The Food Programme

The Californian chef and campaigner Alice Waters shares her story with Sheila Dillon; from early life in the 1960's counter-culture to influencing the food thinking of Presidents.Alice Waters founded the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley in 1971. Her life had been changed forever by experiences as a student in France and at UC Berkeley, where the Free Speech Movement lay the ground for the big political movements of the sixties. Alice and her restaurant went from these humble and idealistic beginnings to international recognition. With a focus on local, organic ingredients and farmers' markets before they were widely celebrated she moved on to educate children and prisoners about growing and cooking food. In her own words Alice's food journey became a 'delicious revolution'.As debates in the US rage about healthcare and the nation's relationship with food, this is a story of one woman's attempts to show the way to an alternative way to eat. It's a story that took her from small French taverns to Californian growers and even to the White House.Producers: Rich Ward & Dan Saladino.

Cookery Books of 2013.Ahead of the Christmas shopping season Sheila Dillon reviews this year's best cook books. Sheila is joined by comedian Stephen K Amos and food writers Catherine Phipps and Fiona Beckett.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

Fenland celery has recently joined a select list of only fifty-five British foods to achieve the same EU protection as champagne, stilton and Melton Mowbray pork pies. But what difference will this status realistically make to the people who grow it?Sheila Dillon investigates the longer term impact of PGI status on another iconic English product, Grimsby Traditional Smoked Fish.She visits Grimsby fish market to meet the owner of the only remaining Grimsby-based fishing fleet, Andrew Allard, the chief executive of Grimsby Fish Merchants Association Steve Norton, and Richard Enderby, whose family have been smoking fish for generations.

Leontino Balbo - The Sugarman of Brazil. The incredible story of one maverick farmer who is trying to change the way we produce our food.David Baker brings us a story from Sao Paulo about a man who is managing to produce sugar whilst also helping wildlife.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

In January of this year the Food Standards Agency confirmed results showing horsemeat had been found in supermarket burgers. Over the next few days and weeks, more DNA testing would reveal more beef products contained horsemeat.Ten months on there have been no prosecutions or fines and we're still waiting to be told how the unlabelled horsemeat entered the food chain, and who put it there.Criminal investigations are underway across Europe, led in the UK by the City of London Police. Most public information on the scandal however has come from two sources, a report by Ireland's Department of Agriculture and secondly, the hours of evidence heard by MPs on the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.The Food Programme explains what we know from these sources and also why an out of court settlement between two companies reveals much about one of the meat supply chains from the Netherlands into the UK.The programme hears from the Guardian's Special Correspondent, Felicity Lawrence, whose updated book, Not On The Label, gives a detailed account of the scandal. Reporters Ella McSweeney and Anna Holligan give the latest developments in Ireland and the Netherlands. The Grocer magazine's Julia Glotz, explains how our shopping habits have changed since the scandal and why this proving to be a problem for companies with no involvement in the contamination.Where are the investigations heading and what chances of successful convictions? These are questions Sheila Dillon puts to Andrew Rhodes of the Food Standards Agency.The programme is produced by Dan Saladino.

Restaurant reviews - who can we trust? Sheila Dillon investigates online review sites, newspaper reviews and guidelines to try and discover the impartiality of different criticism. She is aided by reviewer and editor Joe Warwick and previous restaurant inspector Peter Chapman.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

Award winning drinks writer Pete Brown joins Sheila Dillon to explain why bottles of cider should be the drink of choice on the UK's dinner tables.A cider revival has been building for a number of years, many credit the "over-ice" advertising campaigns of the last decade for raising mainstream interest. What's happened since that time has been fascinating to watch for producers and drinkers alike.At the premium, craft end of the cider business more and more small scale producers have arrived on the scene. Wales alone, which all but lost its cider making culture, now has more than 40 new ciders being produced. Pete Brown, author of the recently published, World's Best Cider, has travelled across the globe to document the fact that this is a revival that's spread far beyond the United Kingdom.As part of this world tour Sheila and Pete tell the story of the Tieton Cider Works, a new cider business in Washington State in North West America. The Tieton producers are experimenting with new techniques and flavours, including the use of hops and natural fruits. This might sound like a step too far for many traditionalists and in the programme Sheila and Pete give their verdict.Meanwhile in high-street pubs, supermarkets and off-licences more big brands have moved into the cider market, including Carlsberg and Stella Artois, they along with more familiar names like Bulmers and Thatchers have launched a wide range of fruit ciders. It's this part of the market that is really booming, but is it really cider? Sheila looks at the often confusing world of the ingredients and liquids that are allowed to become part of a glass of cider.Produced by Dan Saladino.

Three decades ago Miles Warde worked on a hop farm in Herefordshire. Split shifts, tractors with lights, and when you weren't sleeping you'd be in the pub. Today that farm is now a vineyard, so the presenter began wondering what had happened to the great British hop. The first thing he discovered is that there are only sixty hop farmers left. The producer is Miles Warde.

Sheila Dillon meets a new generation of cooks using slow and pressure cookers. Sales of slow cookers and pressure cookers have increased over the past couple of years. Sheila visits Catherine Phipps to discover exciting dishes which can be made in a pressure cooker. And blogger Sharon Adetoro explains how the slow cooker has revolutionized her life.Producer: Emma Weatherill.

The School Food Plan, written by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, aims to increase take-up of school meals, improve the quality of food served and tackle student hunger and the early causes of health problems. Released in July, it contains sixteen 'actions', from putting cooking in the curriculum to providing money for breakfast clubs to improving the 'image' of school food. John and Henry travelled to more than sixty schools in England, and found that there were three things in common to schools that are getting food right.In this edition of the Food Programme, Sheila Dillon reveals a typical day at the David Young Community Academy, a secondary school in Leeds that has embodied these three 'principles' since its opening in 2006. The school, led by Principal Ros McMullen, has a school meals take-up of over seventy percent, compared with a national average of 43 percent. Sheila finds out how they've done this, and asks what other schools can learn from their approach.Sheila also asks the Plan's co-author Henry Dimbleby and Jeanette Orrey, who inspired Jamie Oliver's original school food campaign, what actual differences we may see on the ground as a result of this new attempt to change the way that schoolchildren eat.Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.