The Food Programme

Award-winning drinks writer Pete Brown, author of 'World's Best Cider,' and seasoned cider maker Tom Oliver share their insights on the cider renaissance. They discuss the global revival of cider, with Britain leading the charge and new craft producers emerging, particularly in Wales. The duo dives into innovative production techniques like wild yeast fermentation and flavor experimentation. Listeners are treated to tales of unique American ciders and the importance of tradition meeting innovation in this booming beverage industry.

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.

Myrtle and Darina Allen, revolutionised food in Ireland with their cooking. From pioneering restaurants to groundbreaking farmers' markets, Dan Saladino tells the story of food and Ballymaloe.In 1964 Myrtle Allen, a mother and farmers' wife turned her home in Cork into a restaurant like no other. Ingredients were grown on the family farm, foraged locally or sourced by producers nearby. Unusual for its time, menus were written on a daily basis and traditional Irish recipes were celebrated.The restaurant influenced people's thinking on what a restaurant could be. In 1968 Myrtle was joined by a young ambitious cook from Dublin, Darina O'Connell. She married into the family and became the now much celebrated Darina Allen, cook, writer and television presenter.The Food Programme looks at five decades of work, in food, by the two women, from the original restaurant Ballymaloe House to the world famous Ballymaloe Cookery school. It features adventures in Paris, pioneering ideas on how food should be bought and sold as well as campaigns to keep food traditions alive.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Booze Free Bars - With an increasing number of us giving up alcohol, new bars are popping up across the country to provide an alternative to pub drinking.

Can street food change the world? Richard Johnson looks at ideas being tried around the world, from food carts setting up in "food deserts" to night time food markets being set up to transform city life.Producer: Dan Saladino.

DIY Foods - Tim Hayward meets the people taking ambitious food production into their own hands. Andy Mahoney makes his own cheese in the spare room of his house in South London. Hannes Viljoen makes his own biltong to give the taste of his native South Africa to his friends and family. And three friends in Guildford - Nick McDuff, Dick Nevitt and Nevin Stewart - have invented a new method for making cider in your kitchen.Presented by Tim Hayward and produced by Emma Weatherill in Bristol.

An Ode To The Bacon Butty. Hardeep Singh Kohli's personal plea to the nation to reflect on a food of wonder: bacon. Hardeep goes on a roadtrip around Scotland meeting bacon eaters, makers, regalers and producers.Producer: Emma Weatherill.

Dan Saladino looks at how food has increasingly become a big ingredient in crime fiction.