The Food Programme
Episodes
Falafel: A recipe for connection
29 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Falafels are a widely celebrated and much loved food that have become an everyday part of street food culture in many cities across Europe, the United...
Consider the Axe: Food, farming and the wonders of Stonehenge.
22 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino and blacksmith Alex Pole explain how our food has been influenced by metals.
Madhur Jaffrey: A Legacy
15 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
40 years ago the BBC broadcast a new TV cooking series called "Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking". It was a first, and showed audiences that Indian food...
Staffordshire Oatcakes – a Potteries tradition going strong
08 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In our world of globalised food, there are few things that have remained true local specialities, and the Staffordshire oatcake is one of them. This o...
SPAM: food + war + memory in a can
01 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
No other tinned meat has had the worldwide cultural impact of SPAM. Though often denigrated in this country, it is celebrated across the world particu...
Jack Monroe: A Life Through Food
24 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Monroe, the food writer and poverty campaigner sits down in her living room in Southend-on-Sea to share her 'Life Through Food' with Leyla Kazim....
An Easter Special
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino hears from cooks in Palermo, Marseille and Kyiv about Easter food traditions. Produced and presented by Dan Saladino
Ukraine: The Food Dimension Part 2
10 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino speaks to food suppliers and farmers in Ukraine about the impact of war.Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
Beans Part 2: How Spain Does Beans
03 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A few months ago, Sheila Dillon opened a glass jar of chickpeas in her kitchen. Their taste was so different from those she had been eating for years ...
Beans Part 1: Are Legumes the Answer?
27 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of two programmes all about beans, Sheila Dillon asks if they could be the answer to our issues with health and global warming. We're oft...
The True Cost of Food
21 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The price of food is rising alongside fuel, energy and other costs, and experts are warning that households face the biggest squeeze on disposable inc...
Animal-free dairy: Could this be the future of milk?
13 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dairy alternatives with real milk proteins but no use of cows are now becoming a reality. In the US you can now buy animal-free dairy ice cream, and a...
Ukraine: War in the breadbasket of the world
06 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino looks at the war in Ukraine through the lens of food. Are people already going hungry? And what does conflict mean for the millions depen...
Scotland, a Good Food Nation?
27 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can Scotland become a nation where people from every walk of life ‘take pride and pleasure in the food they produce, buy, cook, serve, and eat each ...
Fresh Grounds: The Search for the World's Rarest Coffee
20 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino meets the plant hunters searching for the world's lost and forgotten coffee varieties and Michael Pollan, author of This is Your Mind on ...
Ainsley Harriott: A Life Through Food
13 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ainsley Harriott joins Jaega Wise to share his 'Life Through Food' from his kitchen in South London. Ainsley is one of the UK's most recognisable TV c...
Eco-labelling for food - what difference could it make?
06 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jaega Wise explores how environmental-impact labels on food and drink products could help lower the carbon footprint of the food industry. Although th...
Wassail! Wassail! A celebration of cider, orchards and song
30 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino goes in search of the history, meaning and spirit of wassails and cider. In Somerset he takes part in a village wassail sung door to door...
Angela Hartnett: A Life Through Food
23 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode Sheila Dillon is joined by a chef, restaurateur, author and campaigner, Angela Hartnett, for another in the programme’s series of Li...
Keto: Diet fad or food fix?
16 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino explores keto to understand the appeal of this low carb way of eating. Featuring Gary Taubes (book) The Case for Keto), GP Dr David Unwin...
Gabriella D'Cruz: Global Youth Champion
09 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gabriella D’Cruz, from Goa, wants to improve diets, transform livelihoods and protect the planet using an often-overlooked marine vegetable - seawee...
#FoodTok: Mastering the Art of Cooking in Three Minutes
02 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jaega Wise and her co-presenters start the New Year having a go on TikTok after #FoodTok raked in billions of views in 2021. What, if anything, can be...
The Rise of Ultra-Fast Grocery Delivery
26 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Leyla Kazim dives into the world of rapid grocery delivery, one of the newest trends to hit the world of food retail. In scarcely more than a year, a ...
A Christmas Feast Special.
19 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Some of the biggest names in the food world join Dan and Sheila with their favourite Christmas dishes, including Claudia Roden, Jeremy Lee and Paula M...
The Meaning of Cod
12 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How did cod become such an important fish in so many different and diverse parts of Europe? In search of the past, present and future of cod, Dan Sal...
The BBC Food and Farming Awards 2021 - Second Course
05 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon presents more stories of the winners of the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2021, which celebrates the people across the UK who've changed l...
The BBC Food and Farming Awards 2021 - First Course
30 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The winners of the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2021 are announced at a ceremony at London's Broadcasting House.
Cookbooks of 2021
21 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What are the books that the presenters of Radio 4's The Food Programme have been relishing this year? You are about to find out. In this episode, Shei...
Best Shop or Market of the Year: Meet the Finalists
14 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Leyla Kazim visits 2021’s Best Shop or Market finalists in the 20th BBC Food and Farming Awards – a food co-op, rural farm shop and city market wh...
COP26: The Case for Cattle and Pigs.
07 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Less but better? With the COP26 climate summit underway Dan Saladino looks at how meat and dairy can play a positive role for the future of people and...
Veg Invention: The stories of new kinds of fruit and vegetables
31 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Seed breeders spend whole careers in search of that perfect fruit or vegetable, and some even come up with their own completely new designs. Think Ten...
A Personnel Problem: What's the solution to hospitality's staffing crisis?
24 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The hospitality sector has a problem: it just can't get the staff.Businesses from bars to hotels are facing a massive worker shortage, as job vacancie...
Follow the Money: Investor power and the Future of Food
17 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino finds out how groups of influential investors are using the trillions of dollars they control to shape the future of food. It's argued t...
Best Food Producer of the Year: Meet the Finalists
10 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does it take to bring home the title of Best Food Producer in the Food and Farming Awards 2021? This year, Sheila Dillon and chef Angela Hartn...
Oz Clarke: A Life Through Wine
03 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Oz Clarke, the popular man of wine, has enjoyed success in wine writing and broadcasting for four decades. First appearing on our screens on BBC2’s ...
Prue Leith: A Life Through Food
26 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
She might be best known as the colourfully clad host of the Great British Bake Off, but Dame Prue Leith's accomplishments during her six decades in th...
High Spirits: A story of vodka
19 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vodka is a spirit with a rich cultural history in a host of European countries including Russia and Poland, where it’s been distilled for centuries....
Buckfast: the Transformation of Scotland’s Most Controversial Drink
12 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Shedding its associations with street crime and violence, Buckfast is now drunk in upmarket cocktail bars, trendy restaurants and hipster haunts. Jaeg...
Stirring Up Stories: The Business of Food PR
05 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Leyla Kazim finds out how food companies and restaurants use PR agencies to get us thinking about the meals they want us to buy. From talking teabags ...
Tastefully Worded: Exploring food in language
29 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Can you have your cake and eat it? Do you have bigger fish to fry?Are you seduced by food imagery in literature, and lured into rash purchases by the ...
The Story of the Digestive: From grain to biscuit.
22 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino tells the story of one of Britain's oldest and most popular biscuits, the digestive. He follows the story from a farmers wheat field to a...
Flour to the People.
15 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino finds out how farmers, millers and bakers are reclaiming wheat, flour and bread in Scotland. When flour ran out during the pandemic the ...
Andrew Wong: A Life Through Food
08 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
“It’s about trying to paint pictures – of different places, different moments in time, throughout China’s past.”Andrew Wong grew up helping ...
Catering in Care Homes
01 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Coronavirus pandemic has brought into focus the lives of older and disabled people living in care homes like never before. From the start of the f...
The Great Food Reset?
25 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino finds out why a UN summit to transform the global food system has become so controversial. It has generated 2500 ideas for change but als...
Plate of the Nation: Second Serving
18 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Could we kick-start a major transformation of our food system, in just three years?That's the ambition of the National Food Strategy, the first indepe...
Drinking Culture: The women calling out sexism in the alcohol industry
11 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past year, women working in different parts of the drinks industry have been sharing their stories and experiences to try to change the way w...
Unpacking the Great British Picnic
04 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a country where weather is notoriously fickle, how has the picnic become such a beloved institution? Jaega Wise rolls out a blanket and invites a g...
Cyrus Todiwala: A Life Through Food
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From Mumbai childhood to pioneering London chef, Mr Todiwala's Life Through Food; a story involving the legendary dish Bombay Duck and an important co...
The Medical Field: Why student doctors are getting out on farms
20 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Food Programme first met Iain Broadley and Ally Jaffee in 2017, when they were studying medicine in Bristol. The pair saw a disconnect between the...
Eat Your Art Out: How Art Makes Us Eat
13 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Eating with our eyes is no new concept, but can visual art itself inspire or alter the way we eat? and can food be used to help more people appreciate...
Tom Kerridge: A Life Through Food
06 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Tom Kerridge is probably best known as the first chef in the UK to be awarded two prestigious Michelin stars for food served in a pub, not even a year...
India's Covid Crisis: The Food Story
30 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino looks at covid's impact on food in India and the heroic efforts underway to feed communities. Lockdowns and job losses have disrupted acc...
Socially Distanced Dining: Indoor restaurants reopen again
23 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As hospitality businesses in most parts of the UK are allowed to resume serving customers indoors this week, Leyla Kazim heads to Padstow to meet a co...
Pure umami: should we learn to love MSG?
16 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Monosodium Glutamate is probably one of the most contentious ingredients in modern food. Increasingly there have been calls to tackle the stigma atta...
1971: A year that changed food forever?
09 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino asks if the year 1971 was a turning point for how the world eats? It was a year of contrasts: McDonalds increased the portion sizes of th...
The Joy of Heat
03 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The chilli revolution of the past decade has made the UK a nation of chilli-jam lovers, and windowsill spice-growers. But our desire for the fiery k...
A Nominations Celebration
25 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The BBC Food and Farming Awards are back for their 20th edition, ready to celebrate the people across the UK who are changing lives for the better, th...
Lab-grown meat: How long before it's on a menu near you?
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first lab-grown beef burger was cooked and eaten in London in 2013. Since then more than 15 types of meat have been re-created by food scientists ...
The Urban Growing Revolution
11 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Planting and growing food has had a massive boost during the pandemic - and that hasn't been limited to those with gardens.Right across the country, p...
The Magic of Mussels (And Their Troubled Trade)
04 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino finds out how Brexit could wreck plans to turn the mussel into a mainstream food. They're good for our health and the environment so why ...
Food, James Bond’s food
28 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We don’t often see James Bond eating in the films, but in the novel food is almost as important as espionage, cocktails, sex, villains and travel. A...
Food in Lockdown: One Year On
21 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A year after the UK was first put into lockdown, Sheila Dillon catches up with some of those who have been keeping the nation fed. If you listened to ...
The Barrel Effect: Why Oak casks have stood the test of time.
14 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Brewer Jaega Wise looks into the history of the oak barrel, and hears how despite their shape, sizes and names having barely changed in hundreds of ye...
Genome editing and the future of food
07 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino looks at the future role of genome editing in food and farming. A public consultation is underway on technologies such as CRISPR. What co...
School Food: Re-imagined
28 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is the current school meal model, how well is it working and how has the pandemic highlighted existing problems and created new ones?More importa...
Everything Stops For Tea.
21 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The past 12 months have been tumultuous for us all. But imagine, for one second, how it would have been without a cup of tea? In the first three month...
Charles Campion: A Life Through Food.
14 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The writer Charles Campion, who passed away recently, was an obsessive collector of food stories. With the help of Jay Rayner, Cyrus Todiwala, Nigel B...
Cooking Blind
07 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Amar Latif, entrepreneur and presenter, became the first blind contestant on BBC One's Celebrity MasterChef in 2019. During the series he inspired vie...
Flavours of Home: The refugees forging new lives through food
31 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
COVID-19 may have pushed it from the front pages, but the refugee crisis rages on around the world, fed by war, famine and political persecution; and ...
All at Sea? Fishing after Brexit
24 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino finds out what the Brexit deal means for the fishing industry. Some exports and logistics companies have seen problems along the supply c...
What to Eat to Save the Planet?
17 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As scientific evidence grows showing an urgent need for us to reduce the environmental impact of food we eat, Sheila Dillon looks for practical ways w...
BrewDog: Punks grown up?
10 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
BrewDog to a lot of people are almost synonymous with 'craft beer.' They are everywhere from supermarkets to off licences and have their own chain of ...
Inside the World Food Programme
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino tells the inside story of Nobel Peace Prize winners the World Food Programme.Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
Loving the Leftovers
27 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Christmas is over, everyone’s eaten too much – and yet, there’s still a mountain of leftover goodies, from the turkey to the cheese board, from ...
Christmas Cooking: The 2020 Edit
20 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Christmas will be different this year, but it doesn't mean it should be any less delicious.Sheila Dillon is joined by cooks who know about cooking for...
The Secret Life of Chocolate. Part 2: The future.
13 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon is joined by baker and chocolatier Selasi Gbormittah and chocoholic comedian Sue Perkins to celebrate the present and future of the Brit...
The Secret Life of Chocolate. Part 1: Origins
06 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino explores the origins of cacao, from the bean's journey from central America to Europe and the rise of the chocolate bar.The first of a tw...
Cookbooks of 2020
29 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Whether it's a recipe book full of mouthwatering meals, a deep dive into the science of what we eat or a collection of must-try cocktails, books about...
What’s the deal with "chlorinated chicken"?
22 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What do we mean by chlorinated chicken? Why is it such a bad thing? What exactly are the UK standards that we’re so keen to promote and protect? To...
Raymond Blanc: The Lost Orchard
15 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Raymond Blanc has spent decades growing an orchard at Le Manoir. An orchard Raymond has planted with 2500 rare trees from in the hope of saving lost a...
University Challenge: How students and universities are managing meals during the pandemic
08 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Universities have become big business in the UK in recent decades - educating around 2.3 million students, with an annual operating expenditure of ove...
Nadiya Hussain: A Life Through Food
01 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It's been five years since Nadiya Hussain left the Great British Bake Off tent victorious, inspiring and instilling confidence in wannabe bakers acros...
Eat Your Way to Power: Food and Politics on the Campaign Trail
25 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Food can tell us a lot about our politicians, at least that seems to be what we think. We love to see them eat and we obsess about what goes in their ...
Faith, Fasts and Feasts: The role of food in Jewish celebration
18 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This year’s autumn run of Jewish holy days has been like no other; but even with coronavirus-related restrictions in place, food and community has r...
English Pastoral: James Rebanks on the future of food.
11 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino visits shepherd and writer James Rebanks whose farm in Cumbria spans three generations. What does can that history teach us about where f...
Taking the Biscuit: How a long-life ration became the quintessential British comfort food
04 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Biscuits aren’t just a classic accompaniment to a cuppa: they’re also somehow an edible comforter - very often providing a link to childhood, to f...
Wheat Revolutions
27 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino tells the story of wheat from the domestication of wild grasses in the Neolithic Revolution through to the controversial Green Revolution...
Kitchen obsessives: Why aim to cook the perfect dish?
20 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
March 2020. Supermarket shelves were bare, restaurants and takeaways were closed, schools and workplaces closed. Perhaps it's no surprise then that al...
The Ice Cream Van: A Celebration.
13 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino and his dad Bobo (a former ice-cream man) talk Mr Whippy, 99s and Screwballs. Together Dan and Bobo (who also used to work in restaurants...
A different kind of S.W.A.T team: Food in Lockdown
07 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 2019, Romy Gill met Randeep Singh, CEO of NishkamSWAT (Sikh Welfare & Awareness Team). 10 years previous, Randeep and his colleagues had a mome...
Sitopia - a land with food at its centre
30 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Carolyn Steel joins Sheila Dillon for this special edition of The Food Programme from the year 2030. Sheila discusses the prime ministe...
Plate of the Nation
23 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This year has already been a big one for food-related events and announcements - from the impact of Covid-19 and panic buying stripping supermarket sh...
Food and the legacy of slavery
16 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Jaega Wise and Dan Saladino investigate the hidden story of slavery in our food. Between the 17th century and into the 19th, twelve million enslaved ...
How Consumers Saved Our Cheese
09 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Many UK cheese makers depend on supplying restaurants and hospitality. They faced ruin when lockdown struck but were saved by consumers buying tonnes ...
Return of the Restaurant?
02 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Slowly but surely, restaurants are emerging from the coronavirus lockdown, introducing us to a new world of dining out, with added hygiene and distanc...
Julian Metcalfe: A Life Through Food
26 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Slowly, the hospitality industry is easing itself out of lockdown: but the sector has been hard hit - particularly those high-street outlets seen in t...
Food and Mood: how eating affects your mental health
19 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
One silver lining of lockdown is that it has brought talk of mental health, particularly depression, into the general conversation. And what is becomi...
Child Food Poverty: What next after the Government's U-turn on Free School Meals?
12 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Last month, footballer Marcus Rashford wrote an open letter to MPs calling for them to continue funding free schools meals during the summer holidays....
Is it harder to make it in the food industry if you’re black?
05 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The Black Farmer thinks we’re at another #MeToo moment in world history following the death of George Floyd and the protests and discussions about r...