makers Christian Drouin and Jean Olivier Petrich to understand why Normandy excels in the drink and finds out about the production of calvados and pommeau. 

Back in England, Annie also goes on the hunt for rabbits in Thetford Forest where you can still see evidence of the extensive Norman warrens. Dr Millie Horton-Insch from the British Museum explains how food is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry and Professor Ben Jervis considers what archaeology can teach us about the way our diets changed after 1066.

Produced by Robin Markwell for BBC Audio in Bristol.

What the Normans Did for Our Diet

School food is back in the spotlight, and as governments across the UK look to improve what children eat, what does it actually take to change a school meals service?

Jaega Wise spends a day with Andrew Cowan, Catering Manager at Bury Council, whose team serves around 10,000 meals a day across more than 50 schools. From Manchester's wholesale produce market to Elton High School, she follows the people working to put more freshly prepared, seasonal food on pupils' plates.

Along the way, Jaega visits Organic North, which supplies organic fruit and vegetables to Bury's schools, and The Organic Pantry, a prospective supplier hoping to be part of the council's network of local food producers. 

Produced in Bristol for BBC Audio by Natalie Donovan

A Day in the Life of a School Catering Manager

"One day we will eat with a knife and fork."

As they were growing up, it's a phrase Ify Adenuga repeated to her children, including the grime artists Skepta and JME. The saying would later inspire the title of Skepta's 2026 album Fork & Knife, which he has described as being rooted in the immigrant mindset, aspiration and the belief that hard work might one day deliver a better life.

In this edition of The Food Programme, Jimi Famurewa takes that phrase as a starting point to explore how the way we eat shapes ideas of identity, belonging and culture. From the arrival of the fork in Europe to the Nigerian tradition of eating with your hands, and from Cantonese chopstick culture to the formal rituals of the British dinner table, he uncovers surprising stories about the many different ways in which we consume our food.

Part social history, part personal journey, this is a story about the rules we inherit, the traditions we hold on to, and what something as simple as a knife, fork, pair of chopsticks or even our own hands can reveal about who we are.

Produced by Ishmael Soriano for BBC Audio Bristol

Fork and Knife

Dan Saladino meets this year's collection of musicians from around the world who are cooking as they perform at the WOMAD festival. 

What do their dishes reveal about global food history?

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Taste the World: The Origins of Our Food

There are many ways to age a cheese so how best to refine its flavours over time? Welcome to the art of affinage - a French term that translates as "refining" a cheese - and a practice that is starting to take off in the UK. Sheila Dillon attends a competition to find the Affineur of the Year and discovers that the way you age a cheese can dramatically change its taste and texture. A cheddar can become more like a comté by changing the temperature, humidity and length of the ripening process. She hears from practitioners who regularly wash and turn their cheeses. Some have buried cheeses in coal holes, encased them in clay pots or even played them music to find new ways of making traditional cheeses taste differently. Experimentation with these techniques has led to new cheeses entering the market. In this programme the dark arts of affinage will be revealed.

Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol for BBC Audio by Robin Markwell

The Dark Arts of Affinage

Since January 2025, thousands of tonnes of common octopus, usually found in the Mediterranean, have been landed by fisherman off the south coast of England. 
But it’s still not a regular feature on UK menus. In this episode of the Food Programme, Jaega Wise heads to Brixham fish market to find out more about what’s happening, and visits seafood restaurants taking alternative approaches to the challenge. 

Rockfish owner and chef Mitch Tonks talks her through the difficulties of cooking octopus, and marine ecologist Bryce Stewart at Plymouth University explains why the creature could be here to stay. Jaega also explores what puts people off eating octopus - from tentacles to extreme intelligence. And we head to Guernsey to meet a fisherman whose business has been severely impacted, and try some “Octodog”.

Produced by Tory Pope.

Eating Octopus

Leyla Kazim revisits some of The Food Programme's most memorable stories to ask: what happened next? From 500kg of eels stranded in a holding tank in Gloucestershire and English olive oil being pressed in Lincolnshire, to the future of halloumi in Cyprus following an outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease, and the impact of global politics on vegetables grown in Africa for UK consumers. Leyla returns to the people behind these stories to hear what happened after the programmes were broadcast. 

Listen to the original programmes: 

English Olive Oil
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f00z

Why Is Africa Feeding Us?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002m1mz

Halloumi and hellim: The story of an island and its cheese
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jsc7

Eels and Elvers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002lfhd

Consider the Eel: Part 2
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002t2kh

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

What Happened Next?

Cacao prices broke all records and then crashed, Dan Saladino explores the fallout for farmers and the chocolate industry with Jack Thompson reporting from the Ivory Coast.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino

Inside the Chocolate Crisis

They’re in your chocolate, your gelato, even your coffee - pistachios seem to be everywhere at the moment - bolstered by the craze for Dubai Chocolate. In this episode Leyla Kazim asks what happens when the world seems to fall in love with one ingredient. 

She explores how the United States came to overtake traditional producers in the Middle East to become the world's largest pistachio grower, and hears about the nut's long history in countries such as Iran from Iranian-American food writer Anna Ansari. Meanwhile, Honey & Co.'s Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich demonstrate how versatile pistachios can be, creating both sweet and savoury dishes.

Nick Moss, nuts market reporter at Expana, explains what's happening to pistachio prices and why forecasts for this year's harvest are lower than usual.

Leyla also visits Green Lanes in Haringey, home to many Turkish and Middle Eastern businesses, to discover how pistachios have long been central to traditional desserts - and hears how rising prices are changing that. Finally, she meets Charlie Tebbutt, whose south London company Food & Forest imports nuts, including pistachios, from farms that are either avoiding irrigation or using agroforestry methods, as an alternative to the vast monocrops that supply most of the world's pistachios. 

Produced by Natalie Donovan for BBC Audio in Bristol

How Pistachios Took Over

Mark Bittman is a high-profile figure in the United States. He's the chief food writer for the New York Times, a broadcaster, and a bestselling author.

Keen to understand the differences between the British and American food systems, one day he made a call out of the blue to Sheila Dillon. Once in London, he fixed up meetings with Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Arthur Potts Dawson.

The Food Programme joins Mark on his personal journey into the world of the campaigning chef.

Produced by Rich Ward.

A Special (Food) Relationship

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