The Food Programme

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There's More to Mangoes Aug 19, 2018

Show notes

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 bland. Unfortunately it's the latter that are usually peeled, chopped and potted for us on supermarket shelves. In this programme, Sheila Dillon and Romy Gill meet Monica Bhandari to talk about the breadth of mangoes that we could all be delighting in and they hear from Chef Allen, a Florida-based chef known for using mangoes in his fusion cooking, BBC Gloucestershire radio presenter Primrose Granville-McIntosh describes her lifelong infatuation with mangoes and BBC Asian Network presenter Noreen Khan explains the mango ban that shook Britain's mango-loving communities.

Shetland - A Food Homecoming Aug 12, 2018

Show notes

Sheila Dillon visits Shetland to meet the people transforming Shetland's food culture by reinventing traditional dishes as well as creating new food initiatives. Social media is playing a huge part in promoting a vibrant, young food scene that is attracting entrepreneurs as well as bringing back those who may have left the islands as teenagers. Jonathan Williamson left to manage the food hall at Fortnam and Mason but came home in his late 20s to build and run Cafe Fjara on Lerwick harbour. Akshay Borges from Mumbai answered an ad for a trainee chef at the Scalloway Hotel nine years ago. He has been here ever since and is now launching his own restaurant the String bringing food, music and art together. Traditional skills like fishing and meat production are thriving too. A career in food was never on the agenda for 29 year old Chris Wright who worked different jobs in his early twenties before following his dream of becoming a butcher. He blogs about the meat dishes he prepares in addition to his day job at Anderson's Butchers in Lerwick. Elizabeth Atia is the UK's most northerly food blogger and one of the few who makes a living from it. She says being Shetland based gives her blog -Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary- a USP in the blogging world. Many restaurants on Shetland get their vegetables from Transition Turriefield run by Penny Armstrong and Alan Robertson. They have nurtured the barren land on their croft since returning to Shetland fifteen years ago, building poly tunnels and enriching the soil to grow a variety of seasonal vegetables which they sell to customers through a box scheme. All of them stress the importance of social media in spreading the word about Shetland's renewed food culture and its high quality fresh local produce.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

Keep It Sticky: The Extraordinary Story of Chef Marcus Samuelsson. Aug 05, 2018

Show notes

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 extraordinary story through food. The third of The Food Programme's 2018 season of African food stories.

Marcus's restaurant, The Red Rooster is part of a success story that has seen the 46 year old chef become a major television personality, a cook for Presidents and a major influence of the food scene in the US. But on the restaurant's menu, if you know the story behind some of the delicious dishes, an incredible life story is also being told.

A pasta dish from Ethiopia captures an early life being born in a mud hut in a tiny east African village where everyone had berbere spice, coffee and the grain tef in their store cupboards. This was the world Marcus left at age of two after he, his sister and mother contracted TB and had to make a 70 mile trek to a hospital in the capital Addis Ababa. Macus and his sister survived, their mother died.

They were adopted by a Swedish couple, and Marcus grew up with two passions, football and food. His grandmother Helga taught him to cook and forage. This is why on the menu of his Harlem restaurant is a dish called Helga's meatballs.

After a brutal apprenticeship and training in restaurants across Europe, Marcus travelled to New York City, narrowly missed being caught up in the attack on the Twin Towers and 9/11 and realised his life had to take a different path. That's why he ended up in Harlem.

Dan Saladino hears his life story, from Ethiopia to New York.

Presented and presented by Dan Saladino.

Music and Food: Sounds Delicious! Jul 29, 2018

Show notes

Dan Saladino explores the relationship between tunes and taste with Andi Oliver on the link between Sam Cooke and roast chicken and chef Stephen Harris on food and The Buzzcocks.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Richard Corrigan: A Life Through Food Jul 22, 2018

Show notes

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 produce. But most of all it is the story of a man committed to his principles in a notoriously unforgiving industry. He is a rare voice of authenticity from the kitchen and one of our most important chefs.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Siobhan Maguire.

Birmingham's Beloved Balti Jul 15, 2018

Show notes

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 of the city's most iconic dish -- richly spiced chicken or lamb, that she scooped up with freshly made warm naan breads.

In it's heyday, the Sparkhill area of Birmingham was saturated with Balti restaurants, so much so that it became known as the "Balti Triangle", a place which defined Birmingham's food scene and became one of the few parts of the UK where working class, immigrant, food was celebrated.

Since then, the Balti has grown in reputation as one of Britain's truly regional dishes, so much so that a bid was made, albeit unsuccessfully, to give it protected EU status.

Now, Yasmin heads back to Birmingham to explore what this uniquely British-Pakistani dish means to a new generation of people growing up in the so-called 'Balti Triangle'. What she finds is a community with strong bonds and deep pride, that continues to come together around a deep love of food.

Presented by Yasmin Khan Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Cycling and Food: Fuelling the Peloton Jul 08, 2018

Show notes

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 biggest bike events to find the race is on in the kitchen to fuel riders who need to eat up to 8,000 calories per day for three weeks straight. She learns about Chris Froome's nutrition plan with Olympic coach and now Team Principal at Team Sky, Sir Dave Brailsford, she joins chef Sean Fowler as he cooks for the Groupama FDJ team as they fight for a place on the podium and she hears how the author of the Grand Tour Cookbook Hannah Grant had to battle to get her meals on the table in some of the worst kitchens imaginable.

Unedited: Sheila Dillon's interview with Prof. Louis Levy of Public Health England Jul 03, 2018

Show notes

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 his interview with Sheila Dillon.

The Eatwell Guide Jul 02, 2018

Show notes

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 could actually be harming us. An increasing number of medics are abandoning the plate because they say it still promotes dangerously high levels of starchy carbohydrates and processed foods that contain high levels of the sugars that cause many of today's chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra author of the Pioppi diet is campaigning to change the official advice and says that a healthy diet and lifestyle are the key to reducing disease and the need for medication, but he says that vested interests from the food and pharmaceutical industries make some of these healthier choices more difficult to achieve. Dr David Unwin is a GP who has seen a huge spike in patients presenting with Type 2 Diabetes since he began practicing forty years ago. He advises lifestyle changes that include abandoning the Eatwell Guide and cutting out the starchy carbohydrates, processed foods and sugars and has seen a reversal of the disease in a significant number of patients. Sheila also visits Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester which is overhauling its canteen food and vending machine produce to reduce processed carbohydrates and sugary drinks and snacks. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the NHS the hospital will go completely sugar free on July 4th. Is it time to revise the Eatwell Guide and what will it take to do so?

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

What's Eating The Restaurant Trade? Jun 24, 2018

Show notes

Grace Dent, restaurant critic and broadcaster asks what's going wrong in the restaurant trade. With hundreds of small and large food outlets closing their doors, some say the restaurant business is in crisis, yet many argue that as an industry its contribution to the British economy is vastly overlooked and underrated. Recorded at Bristol Food Connections in front of an audience, Grace chairs a discussion with guests, Russell Norman restaurateur and TV presenter, broadcaster, critic and restaurant owner Tim Hayward, West Country chef and restaurateur, Romy Gill and chef proprietor Cyrus Todiwala OBE to find out what ails the restaurant scene and how it can be remedied.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

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