The Food Programme
Episodes
Coronavirus and Food: Your Questions Answered
22 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As the government updates its plans for coronavirus, Dan Saladino answers your food questions.
Covid-19: The Food Dimension.
15 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino tracks the origins and impact of coronavirus within the global food supply chain. Where are pressures being felt and who's making decisio...
Is the Pasty Really Cornish?
08 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the week that Cornish people celebrated their Patron Saint St Piran, Dr Polly Russell & Sheila Dillon ask why the pasty remains an emblem of Co...
Lights, Camera, Reaction: Life after Great British Bake Off with David Atherton
01 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What's it like becoming a celebrity overnight? Bake Off Winner David Atherton talks fame, food and post-GBBO freak outs with presenter Leyla Kazim and...
A Tale of Two Fish: Salmon, the wild and farmed
23 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino investigates the possible extinction of wild Atlantic salmon within 20 years. Dan travels from the River Spey on Scotland's east coast to...
What Is Making My Child Fat? Part 2: The Debate and Your Questions.
16 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Professor Dame Sally Davies left her role as Chief Medical Officer for England in Autumn 2019, she didn't go quietly. Instead, she published a st...
What Is Making My Child Fat? Part 1: Finding Solutions to the UK’s Child Obesity Issue
09 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
When Professor Dame Sally Davies left her role as Chief Medical Officer for England in Autumn 2019, she didn't go quietly. Instead, she published a st...
Mary Berry: A Life Through Food
02 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon speaks to a veteran of the British food scene; a writer and television presenter who has made cooking – in particular baking – acces...
The Physicist In the Kitchen
26 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Can a grounding in science help us become better cooks? Dan Saladino speaks with chefs Heston Blumenthal, Raymond Blanc, food writers Harold McGee and...
Yes We Can: What do the tins we eat say about the UK?
19 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Baked beans, tinned pies, corned beef, creamed tomato soup, plum tomatoes, ackee, pineapple chunks and condensed milk.Our store cupboards are bursting...
Pints of progress: The brewers changing attitudes to learning disabilities
12 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Brewer and broadcaster Jaega Wise visits breweries where a progressive approach to employing people with learning disabilities is pouring away preconc...
Could eating microalgae be the next big thing?
05 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon enters the murky green and bright blue world of microalgae and cynobacteria to meet the people who believe humble pond scum could be the...
Is The Dinner Party Dead?
29 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Cast your mind back to the days when as a child you’d be pushed into the backroom with the TV on a Saturday night whilst your parents ‘entertained...
Michel Roux Jr: A Life Through Food
22 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon visits London restaurant Le Gavroche, to speak to renowned chef Michel Roux Jr about food, family and festive inspiration.Michel Jr is t...
The Sugar Plum Shift: Exploring the ballet world’s changing approach to food, nutrition and body image
15 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sparkling lights, twinkly music, frothy tutus and perfectly pirouetting dancers: what could be more magical – and festive – than ballet?This is an...
Cookbooks of 2019
08 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Pinch of Nom, Charred and East are among the titles up for discussion as Sheila Dillon and guests gather in Hay-on-Wye to review 2019's best cookbooks...
Eating Animals Part 2: A Meat Q&A.
01 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino, Sheila Dillon and a range of experts ranging from climate scientists to beef producers answer your questions on meat eating and the futu...
Eating Animals Part 1: The Future of Meat
24 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino finds out why tensions are running so high over animal vs plant based diets. In October 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chan...
The Food Programme at 40: Looking Forward (Part II)
17 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Andi Oliver, Rick Stein and Yotam Ottolenghi join Sheila Dillon at the BBC Radio Theatre to celebrate 40 years of The Food Programme and ask what chan...
The Food Programme at 40: Looking Back (Part I)
10 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Andi Oliver, Rick Stein and Yotam Ottolenghi join Sheila Dillon at the BBC Radio Theatre to celebrate 40 years of The Food Programme and ask what chan...
Smoke and Celebration: Exploring Bonfire Night food traditions
03 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Autumn is the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness – when the air is perfumed with bonfire smoke, sweet crisp apples are weighing down orchard br...
Brexit: The Tomato's Story. What can one food tell us about the future?
27 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino uses the story the tomato to examine the impact of the new Brexit on food.
Could a food project from India solve the UK’s holiday hunger problem?
20 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As many UK schools break for half term, chef Romy Gill and Sheila Dillon focus on our national problem with holiday hunger.Earlier this year, a UN spe...
Joe Wicks: A Life Through Food
13 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Joe Wicks, the personal trainer, started making Instagram videos in his kitchen in 2014, he couldn't have imagined he'd become author of the seco...
The Return of Zing: How to Get Sour Back into Your Life.
06 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino explores the taste and temptations of sourness, from our evolution to the way we cook and eat. A story of puckering pickles, science, fer...
Food Additives, Part 2: The Debate
29 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the second part of The Food Programme's focus on additives, Sheila Dillon takes a closer look the myths and realities around these extra ingredient...
Food Additives, Part 1: Sherbet and other E number experiments
22 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
From Vitamin C and fruit-flavoured sherbet, to the chemicals adding flavour to ultra-processed foods - Sheila Dillon delves into the world of food add...
Island to Island: The journey of Mauritian cuisine
15 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Mauritius recently celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence from the UK – and since that day in the 1960s, tens of thousands of islanders hav...
Ice Cream Nation
08 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We might like the occasional 99 in the rain in the UK, but not for us the piled high gelato cones of Italy, the tubs of sweet American sundaes, nor th...
Taste the Music and Dance
01 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino reports from the Taste The World stage of the world music festival Womad. In 2006 a director of the festival Annie Menter had the idea of...
Jamie Oliver: A Life Through Food Part II
25 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the anniversary of TV series 'The Naked Chef', Jamie Oliver talks to Sheila Dillon about two controversial decades dominating food on our TV screen...
Jamie Oliver: A Life Through Food Part I
18 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the anniversary of TV series 'The Naked Chef', Jamie Oliver talks to Sheila Dillon about two controversial decades dominating food on our TV screen...
Why did the chicken cross the road? How food became more than a comedy punchline
11 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Food has been larking about in comedy since Charlie Chaplin first slipped on a banana skin and made bread rolls dance: but somewhere along the way, it...
The Search for Esiah's Seeds
04 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino tells the story Esiah Levy who shared seeds and changed lives. It all started with a squash. Soon after he started to grow his own food h...
The BarbeQ'n'A
28 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Rain or shine, the British barbecue is a summer tradition: and we want to help your al fresco feasts go with a bang!Sheila Dillon calls on Genevieve T...
Good Enough for Granny: What's so special about the food our grandmothers cook?
21 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We asked you to tell us stories of meals you remember your grandmothers making. Now Sheila Dillon asks why these dishes - whether delicious or otherwi...
Is There A Perfect Diet Just For You? The Future of Personalised Nutrition
14 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino takes part in a gruelling nutrition study to work out what to eat. Founded by Professor Tim Spector "Predict" is one of the biggest food ...
Playing with Food: The world of video game gastronomy
07 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino embarks on an epic quest into a world of food-filled computer games, to find out how and why foraging, cooking and eating have become suc...
Can Anyone Learn To Cook? - A Life Through Food with Samin Nosrat
30 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Netflix chef and author of 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat', Samin Nosrat says anyone can learn to cook delicious food. Samin shares a life of food memories wi...
Baking in the Nordics: The Bread Adventures of Chef Magnus Nilsson
23 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Magnus Nilsson takes Dan Saladino on a Nordic baking tour. For a nearly a decade Magnus, who is one of the world's most celebrated chefs, travelled th...
The BBC Food & Farming Awards 2019: Second Course
16 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The winners of the BBC Food & Farming Awards 19 are revealed at a ceremony in Bristol. In part two, Jamie Oliver reveals the winner of the inaugra...
The Food & Farming Awards 2019: First Course
16 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The winners of the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2019 are revealed at a glittering ceremony in Bristol.In the first course of the 2019 awards story, S...
Ten Good Things
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With days to go before we learn who the winners are of the 2019 BBC Food & Farming Awards Dan Saladino looks at the remaining food and drink ideas...
Faith, Fasting and Feasting – A Ramadan Special
02 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
As Ramadan 2019 draws to a close, many British Muslim reach the culmination of a month of fasting during daylight hours. But that doesn't mean that fo...
An Education: Life lessons through food
26 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Genevieve Taylor sets out to meet a few of this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards finalists, and hear how learning about food has changed their lives...
Stranded! How to eat on a desert island.
19 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino arrives on a beach for a Robinson Crusoe experience. Will he be able to survive on wild food? Chef Gill Meller and foragers John Wright a...
What makes an excellent food producer?
12 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
What does it take to produce delicious food of the highest quality in the UK in 2019? This year, it was the turn of chef, food writer, BBC TV presente...
Feeding the High Street: Are food shops the answer?
05 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At a time when shops are closing across the country, we visit three food retail businesses that are bucking the trend. Levenshulme Market in Greater M...
How reassuring are food assurance labels?
28 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Food assurance labels come in all sorts of forms, appearing on all sorts of ingredients available from shops across the UK. Their logos promise certif...
Top Banana: The Future of the World's Most Popular Fruit
21 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino meets the scientists working on the future of a truly global food, the banana.
How to Start a Food Revolution: The Food Adventures of Claus Meyer
15 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Can you reinvent a food culture? Dan Saladino meets a man who did, Denmark's Claus Meyer, the co-founder of Noma, one of the world's most influential ...
Tipping Point: Time to Rethink the Service Charge?
08 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Should you leave a cash tip or is card just as good, do you prefer a service charge or would you get rid of tipping altogether? Sheila Dillon finds ou...
Life of Pie
31 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One September Ella Risbridger tried to kill herself. She survived and left the hospital thinking about making a pie. When she got home, her partner pe...
Would you let a robot cook you dinner?
24 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Robots are building burgers, stretching dough in pizzerias and cooking up a media storm. Soon, they could deliver our groceries, invent recipes using ...
Delicious and Endangered: The Story of Bluefin Tuna
17 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino travels from Brixham to Tokyo in search of Bluefin tuna. In recent months there have been more sightings of the endangered fish in Briti...
A different kind of S.W.A.T team
10 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
10 years ago, Randeep Singh and his colleagues had a moment of realisation. More than 200 people in their immediate local community were living withou...
Why is CBD on everyone's lips?
04 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
CBD Gummies, CBD croissants, CBD coffee, CBD pesto, CBD beer... CBD is everywhere.Presenter Charlotte Smith tells the story of how this oil from canna...
The Secret Life of Spaghetti
25 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino looks at our long and tangled relationship with spaghetti. Both carbs and meat are under scrutiny and Mintel, which monitors consumer beh...
Should I boycott palm oil?
17 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
You will have heard of palm oil... but do you really know why? Possibly the things that come to mind are orangutans, deforestation. Perhaps you know t...
Curry house crisis... where are the women?
10 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The British Asian restaurant sector says it's suffering the consequence of major staff shortages. Many high street takeaways and curry houses are faci...
Who are the new generation shaking up the food system?
03 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Who are the new voices pushing for change in the food system? Sheila Dillon hears from Alice Thompson of Social Bite, a charity that distributes over ...
What does a no-deal Brexit mean for our food?
27 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
With just over 60 days before we're set to leave the EU Dan Saladino gathers thoughts along the food supply chain, from farmers and retailers to expor...
The one where we talk about deep fried Mars Bars
20 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Deep frying our food is a fast efficient way of cooking and it's not new.The ancient Greeks staged comedies involving frying pans. The Romans fried fi...
Feeding the Falklands
13 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Would you buy a pineapple for £15? The Falkland Islands provides much of the squid we eat in Europe. And they can produce more lamb and beef than the...
Dog's Dinner
07 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Premium pet food has become big business. In the past year, loving dog owners in the UK spent 379 million pounds on posh nosh for their pooches. What...
Weak, small and free: How no and low alcohol is finding power without strength
30 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As people cut down and cut out booze, no and low alcohol drinks are pouring onto the market. Brewer Jaega wise explores this show against strength tha...
Nigella Lawson: A Life Through Food
25 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
"I am not a chef. I am not even a trained or professional cook. My qualification is as an eater." So writes Nigella Lawson in the preface to her first...
The Changing World of Chocolate
16 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Presenter Charlotte Smith puts down her beloved Kit Kat to discover a world of rich, bitter and often rather pricey chocolate as she explores how smal...
Sweet Chestnuts
09 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Rachel Roddy and Sheila Dillon share their love of Sweet Chestnuts and find out how they're for so much more than just roasting over an open fire. Li...
Cookbooks of 2018
02 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon is joined by cook and food-writer Chetna Makan, Tom Tivnan from The Bookseller’—the book industry’s bible, and Kate Young who won ...
The Food and Medicine Debate
25 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Food as part of a prescription for health and wellbeing. What has gone wrong with our diets in the UK and how are doctors and experts trying to redre...
The Big Carb Debate
18 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Food Programme invites a panel of four to discuss the merits of a low versus high carbohydrate diet. Following up on the issues raised in discus...
Cambodia's Forgotten Food
12 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Food writer, chef and presenter Genevieve Taylor tells the story of how Cambodia’s cooking history was almost lost in the genocide that saw millions...
How Instagram changed food
06 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How Instagram changed food - with journalist George Reynolds and Anissa Helou, the author of Feast. Plus @pleesecakes reveals the secrets to 147k fol...
May Contain Nuts
28 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Following the recent high-profile cases involving food allergy deaths, Bee Wilson investigates whether labelling needs to go further to protect allerg...
A Vintage Year for Homegrown Wine
21 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After the summer heatwave, Master of Wine Susie Barrie meets winemakers bringing in what could be a watershed harvest for homegrown wine. On a tour of...
The C Word
14 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Foxwhelp, cat's head, sheep's nose, hen's turd, yellow willy .... did you know there are over 200 varieties of cider apple? Jaega Wise of Wild Card br...
How to Feed a Fresher
07 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It’s fresher’s week, and all over the country students are settling in to their new digs, frantically buying kettles, figuring out the microwave s...
The Meat-Free Meat Movement
01 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Meat-free meat is having a moment. As more and more people move to a plant-based diet the range of steaks, burgers, hams - almost any meat product you...
Stories for a harvest moon
25 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Stories of harvest from around the UK to celebrate the autumn equinox and the passing of the summer.Presented by Andi Oliver Produced by Siobhan Magu...
Rowley Leigh: A Life Through Food
16 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Rowley Leigh, to many the "godfather" of modern British cooking tells his story to Dan Saladino. Along the way he cooks the perfect omelette and share...
The carnivore's guide to meat and fire
11 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Meat, drink, fire and bands - every year top chefs gather in London for a hearty celebration that has become a carnivore's delight. Tim Hayward arrive...
Label This!
02 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon investigates the world of food and drink labelling; what has to go on, what doesn't, how we got here - and where things might be going.A...
Seeds: a 400-million-year-old food story
26 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino and food historian Polly Russell share stories of seeds as told at this year's Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. From the link betwee...
There's More to Mangoes
19 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of varieties of mango. Some creamy and sweet, some a bit hot, some like pineapple and some that are just a bit bl...
Shetland - A Food Homecoming
12 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon visits Shetland to meet the people transforming Shetland's food culture by reinventing traditional dishes as well as creating new food i...
Keep It Sticky: The Extraordinary Story of Chef Marcus Samuelsson.
05 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Harlem based chef Marcus Samuelsson was born in Ethiopia, adopted in Sweden and made his reputation in New York City. He tells Dan Saladino his extrao...
Music and Food: Sounds Delicious!
29 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino explores the relationship between tunes and taste with Andi Oliver on the link between Sam Cooke and roast chicken and chef Stephen Harri...
Richard Corrigan: A Life Through Food
22 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Corrigan's is a story of Ireland, the story of a turning point in British food culture and the story of a deep connection to the land and its ...
Birmingham's Beloved Balti
15 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
For food writer Yasmin Khan, the Balti conjures up family meals out in her childhood home of Birmingham where she would regularly tuck into deep bowls...
Cycling and Food: Fuelling the Peloton
08 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
To celebrate the start of the Tour de France, cycling presenter and former racer Rebecca Charlton takes you behind the scenes at one of the world's bi...
Unedited: Sheila Dillon's interview with Prof. Louis Levy of Public Health England
03 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
This week's programme about the Eatwell Guide featured an interview with Prof. Louis Levy from Public Health England. This is the unedited version of ...
The Eatwell Guide
02 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon questions whether the government's Eatwell Plate that's issued to the medical profession and used as public guidance for a balanced diet...
What's Eating The Restaurant Trade?
24 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Grace Dent, restaurant critic and broadcaster asks what's going wrong in the restaurant trade. With hundreds of small and large food outlets closing t...
BBC Food and Farming Awards 2018: Second Course
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Sheila Dillon presents the people and the stories behind this year's Food and Farming Awards. Hear the winner of this year's Derek Cooper Outstanding ...
BBC Food and Farming Awards 2018: First Course
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Andi Oliver, Alex James and Matt Tebbutt join Sheila Dillon for a night once dubbed 'the Oscars of the food world'; the BBC Food and Farming Awards 20...
Street Food 2018
11 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As part of the BBC Food and Farming Awards Nigel Barden and Tom Parker Bowles met an amazing array of street food vendors. In this programme Nigel tel...
The Mothership of Brewing: Beer and the Belgians
03 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Dan Saladino and drinks writer Pete Brown find out why Belgium beer is so influential.
Life-changing Food
01 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
From prisons to research chefs, Sheila Dillon and chef Romy Gill hear how food is used around the country to transform lives. As judges on the 2018 BB...
Food Stories From Syria (3)
20 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Europe's migrant crisis is far from over. Already in 2018, the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) estimate that more than 24, 475 people have arrived in Euro...