The Food Programme

As bee populations fall, Sheila Dillon asks if some salvation may be found in the mean streets of our cities. With a report from New York where bee keeping was actually illegal for a long time but where the honey festival now thrives. In London a young brewer tells us how she combined her love of brewing and beekeeping to produce an award winning honey ale. In Copenhagen we hear from a project with hives across the city - each producing its own distinctive taste and flavour, determined by the source of the nectar. Even the offices are alive with the hum of bees as Dan Saladino hears how the venture enlists the help of homeless people and asylum seekers, giving them confidence and and training in all aspects of beekeeping, honey production and sales. Meanwhile in Bristol are trying to find out if urban habitats really can provide a stable environment for our bees to flourish - can our overlooked scruffy verges and car parks contribute to the solution to one of our biggest ecological threats?Produced by Sarah Langan.

From a lesson in "guerrilla gardening" by LA's Ron Finley to Mastering the Art of Soviet cooking with food writer Anya Von Bremzen, Dan Saladino reports from an annual food symposium held in Copenhagen, called MAD (the word for food in Danish).Now in its fourth year, the event was founded by the celebrated chef of the restaurant Noma, Rene Redzepi. In his own words, it's curated by a group of "chefs, waiters, a former banker and an anthropologist".To some it's a festival of ideas, to others it's like listening to a "food mix tape", over two days an audience of 600 chefs, writers and food obsessives hear a series of presentations about cooking, restaurants, food history and activism.Dan Saladino takes the Food Programme inside the circus tent where the symposium is hear a selection of the diverse stories being told. There's Ron Finley, a gardener from Los Angeles who was prosecuted for growing food in a patch of land in front of his him. He took on the authorities and changed the law. His story has inspired people all over the world.It's also an important arena for the world's great chefs to tell stories of kitchens and cooking and to pass on their wisdom. Food writer Joe Warwick profiles three chefs who too part in MAD 4, Pierre Koffman, Olivier Roellinger and the enigmatic Fulvio Pierangeli.It's an often eccentric mix of stories, and so as well as guerrilla gardening there's a guide to making tapioca in the Amazonian rainforest through to a first hand account of cooking in the USSR. Some stories will surprise, others will inform, but they all inspire.Music in this is edition is provided by Efterklang and Tatu Ronkko. They're not only one of the most respected bands in Denmark, they've also composed music for a restaurant in collaboration with chefs.

Teff has been grown in Ethiopia for Millennia. Traditionally, it's ground, milled, mixed with water and fermented for days to make the sour staple flatbread injera.Cultivation of this mysterious and tiny grain has been concentrated in Ethiopia for thousands of years. But now that's changing as the health-conscious Western world realise the nutritional secrets this crop might bestow.In this edition of the Food Programme, Sheila Dillon meets UK entrepreneurs bringing foods, normally seen as Ethiopian to new diners, and speaks to experts to hear how the rise in popularity of teff is affecting the farmers back home.

Dan Saladino revisits Yorkshire food traditions which were captured on film in 1974 by Derek Cooper, previous presenter of The Food Programme. From Yorkshire puddings to tripe, Dan discovers how the food from this region was formed by the Industrial Revolution, hard labour and fuel.Dan re-watches the original 1970s A Taste of Britain tv programme with historian Peter Brears, writer Christopher Hirst, and those who remember the people and places in the original film.Presented by Dan Saladino and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

In 1974, Derek Cooper set off on a hunt - for BBC Television - around Britain to discover what was left of its regional foods and traditional ingredients. Forty years on, Dan Saladino revisits Wales, and that series, called "A Taste of Britain" - to meet some of those involved, their descendants, and to find out what happened after these foods and skills, some of which at the time were on the wane when they were recorded for the cameras.Dan goes to Wales to find out how the tradition of fishing for sewin in tiny boats called coracles is faring. When Derek visited the Gower Peninsula, cockles were in short supply and had to be sourced from outside of Wales. Dan visits Swansea market to ask how the cockle trade is doing now and to see if the famous Welsh laverbread is as popular today as it was when the original series was filmed in the mid 70's. At that time, Derek Cooper feared that some of the traditional Welsh foods and skills were about to be lost forever. Dan finds out whether those fears became the reality, as he asks how Welsh identity is expressed through its food.Producer: Sarah Langan.

In 1974, Derek Cooper set off on a hunt - for BBC Television - around Britain to discover what was left of its regional foods and traditional ingredients. Forty years on, Dan Saladino revisits that series, called "A Taste of Britain" - to meet some of those involved, their descendants, and to find out what happened after these food traditions, many of which at the time were on the wane, were recorded for the cameras.In the first of a three-part special summer series, Dan starts his own food journey in Dorset. He'll share stories with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Mark Hix, and go on the trail of some long-hidden buried fungi, as well as an oddly elusive cheese: the Dorset Blue Vinny.Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Eat for Victory - Sheila Dillon meets the people who are using the techniques of WWII rationing to improve their diet today. Clare Millar likes to dress as a land girl, and eat like one too. She isn't interested in eating Woolton Pie but she finds that the mantras from the time of rationing such as Grow Your Own Food, Don't Take More Than You Can Eat and Don't Waste Good Food are still useful today.60 years after the end of rationing Sheila and Clare find that there is still a lot to learn from that period. They meet women in their 80s and 90s to hear the cooking techniques that they learnt during rationing. Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Emma Weatherill in Bristol.

Growing salad leaves is changing the lives of former drug addicts in Bristol. Sheila Dillon visits The Severn Project run by Steve Glover. Steve employs ex addicts and other people who find it hard to get jobs. And he's turned it into a profitable business.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Emma Weatherill in Bristol.

Is the poultry industry fit for purpose? As our consumption of chicken increases and UK poultry production intensifies, Dan Saladino looks at the modern poultry industry.Two recent events have brought the production of chicken into sharp focus. The first is an investigation by the Guardian's Special Correspondent Felicity Lawrence into allegations of hygiene failings at major production plants.It was a serious claim as poultry production is already under scrutiny because of the presence of campylobacter in most chicken, a bacteria that can cause food poisoning.The report triggered a call by the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, for checks on two factories. The company involved strongly denied any problems had taken place, subsequent checks by the Food Standards Agency found no breaches and the plants were given the all clear. However the episode brought poultry production under national scrutiny.Dan is given full access to the production line of one of the plants involved. Based in Scunthorpe it's the largest poultry slaughter house in the UK and is owned by the largest supermarket chicken supplier 2 Sisters. They explain how our chicken is produced and what kind of measures are in place to reduce levels of campylobacter.The second story that brought poultry to renewed national attention was a recent decision by the Food Standards Agency on its plans to publish data revealing which supermarkets had the highest levels of campylobacter in their supply chains. In March it was announced that the agency was pushing ahead with "steely determination" to publish the names and levels of the bacteria. In July that decision was reversed and that data might not be available for another year. Dan asks the Food Standards Agency why consumers won't be getting this information as soon as possible.

English and Welsh wines are on the up and up, as Sheila Dillon investigates.Wine production is well known as a risky investment, not least because it is so dependent on the weather. Many UK growers were hit very hard by the terrible summer of 2012. One of our most well known brands, Nyetimber, completely abandoned their harvest for that year. Establishing a vineyard also requires a big capital investment; one adage used to be that if you wanted to make a moderate amount of money the way to do it would be to have a large amount of money and then plant a vineyard. This may be part of the reason why the wine produced in England and Wales accounts for less than 1% of that consumed here. Despite all of this, the acreage of vineyards in England has doubled in the last 7 years and there are some producers aiming to produce an unheard of million bottles a year. Perhaps more importantly, mentioning English or Welsh wine at a dinner table is no longer likely to attract sniggers of derision. In fact our wine production is now synonymous with quality. As UK wine producers big and small are growing in confidence, Sheila Dillon asks how they can assure their future in a risk laden business, where they are still one of the smallest players on the global market. Producer: Sarah Langan.