The Food Programme

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Alternative Christmas Cakes Dec 20, 2010

Show notes

Panettone and chocolate logs - Sheila Dillon embraces two of the cakes replacing our "traditional" Christmas cakes on our Christmas tables, and ponders what what we mean by traditional when it comes to Christmas cakes.

Panettone is a traditional Italian Christmas cake. John Dickie, Professor of Italian Studies at University College London and author of "Delizia! A History of the Italians and their Food" traces the history of this highly industrialised product from its Milanese origins, and the manufacturing of this "tradition". Reporter Dany Mitzman visits the Corsini Biscotti panettone factory in Tuscany where panettone is made in the traditional artisan style, using a mother yeast, slow proving, and cooling tipped upside down to allow the dome shape to set naturally, without additives. Their panettone is sold in through the Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range. But you can make your own - Fred Manson returned from an Andrew Whitley breadmaking course clutching a panettone recipe, and has been making his own ever since.

As a teenager Sheila Dillon's Christmas culinary rebellion took the form of baking a bouche de noel, the buttercream sculpted chocolate log believed to originate in France, and still produced by the hundred in smart patisseries today. Yule logs are now a popular range for both patiseries and supermarkets in the UK. This year's BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Award Food Champion, baker Richard Bertinet, baked Sheila his own take on the classic cake, adorned with gold leaf and powdered cabernet grape, and food historian Ivan Day tells its history in the UK.

Producer: Rebecca Moore.

Lapland & the World's Greatest Chef Dec 17, 2010

Show notes

The Danish chef Rene Redzepi of Noma, the "World's Best Restaurant", forages for food in Lapland and London.

He's become one of the most influential chefs in the world because of his use of wild ingredients, foraged from the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

With dishes that revive lost food traditions, that use unfamiliar ingredients like mosses, lichen, spruces as well as native fruits. fish and fungi he has succeeded in putting a part of Europe ignored for its cuisine on the gastronomic map.

The idea of chefs and restaurants sourcing ingredients from the wild is not new, some already employ foragers but according to Joe Warwick, food writer, restaurant expert and the programme's reporter, Rene Redzepi has taken that approach to sourcing to whole new level.

For anyone sceptical about the abundance of wild foods in Britain suited to the needs of a restaurant Redzepi goes on a foraging trip to north London's Hampstead Heath. There he finds a new ingredient, the service berry.

Producer: Dan Saladino.

Venison Dec 13, 2010

Show notes

Sheila Dillon explores the varieties of venison - wild and farmed - we can now find in butchers and supermarkets in the UK. She joins a stalker in Berkshire and talks to the biggest game dealer in the country.

Producer Dilly Barlow.

Street Food and Takeaways Dec 06, 2010

Show notes

From Caribbean to Thai and Vietnamese - Simon Parkes looks at the latest trends in British street food and takeaway meals. And we hear from some of the finalists in the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards.

Producer: Elaine Lester.

Best Drinks Producer, Food & Farming Awards Nov 29, 2010

Show notes

A distiller, a brewer and a cider maker - but who will be the first winner of the Food and Farming Awards Best Drinks Producer Award? Oz Clarke joins Sheila Dillon in Birmingham's NEC to reveal all.

Food writer and critic Charles Campion and restaurateur and writer Mark Hix were the judges for this category and talk Sheila through the finalists.

In this first year of the Best Drinks Producer category the judges were overwhelmed with nominations for innovative entrepreneurs making all manner of juice, perry, teas, and wines. But the three drinks chosen - a cask ale, a spirit and a traditional cider - have been made in these islands throughout our history.

Sipsmiths are one of a new generation of artisan distillers riding the coat-tails of pioneer distiller Julian Temperley who battled H M Customs for the right to distil. Simpsmith's were awarded the first London distillers licence in nearly 200 years, and now produce a London gin and a barley vodka from their west London residential neighbourhood distillery.

Mike Henney's Herefordshire ciders are the result of a hobby that got out of hand. From airing cupboard tinkering via farmers markets the brand is now sold throughout the country's main supermarkets, making good quality cider accessible to all. Henney's ciders all have protected name status, with apples sourced from within Herefordshire and the cider is made in a traditional way.

Wye Valley Brewery is a family business started by Peter Amor and now run by his son Vernon. It brings new meaning to local produce - beers are only sold within 50 miles of the brewery, the majority of hops are grown within 7 miles, and one beer, the Dorothy Goodbody Imperial Stout, even used Herefordshire malting barley.

Pub Food Nov 25, 2010

Show notes

Sheila Dillon looks at new ideas for using food to save the British pub.

With 40 pubs a week closing down and food sales starting to equal those of drinks, the role of food in the future of the public house has never been more important. Sheila Dillon explores how one pub has come up with a groundbreaking solution to keeping business thriving.

Producer: Dave Battcock.

Cut Price Fruit Nov 15, 2010

Show notes

Over the past few months Supermarket price wars have halved the cost of one of Britain's best loved fruits - the banana. Even though retailers say they aren't passing cuts down to growers Sheila Dillon asks, whether our appetite for cheap fruit is having an impact on workers at the other end of the supply chain. We travel to Ecuador, one of the world's leading banana exporters, to explore the reaction on a plantation.

Elsewhere, in Costa Rica, we hear a disturbing investigation into the lives of pineapple workers who accuse the big exporters of exploitation and union breaking to provide bargain fruit. And on the brighter side of pineapple growing we meet the woman who is working tirelessly to reintroduce farming of the exotic fruit to her island in the Bahamas.

Producer: Deiniol Buxton.

Terra Madre Nov 08, 2010

Show notes

Sheila Dillon hears from some of the world's disappearing food tribes and finds out why efforts are underway to preserve indigenous food cultures in north America, Scandinavia and in Scotland's Highlands and Islands.

She travels to Turin for Terra Madre, the biannual gathering of food communities, farmers, fishermen and cooks organised by the international Slow Food movement. Among the 6000 delegates who'd travelled from 160 countries are people from indigenous communities like the Sami, nomadic arctic reindeer herders as well as native American rice harvesters, the Ojibwe.

Scientists, agriculturalists and nutritionists are now taking more interest in these traditional cultures seeing them as valuable models of sustainable food production and offering fresh insights into human diets.

But many of these food cultures are under threat because of disputes over land rights, prejudice and climate change and so work is underway to understand, document and support these communities. Sheila meets the people involved in making this happen.

Producer Dan Saladino.

Sustainable Public Food and Nottingham Nov 01, 2010

Show notes

In these hard economic times does a Private Members Bill introducing new standards for the food sourced by public bodies stand a chance of becoming law? Simon Parkes visits Nottinghamshire, where some hospital meals and all school dinners are procured this way, to look at what such a change might mean in practice.

The Nottingham City Hospital has been sourcing sustainably for 7 years, buying its meat and vegetables from local farmers. Food is fresher, higher quality, and no more expensive, and now over half the money the hospital spends on food goes into the local economy, benefitting local suppliers like dairy wholesalers Transfresh, and butchers Owen Taylor.

Also 7 years ago Nottinghamshire County Council began its process of sourcing its school meals food sustainably, and has now achieved Silver Standard under the Soil Association Food for Life Partnership scheme. Donna Baines, School Food Development Manager, met Simon in Maloney's butchers, which now supplies all their meat, with Alison Maloney and Jeanette Orrey, school meals campaigner, to discuss the impact of these changes on the food, their finances, and the threats posed by the current spending review. The service is currently being "market tested" with a view to potential privisation. Conservative Councillor Andy Stewart explains what that might mean.

In the studio to discuss the Bill are Labour MP Joan Walley (Stoke on Trent North) who tabled the Private Members Bill; Tony Cooke Government Relations Director of catering service provider Sodexo; and Kath Dalmeny, Policy Director of Sustain, which runs the Good Food for Our Money campaign.

Producer: Rebecca Moore.

Student Food Oct 25, 2010

Show notes

What food do students have access to, what do they eat? Sheila Dillon investigates the catering provided for students across the country in these financially straightened times. She talks to industry expert Chris Druce about the big catering companies and their expansion into higher education. She visits a food co-op at the School of Oriental and African Studies; Dan Saladino visits Plymouth University on the day it hosts its first farmers market and talks to stall holders, students, and Slow Food UK about its efforts to enrol students in its philosophy and approach to food. And Professor Warren Belasco from the University of Maryland describes how there's nothing new about student activism around food - think 60s, the University of California at Berkeley, the counter culture.

Producer: Lucinda Montefiore.

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