The Food Chain

Meet the pioneering, opinionated and inscrutable Jeremiah Tower, one of the most controversial figures in modern American cuisine. Emily Thomas hears about his extraordinary childhood in grand hotels and on ocean liners with only haute cuisine for company; how he helped bring about a food revolution in Berkeley, California that would become the 'New American cuisine'; and why, after years of celebrity in San Francisco, he mysteriously disappeared from the culinary scene for over a decade.Jeremiah is widely seen as the first modern-day celebrity chef, and he doesn't hold back when explaining exactly what he thinks of the biggest names in food today.(Picture: Jeremiah Tower. Credit: Gary Gershoff/WireImage via Getty Images)

Has the #MeToo movement permeated our food chain?Emily Thomas explores the hidden problem of sexual harassment and abuse in our fisheries and fields, and hears how agriculture is all too often a dangerous occupation for the women who labour in its unseen corners. We hear from women who have seen this first hand, from the vineyards of South Africa, to shrimp farms in Bangladesh, to tomato pickers in Mexico. What will it take for agriculture to have its own #MeToo moment?(Photo: Young rural woman carries freshly cut grass for to feed her family’s livestock. Credit: Getty Images).

This is the story of a man who struggled with homelessness and addiction, before being hit by a bold vision of ending food waste and world hunger.The Real Junk Food Project uses the food thrown away by homes and businesses to feed those who can't afford to eat. It has saved 3,500 tonnes of food from landfill or animal feed in the last four years by redistributing it to the hungry through cafes, shops and warehouses. The project's success and potential for growth led to it being selected as runner-up in this year's BBC World Service Global Food Champion award. Emily Thomas meets the project's founder, Adam Smith, and hears how he experienced homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health problems before embarking on this remarkable project of environmental protection and social improvement.Plus, learn how to push the limits of lasagne, as the volunteers and customers at one of the Real Junk Food project's cafes in the northwest of England, explain how the project has changed their attitudes to food ... and bingo. (Picture: A bunch of over-ripe bananas. Credit: Getty Images)

Should we eat more horse meat? In some parts of the world it is a food taboo, while in others people think little of munching an equine burger. Would it be better for our health and that of the planet if we ate more of it? We’re at a pony auction in the English countryside where some rather hairy creatures are going for a song. Could turning them into sausages and steak be the best way to add value? From there we travel to Paris to find out why the French are losing their taste for horse meat, we find out if it could be more sustainable and healthier than beef, and examine the roots of the world's horse meat taboos.Presenter: Emily ThomasThis programme first aired in October 2017(Picture: Exmoor Pony. Credit: Getty Images)

Dan Saladino meets the mastermind behind one of biggest bread research projects ever undertaken. Nathan Myhrvold spent four years researching, baking and collaborating with leading industry professionals to write Modernist Bread - a five-volume, global exploration of this great staple. It follows another hugely ambitious food project -Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking – from 2011. Perhaps it is no surprise then that Nathan Myhrvold has spent his life trying to understand how things work, he researched quantum theory with the late Stephen Hawking and went on to work directly with Bill Gates at Microsoft. So what pearls of wisdom can the man who baked 36,000 loaves share? This is a rebroadcast of an episode of the Food Programme that first aired on BBC Radio 4 in March 2018.(Photo: Man claps hands with flour by dough, Credit: Getty Images)

We sit down with one of R&B’s most eccentric and compelling artists - singer-songwriter Kelis. Over the past 20 years she has produced era-defining hits like Milkshake, Caught Out There and Trick Me, and sold millions of records. So why did she decide to step away from the mic and into the chefs' whites at the Cordon Bleu academy? Kelis tells Emily Thomas all about her passion for food and her latest plans to open a farm-to-table restaurant. We hear how she has struggled to make the culinary world take her seriously and why she thinks it’s ‘all about the sauce’.(Photo: Kelis, Credit: BBC)

In a nod to the British royal wedding, we are super-sizing the Food Chain this week as we explore cooking on a grand scale.Emily Thomas visits a Sikh temple to see how volunteers serve up to a thousand free meals per day without even breaking a sweat. A professional caterer breaks down the economics of mass catering for us. Plus, a foodie chemist gives us his take on mass cooking on a molecular level. And we may or may not be speaking to the man in charge of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding menu.(Picture: Quirky and colourful tiered cake Credit: Getty Images)

Food is propaganda in this episode of The Food Chain.In the second part of our two week exploration into the relationship between political power and what we eat, we’re asking how food can be used by authoritarian regimes and extremist groups to influence and persuade. A food writer will take us on an officially-approved tour of North Korea. And Emily Thomas meets a man who spent ten days living - and eating with fighters from the Islamic State group.(Photo: Hand reaching out a megaphone. Credit: Getty Images).

How do authoritarian regimes use food to control and manipulate? In the first of two episodes exploring food and power, we find out how changes to the global economy mean food policy under dictatorships could soon look quite different. Plus, how do you write about food when there isn't any? Emily Thomas talks to a Venezuelan food writer who says her country's food story speaks volumes about the political situation, and explains why she continues to blog about restaurants, despite hunger being rife. In a country where people are afraid to say what they think, we hear why food writing can mean freedom.(Picture: Red hand pointing upwards with clenched fists, Credit: Getty Images)

The fussy toddler refuses to eat her vegetables, has a tantrum and throws the food on the floor in protest. It’s a familiar scene that haunts parents the world over… or does it? And what, if anything, has economics got to do with it? This week The Food Chain takes a global look at 'fussy eating', and finds out about different cultural expectations and solutions. Emily Thomas talks to a psychologist, a sociologist and a behavioural geneticist to debate the phenomenon, and parents in Beijing, Nairobi, Kolkata and London share their tactics.(Picture: Baby making a mess eating, Credit: Getty Images)