The Food Programme

Food writer, chef, restaurateur, philosopher...?Since 'Ottolenghi: the cookbook' was published in 2008, Yotam Ottolenghi has become one of the UK's most followed voices on food and cooking. Nearly eight years later, Ottolenghi's cookbooks total five, the last written in collaboration with head chef at his London Soho restaurant NOPI, Ramael Scully. The restaurant is one of five in the capital, which he runs with a small, loyal team. He's appeared on our TV screens, exploring the foods of the Mediterranean and his birthplace and childhood home, Jerusalem. He's presented an ode to the Cauliflower on The Food Programme on Radio 4 and in a weekly column for the Guardian, has shed new light on cooking with vegetables, paving the way for ingredients from the Middle East to enter our kitchen store cupboards. No wonder that the rise of sumac, za'atar and tahini in our supermarkets was dubbed 'the Ottolenghi effect'.In an extended interview, Yotam Ottolenghi shares his life through food with Sheila Dillon. She hears how a Jewish boy from Jerusalem negotiated the world of academia, and winded up as a pastry chef in chic restaurants in 90s London. How a chance meeting with business partner Sami Tamimi led to one of London's most successful string of deli restaurants 'Ottolenghi', and on to Soho restaurant NOPI. Yotam explains how people in his life have shaped the food he cooks. He tells Sheila about the effect of his brother's untimely death in tragic circumstances, his own coming out as gay and reflects on his connection with Jerusalem now that he has adopted London as home for his own young family. As 2015 draws to a close, he looks to the future. What will the Philosophical food writer do next?Presented by Sheila Dillon. Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

For some, trifle is an essential part of Christmas - a star centrepiece at the dinner table. For others its a reminder of 70s food hell - soggy sponge, jelly, hundreds and thousands dissolving into custard and cream and possibly crowned with glace cherries. Tim Hayward argues pretty much every food writer of the last 50 years has pronounced on trifle in a massively doctrinaire fashion. He wants to fight the prejudice to delve into the shared secret recipes for quick and 'dirty' trifles and investigates the 'golden rules' to get every trifle doubter on side. Presented by Tim Hayward. Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.

As she readies herself for an imminent move back to her native New Zealand after three decades in the UK, Juliet Harbutt, cheese educator and campaigner, shares her life in food with Sheila Dillon. Born and raised in Auckland, an experience with some French cheeses in Paris changed everything for Juliet, who decided there and then that cheese would be her life's focus.She sold her deli-restaurant in Wellington and moved all the way to London, to open up a cheese shop based on her experiences in France. This was the start of a journey that coincided with a huge change in the way Britain approaches, and makes, cheese. This is the story of that period, and Juliet's life in food.Along the way, Juliet founded The British Cheese Awards and edited the World Cheese Book, which won a Guild of Food Writers Award for Food Book of the year in 2010.Looking back on those three decades, it's a time in which cheese has become one of Britain's great food successes, but it has not been a smooth ride - and things nearly turned out very differently. At its heart, this is a tale about one person's fascination with and passion for cheese, which is, as Juliet says - "a combination of man's ingenuity and one of Mother Nature's finest miracles, milk".Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

If you were to create a museum telling the story of food and drink what would you say or put on display? What about interactivity - tastes and smells? Is it about flavour and experience or the process of creating the ingredients from the farmers to gastronomes? Sheila Dillon steps inside London's new British Museum of Food (BMoF) created by 'jellymongers' Bompas and Parr to see what their creative minds had in store. Meanwhile in New York, the Museum of Food and Drink (MoFAD) also aims to attract tourists and food enthusiasts...but how will they tell their story? Celebrating food and making an exhibition of it is not new. Many smaller venues aim to show off the delights of dishes - from the kimchi museum in Korea to those celebrating Spam, potatoes, nougat or butter. How keen or obsessed would you need to be to visit? Sheila invtes you to take a tour and see if they whet your appetite for more rather than leave you fed-up. Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.

Sheila Dillon and guests reflect on a year of cookery and food books.Sheila is joined in the studio by Bee Wilson, historian and food writer who's about to publish First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, journalist and food writer Alex Renton, and Features Editor at trade magazine The Bookseller, Tom Tivnan.Tim Hayward meets chef Magnus Nilsson - who has just completed a nearly 800-page work called The Nordic Cook Book, the result of an almost Herculean effort to tell the food stories of a vast region.Sharing some of their standout books of the year are Xanthe Clay, Joanna Blythman, Gillian Carter and Diana Henry.Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Nearly every major city in the world has one- a district where Chinese immigrants have settled to live, work and eat. This week Dan Saladino takes you on a tour of Chinatowns around the world. From one of the oldest, in Manila, to one of the newest, in Johannesburg, Chinatowns create a global trail of economic and culinary influence. And the food that they serve reflects not only the tastes of home, but of the adopted countries. In this programme, made in collaboration with BBC World Service programme, The Food Chain, we ask how these urban communities reflect not only the history of Chinese immigration, but the changing role of China as a global power. Including visits to Havana, to look at the legacy of communism in a Chinatown that rarely serves Chinese food, and Shanghai, where the fortune cookie - a westernized version of Chinese cuisine is finding a new market at home. Producers: Kent DePinto & Sarah Stolarz.

Scotch eggs may conjure memories of Summer picnics, school dinners or even Alan Partridge but the humble bar snack has been elevated to a culinary canvas on which chefs can make their own mark and feature on the menus of some of the UK's top restaurants. Food writer Joe Warwick invites you to the madness and mayhem of the Scotch Egg Challenge at which chefs and retailers compete with traditional and unconventional recipes for the glory of the title of winner. But with Thai, Peruvian and vegetarian versions on offer how far can you go before it's no longer a scotch egg? What are the key essentials and when have you gone too far? Joe digs into the history of this bundle of glory, hears from chefs as they prepare for the big night and finds out why a pub can get packed to the rafters by people clamouring to try a piece of scotch egg heaven. Presented by Joe Warwick Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie BullockiPlayer photo by Laurie Fletcher.

Trish Deseine may not be a household name in the UK. But in France, the home of gastronomy, her 12 cookbooks, all written in French, have sold hundreds and thousands of copies, and influenced a generation of chefs, food writers and home cooks. She has won international awards and in 2009, was named one of the 40 most influential women in France by French Vogue magazine.But don't let a surname deceive you. Trish was born and raised in Northern Ireland, and now, after spending more than 25 years in France, she has released her first book on Irish food, and is returning there to live and work. 'Home: Recipes from Ireland' was released at the start of October and is already up for an Irish Book Award. Trish fronts a TV series on BBC Northern Ireland starting this week.In this programme, Trish speaks to Sheila about her life and career, and the people and food that have shaped it. They meet in Paris, Trish's home for most of her time in France, and she shares the food, flavours, and fresh produce which will always remind her of the city. Sheila asks Paris-based chef Stéphane Reynaud and the owner of the largest cookbook shop in the world, Déborah Dupont-Daguet, about the impact that Trish's writing has had in France. And asks why, after all these years, Trish is returning home to Ireland. Presented by Sheila Dillon. Produced by Clare Salisbury.

For many of us, a disappointing experience with an unripe or tasteless pear has coloured our opinion of what was once thought of as a superior fruit: "gold to the apple's silver".Sheila Dillon travels to Kent to meet Dr Joan Morgan, who is just publishing 'The Book of Pears - The Definitive History and Guide to over 500 Varieties', the product of years of research into and fascination with this fruit and all its manifestations.Joan shows Sheila the pear orchard at the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale, one of the biggest fruit collections in the world, revealing the secrets of this unique collection - some 500 varieties of pear growing in one place.Domestic production is falling, imports are rising, and just one variety of pear, the conference, dominates the UK market.The once-prized varieties of cooking pear have been almost completely forgtten. Sheila invites cook and writer Nigel Slater to share his passion for what this fruit can do and how to look after it, and visits fruit farmer Clive Baxter who has invested in new technologies around storing and ripening. Dan Saladino tracks down the Gloucestershire-based distiller and cheesemaker Charles Martell, who has become enchanted by the intricacies and joys of the perry pear and the drinks it can make. As Sheila discovers, some people are working hard to restore a sense of enthusiasm around this ancient fruit, its flavours and its possibilities.Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

When was the last time you drank a simple glass of milk? Perhaps you view it more as an ingredient for cooking or to splash in your tea rather than a product of beauty with its own strengths and qualities? When the retailers slashed milk prices to lure in customers, treating it as a loss leader may have made the consumer also view it as a commodity and devalue it too. Is it simply the 'white stuff'?Dairy UK figures show an 18% decline in the average consumption of milk and milk products over the last 20 years. In the last year while volumes of milk sold on the market have increased slightly the value has declined. This Summer saw many dairy farmers protesting at supermarket depots, taking cows into stores and buying up all the supplies on the shelves in some branches.Meanwhile sales of many milk alternatives are rising despite costing more. Sheila Dillon explores how these milks are made and can be used, what they give us compared to cow's milk and why they've become so popular.Dutch 'milk addict and sommelier' Bas de Groot invites her for a tasting of milks, along with public health nutritionist Dr Helen Crawley and Professor Peter Atkins who's written about the history of milk. They discuss what could make us value the product more highly, what makes a variety distinctive and if it's possible to taste the 'terroir' of your pinta.