The Food Programme

In a world where our attention spans are getting shorter, where we are rewarded not for the attention we pay to others but the attention we receive – is it time we re-evaluated the value of attentive growing and farming, and mindful eating? Could paying attention, as cheesemonger and podcast host Sam Wilkin argues, be the secret to great food and drink production and relishing what we consume on a daily basis? Sam takes us to Westcombe Dairy, where he’s been following their transition to regenerative agriculture for the past year, as part of the Westcombe Project. We visit a pioneering island distillery in the Inner Hebrides, as well as growers and brewers at an inaugural organic food festival in the East Neuk of Fife. The common thread that binds them? The belief that a more attentive approach has the power to transform the food system and improve our lives in the process. Presented by Jaega Wise. Produced by Robbie Armstrong in Glasgow.

What difference would it make if more people rejected cheap bread made using the Chorleywood Process, and moved to eating 'better' bread, i.e bread with fewer ingredients? In this episode Sheila Dillon explores why some scientists, campaigners and academics believe we ought to be eating more 'proper' bread, and puts her body to the test to see what difference it could make. Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and writer, Tim Spector shows Sheila how she can track her blood glucose levels using a sensor to see how her body responds to different kinds of bread, while at the UK Grain Lab event in Nottingham, Sheila meets bakers and campaigners to find out why they believe it matters what kind of bread we eat. In Hendon in North London, a bakery has started producing sourdough bread on a big scale, showing that scaling up production can be done. The bread is being sliced and bagged and sold in supermarkets, with the aim of increasing accessibility to those who cannot easily get to a local bakery. Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

Dan Saladino and Sheila Dillon dig deep into the details of the newly published Government Food Strategy.Produced by Dan Saladino.

The city of Birmingham is about to launch its own ambitious Food System Strategy. It’s vision is to create a bold, fair, sustainable and prosperous food system and economy, where food choices are nutritious and affordable. The strategy faces many challenges – Birmingham has one of the highest rates of childhood obesity in the country, and worrying levels of food poverty with 6.8 % of residents reporting using food banks during lockdown. Last week the government published its long-awaited Food Strategy for England – a policy paper responding to Henry Dimbleby’s National Food Strategy, a landmark national review into the food system. Reaction has been mixed, with campaigners disappointed that many of the review’s bolder recommendations - like a tax on salt and sugar - haven’t been taken up, and no mention of a Food Bill. So in today’s programme Jaega Wise visits Birmingham to ask if cities could take up the mantle of improving what we eat, and talk to grassroots food groups about the change they want to see. Is it time for cities to step up and drive the food agenda, and far can they go in creating the radical change we need?Presented by Jaega Wise and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol

Dan Saladino meets people saving endangered foods and bringing diversity back to our diets. Groups of scientists, chefs and artists are now finding pioneering ways to rethink the global food system. At the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew a programme of events called Food Forever involves exhibitions and installations exploring some of the biggest and most complex questions over the future of our food (including this fantasy world of food abundance by Australian artist Tanya Schultz (Pip & Pop), ranging from biodiversity loss and climate change to under utilised crops and enticing flavours.Dr James Borrell, a research fellow at Kew, explains why a giant plant in south-western Ethiopia, a valuable source of food, called enset (aka 'false banana') is one of the stories we should all know. Designers, María Fuentenebro and Mario Mimoso (Sharp and Sour) describe the 'Museum of Endangered Food', also on display at Kew, which includes enset. Meanwhile at The Serpentine Gallery,, artists Cooking Sections, is not only creating installations but influencing menus at restaurants such as Benugo's The Magazine.Photo: When Flowers Dream, an installation by Pip & Pop, (photographer Roger Wooldridge). Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon and judges Asma Khan and Michael Caines open nominations for the 2022 BBC Food & Farming Awards, which celebrate people across the UK who've changed lives for the better, through food and drink. To mark the ceremony being held in Wales for the first time, there will be a special new category this year - the BBC Cymru Wales Food Hero award.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol

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 States and the Middle East. Falafel is known for being cheap, easily available, and accessible - no matter what a person's class, background, religious belief or dietary requirements. There have long been debates about whether falafel belongs or is authentic to any one nation or culture. Spoiler alert: this programme does not try to answer that question! What Leyla sets out to discover is just how different falafel can be depending on the cultural background of the person cooking it. For example, culturally-definitive recipes for the falafel itself, and specific salads, sauces and breads.In this programme, we explore how falafel is tied up in a political story of food propaganda, and how it’s been used to create division between different nationalities. But also how the food has followed people to different countries at times of conflict, and still provides a constant reminder of good times and home.We meet market stall traders in Shepherd's Bush who show the diverse make up of different falafel recipes. We meet the Syrian chef who lost a chain of successful restaurants selling falafel during the conflict in Syria. And a London chef who doesn’t understand why his patrons keep ordering it. Presented by Leyla Kazim Produced by Robbie Wojciechowski

Dan Saladino and blacksmith Alex Pole explain how our food has been influenced by metals.

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 did not rely on curry powder, and that dishes were different depending on what region of India they originated. But that's not all, the series and Madhur Jaffrey's subsequent books (she has written more than 30) had another effect; it made her a model for two generations of women with roots in India. Today Sheila Dillon meets some of those prominent and hugely successful female chefs, restaurateurs, food writers and stylists who are currently working in the UK, to find out about their lives, and what they make of Madhur Jaffrey's legacy. Asma Khan rose to fame when she was chosen as the first British chef to star in the Netflix series, Chef’s Table. She runs her London restaurant, Darjeeling Express, with an all-female staff. Chetna Makan worked as a fashion designer in India before moving to the UK. She switched careers after making it to the semi-finals of the Great British Bake Off in 2014. She is now the author of 5 cookery books, and has more than 210,000 subscribers on YouTube. Ravinder Bhogal is a chef, food writer and author of two books. She also runs the London restaurant, Jikoni, which she describes as being “proudly inauthentic”. Romy Gill is a chef, broadcaster and food writer, and was one of the first Asian women in the UK to own her own restaurant. Rukmini Iyer is a food stylist and writer and the author of the bestselling "Roasting Tin" series of books. Sejal Sukhadwala is a London food writer. Her first book "The Philosophy of Curry" has just been published. Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

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 oatmeal, yeasted pancake is an institution in Stoke-on-Trent and surrounding area, but still hardly anyone beyond the Midlands seems to have heard of them. The oatcake has a history stretching back hundreds of years as a staple food for workers of the Staffordshire Potteries – it then suffered a dip in popularity from the 1960s which led to concerns about its future, but today we hear reports that local production is healthy, and even going up. In the programme Leyla Kazim visits oatcake bakers in Stoke to hear how they’re keeping this much-loved local staple going strong. And we catch up with Glenn Fowler, the owner of the very last traditional ‘hole in the wall’ shop which closed in 2012, to find out how this Stoke institution lives on through its recipe. But as demand goes up, this is driving more automated production, so what could that mean for the traditional methods and the long-established recipes? And it is time for this overlooked oatmeal pancake to finally gain nationwide appeal?Presented by Leyla Kazim and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol.