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The Food Programme

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Aug 8, 2011 • 28min

Mario Cassandro

Sheila Dillon looks back at the life of Mario Cassandro - the man who helped re-invent the restaurant in Britain.Together with his business partner, Franco Lagattolla, Mario Cassandro helped make dining out in 1960s Britain a far more fun, informal and gastronomically pleasing experience. A former waiter from Naples he created Soho's Terrazza Restaurant. As well as attracting the like of Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and Princess Margaret it was a restaurant that brought together all layers of British society.They were all keen to experience a new look in restaurant design (care of Enzo Appicella, the man who went on to create the look of the early Pizza Express restaurants) as well carefully sourced and authentic ingredients.Mario Cassandro passed away this summer, former Good Food Restaurant Guide editor Tom Jaine described him as one of a small number of people who helped transform the restaurant industry in the UK. Tom joins Sheila to help tell his story.Producer: Dan Saladino.
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Aug 1, 2011 • 28min

Yeast

Yeasts, mysterious members of the fungi kingdom, are an essential part of our food production. They play a critical role in baking, brewing, wine-making and much more.Dr Bill Simpson is the Managing Director of a company in Leatherhead that has hundreds of samples of yeasts, old and new, frozen in liquid nitrogen. By preserving different yeasts from around the world his team are able to recreate ales and lagers from the past.Vincent Talleu stumbled upon baking by chance but is now consumed by a passion for good, tasty, healthy bread. Working with a twenty-year-old Swedish yeast 'starter' in an artisan bakery in London, he believes that 'real bread' must be made as it used to be; slowly. This allows the yeast to work its magic.Andrew Whitley is a food educator who started the Village Bakery with a yeast sample he brought back to the UK from Russia. For Andrew, there is absolutely no reason why natural yeasts cannot be used much more widely in bread-making, so that loaves with no synthetic additives and longer production times can be available to all.John Downes pioneered the Australian sourdough revolution in the seventies, and is now working daily with yeasts, recreating the indigenous loaf of the British Isles: ale-barm bread.Producer: Rich Ward.
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Jul 25, 2011 • 28min

School Food

Sheila Dillon follows two schools as they attempt to transform the way their pupils eat.
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Jul 18, 2011 • 28min

Emergency Food

Sheila Dillon investigates how emergency foods are made for disasters, droughts and wars. Companies developing meals for the crisis in the Horn of Africa explain their latest work.Sheila also visits one of the biggest emergency food hubs in the world, The United Nations' World Food Programme base in Brindisi in Southern Italy. From one warehouse, food for hundreds of thousands of people can be stored and dispatched within a few hours of a crisis call coming in. In Rome teams of nutritionists are looking into the very latest foods that can be sent around the world for populations affected by drought, conflict and earthquakes. Producer: Dan Saladino.
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Jul 11, 2011 • 28min

Trans-fats

Sheila Dillon investigates the issue of trans-fats in our food, and asks whether a voluntary agreement by the food industry to eliminate them by the end of the year is enough to prevent the kind of health problems associated with a diet heavy in industrial cooking fats.
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Jul 4, 2011 • 24min

Food in the Scottish Borders

Ben Weatherall farms rare Blackface sheep and Galloway cattle on his remote hill farm near Dumfries, and aims to rear his animals with as little input as possible. He's one of a number of people working to keep food traditions alive in the Scottish Borders. Following the River Nith downhill, as the animals will be doing later in the year, Sheila Dillon also meets Jim Henderson who has overseen the transformation of this stretch of the river. Formerly polluted and with low fish stocks it is now clean and stocks are thriving. Jim also plays a key part in the ongoing battle with poachers.Ben's brother's farm is home to a rare herd of pedigree indigenous Ayrshire cattle. They're well known for their incredible cream and milk - but the raw (unpasteurised) milk is not allowed to be sold under Scottish law.Robbie Cowan, Tom Brown and Ronnie Clark practice the ancient Norse fishing technique known as Haaf Netting, a practice in harmony with fish stocks. They believe the survival of this method to be essential to preserving local heritage, yet it's not possible to make a living from it now as fish numbers are down.Producer: Rich Ward.
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Jun 27, 2011 • 28min

New Foodies

Food writer Tim Hayward investigates a new wave of food entrepreneurship started by professionals seeking a second career or life change, often due to redundancy. Can the food industry sustain this new creative bubble?
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Jun 20, 2011 • 28min

Sanjay and the Sardine

Cornish based chef Sanjay Kumar goes on a cooking mission to Italy to save the Cornish sardine. The pilchard and its young offspring the sardine used to be the basis of a thriving fishing and processing industry in Cornwall. In the late 19th century nearly 20 thousand tonnes of sardine was caught, salted, packed and sent to northern Italy where it was highly prized.By the end of the 20th century the fish had fallen out of favour. Supplies of the fish were still abundant but consumers had started to switch to more aspirational fish like cod and salmon. Sardines being landed fell below 10 tonnes. Fisherman gave up the profession, boats were destroyed and processing plants closed.Now with concerns over global stocks, one solution is for more of us to switch to "poorer" more abundant fish species like the sardine and pilchard. Chef Sanjay Kumar, born in Calcutta and now based in Cornwall, wants to help make that happen. He moved to the county five years ago, fell in love with Cornish food and its fishing traditions.In May Sanjay travelled to a bi-annual event held in Italy called Slow Fish. It brings together fishermen, chefs, policy experts and fish scientists, all keen to promote small scale, traditional and sustainable forms of fishing. His mission was to use the event to find new ideas to help revive Cornish fishing tradition.As well as cooking a traditional Italian sardine dish, meeting fellow campaigning chefs, Sanjay also gets to interview the European Union's Fisheries Commissioner, Maria Damanaki. Find out how Sanjay's trip can make a difference to how we all think about fish.Producer: Dan Saladino.
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Jun 12, 2011 • 28min

National Trust

Since the National Trust began its campaign put food towards the top of its agenda, how far have its efforts to change the way we think about food progressed?
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Jun 6, 2011 • 24min

Burgers and meat

The burger is one of the world's most popular foods and it made meat eating affordable for millions, but it also became the food that symbolised many of the failings of the world's modern food system.Sheila Dillon looks at a new attempt to revive its reputation as a quality food. This new "burger scene" where immense care is taken with sourcing the meat and using the right cuts, reflects not only a shift in burger eating, but also in attitudes to meat eating itself.The highly respected food and farming writers Simon Fairlie and Colin Tudge both share the views on eating meat in the 21st century. Producer: Dan SaladinoPhotography: Paul-Winch Furness.

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