The Food Chain

Ken Hom is a Chinese-American cook who became famous for introducing Chinese cooking to the British public through a BBC TV series in the early 1980s. Since then he has written almost 40 books, sold around eight million woks, and become regarded as an authority on Chinese cuisine. Emily Thomas visits the 70-year-old in his Paris flat to hear about his life told through five memorable dishes. He describes his impoverished childhood in Chicago’s Chinatown, from using his mother’s packed lunches to barter for better treatment at school, to working in a kitchen as an 11-year-old – a job that would put him off the restaurant business for life. Ken describes the dishes only served to Americans in a 1960s Chinese restaurant, and re-enacts the nerve wracking screen test at the BBC 40 years ago, that was to change his life. Ken also explains what he thinks matters most in the food world today, why he has always kept his personal life, private, and how his early childhood experiences fed an entrepreneurial streak that would last his entire life.(Picture: Ken Hom. Credit: Getty Images/ BBC)

What’s it like to live and farm on one of the world’s most active volcanoes? Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy, regularly erupts, blasting lava and ash over the Mediterranean island and causing dozens of earthquakes each year. So why do so many food producers stake their livelihoods on its rocky slopes? Benjamin Spencer, an American wine expert who has adopted Etna as his home, meets its wine, olive and fruit growers, as well as the chefs whose dishes take inspiration from the fiery mountain. They explain how millennia of lava flows have made the volcano’s soils rich in nutrients and that the volcano is a vital branding tool, but also how some eruptions have almost wiped out entire farms. Ben discovers that people’s desire to farm there, despite the risks, is part of an almost spiritual connection with the land and the mountain.(Picture: Mount Etna erupting. Credit: Antonio Parrinello/ReutersS/BBC)

Most of us have no need to hunt in the wild for our food, so why is foraging seeing a resurgence in some parts of the world? Emily Thomas speaks to professional foragers in Peru, Sweden and England to find out the appeal of combing rocky shores for seaweed or trekking up mountains for rare fruits. Is it the love of a freebie, the thrill of the chase, or simply a sense of wonder at our natural world? We hear about the rules governing what, where and how much you can harvest from the wild, and that the forager’s freedoms can be extensive. But as wild finds become increasingly visible on the menus of top restaurants and sometimes end up on our supermarket shelves, could natural habitats become threatened, and does something integral get lost when money changes hands?Producers: Marijke Peters and Simon Tulett.(Photo: John Wright picking seaweed. Credit: BBC)

Belgium is the latest European country to put restrictions on religious slaughter methods. For many this is purely an animal welfare issue, but others see the changes as part of an anti-immigration shift pushed by right-wing nationalists. For some, the new laws are an assault on religious freedom. Emily Thomas visits the country to explore the impact the new laws are having on Muslim and Jewish communities and businesses, and to find out whether ritual slaughter practices are being driven underground.(Photo: Pair of hands hold a joint of meat. Credit: BBC/ Getty Images)

For decades we’ve been warned about the demise of the British pub, but despite this the number of young people signing up to run them appears to be rising.Pubs have been the cornerstone of UK communities for centuries, but around a quarter of them have closed in the last decade - taxes, cheap alcohol in supermarkets, and the smoking ban are often blamed. But that’s not putting off people in their twenties and thirties from taking them on. Emily Thomas is in the pub with three young publicans - Elliott Dickinson, Laura Field, and Liam Holyoak-Rackal, to find out why. Can they be in it for the money, or is it something else - what exactly is the lure of the traditional British pub? And how do you encourage more young people to drink in them, without losing the customers who’ve been propping up the bar for decades?(Photo left-to-right: Elliott Dickinson, Liam Holyoak-Rackal and Laura Field. Credit: BBC)

What’s it like to have food in your blood? Would you want to spend all day working with your family, even if it was in a brewery or a chocolate factory? Emily Thomas meets the descendants of three dynasties to find out how well work and family really mix when it comes to the food business. Kayo Yoshida, the first female president of Japanese sake brewery Umenoyado explains how she broke with tradition when she asked her father if she could inherit the family business instead of her brother. Bob Unanue, the boss of the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the US – Goya Foods – explains how important family values, and in particular his immigrant heritage, are to his company’s bottom line. Plus, James Cadbury, of the famous UK chocolate dynasty, explains why he formed his own chocolate company three years ago but dares not put his family name on it.(Picture: A family portrait with cans replacing heads. Credit: BBC/Getty Images)

Social media hasn’t killed off the food blog apparently. Emily Thomas meets three food writers from three continents, who reveal their power and influence over what and how we eat. How much money do they make and how does social media fit with their business model? Have they disrupted the publishing industry and democratised food writing, or lowered standards - opening it up to any old amateur with a laptop? What’s a popular Instagram account worth, and does anyone really have the time for long posts these days?David Lebovitz, a Californian pastry chef and writer based in Paris is joined by Dunni Obata, a Nigerian food blogger in London, and Monika Manchanda, in Bangalore, India. (Photo: David Lebovitz and Dunni Obata. Credit: BBC/ David Lebovitz/ Dunni Obata)

If access to a city is blocked food supplies can quickly plummet, electricity and water can become scarce, and people can be forced to find new ways to feed themselves. Black markets thrive and some may risk their lives to feed their families, but creativity and compassion may also flourish and a food shortage can inspire ever greater heights of inventiveness.Emily Thomas meets people who have lived under siege in Aleppo, Syria, and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. A journalist reveals how it feels to feast in a cafe in the middle of a city where most are struggling to eat, and an electrician explains why feeding cats in the middle of a war-zone felt like a message of compassion and resistance.We also hear about the Palestinians living under the blockade of the Gaza strip. A cook explains how to run a catering company when electricity, water and some ingredients are scarce.This programme was originally broadcast on August 1 but has since been re-edited to provide more context about the Gaza blockade and to distinguish this more clearly from conditions in Aleppo and Sarajevo.(Photo: A group of men share a meal on the street in war-torn Syria. Credit: BBC/ Getty Images)

What is the person making your coffee secretly thinking about you? Which orders make their heart sink?Emily Thomas is joined by three top baristas in Dublin, Brazil and India. They explain how making coffee was once seen as a low-wage, unskilled job in much of the world, but these days, it holds a certain cache. But what's driving the meteoric rise of the barista - and who ultimately is benefitting? Most still earn a very low wage - like many of the farmers producing the coffee - whilst big chains thrive.(Photo: Barista Daniel Horbat makes a cup of coffee. Credit: Kristaps Selga/ World Coffee Events/ BBC)

Angela Hartnett is one of the UK's most high profile chefs. She tells Emily Thomas about her life through five memorable dishes, from learning to cook with her Italian grandmother, to being awarded a Michelin star just four months after opening her first restaurant. Plus, she explains what it was like working alongside the notoriously fiery Gordon Ramsay for 17 years.(Photo: Angela Hartnett. Credit: BBC/ Getty Images)