Eat This Podcast

Using land that could be used to feed people to feed animals is a terrible waste, but for today’s modern breeds it is absolutely essential.

Emojipedia understands: 🍅 is both a fruit and a vegetable

Is our excrement simply a waste product, to be dumped out of sight and out of mind? Or is it a valuable resource that we squander at our peril?

Persuading people to drink tea from the subcontinent more or less created the modern propaganda machine

The DNA of chickens, sheep and cattle tells slightly different stories about their domestication

Her aunt’s gnocchi were enough to set Teresa Lust on a long and roundabout journey to learn more about Italian and Italian food.

We know what whole grain means. Whole grain food? Not so much.

Coffee leaf rust is bad, but at least in the short term it may not be the threat you think it is

Food for settlers in New Zealand used to be mutton, mutton, mutton and potatoes or potatoes. Not any more.

Chilli peppers took a few years to reach China after their initial encounter with Westerners, but rapidly became a very hot item.

In Sierra Leone, a hunt for long lost species of coffee succeeds

A brief look at the life of one of the first celebrity chefs

Are there any universals about more complex kinds of gustatory taste? And how do we learn to talk about taste?

Robert Walpole — like all great politicians — understood how to use his tipple to send a signal

I know taste is entirely subjective. But I’m also willing to think about good taste and bad taste and even to use that as part of a value judgement. How about you?

Norman Borlaug gave birth to the Green Revolution, with little thought for the unintended consequences of his work.

Beyond the North Wind, the true heart of Russian Food

A young Russian woman blogs her way through the only cookbook her grandmother knew -- and gets her own book out of it

A food people don't like, and don't even know they need, turns their lives around

It took more than a hundred years, but eventually the United States too developed a recognisable coffee culture.

Espresso is the canonical coffee of Italy, even though the original espresso was something entirely different. How did espresso happen? And what happened when it got to England?

With a bag of porridge oats in my baggage, I set off for Georgetown University and a date with science

Unlike car sharing, when you buy a share in a cow, you are not free to drive her wherever you want. So what do you get?

Vicky Bennison set out to record Italian grannies making pasta and along the way created terrifically watchable videos

Mozambique used to be the world's largest supplier of cashew nuts. Then along came the World Bank, to help.

Capuchin monkeys are resourceful and smart, which helps them to select a good diet from all the potential food around them.

You can't judge a book by its cover. 50 Ways to Cook a Carrot is not really about carrots.

How did porridge go from a fine breakfast food, albeit one that's easily abused, to the stuff of foodie dreams?

"All the intrigue of a murder mystery and all the painstaking, arduous pursuit of an archeological dig." For a radish.

Alfredo sauce, made famous in the 1920s, dates back to at least 1390. That, and other surprises of food in the Eternal City.

A downturn in the house-building business set Maurice Gilbert at Ballyhoura Artisan Food Park on the road to award-winning apple juices.

Ignorance, paranoia and greed have damaged the olives of the Salento almost beyond recognition.

We all deserve a break from time to time.

Some people hate eating alone, others love it, but we all have to do it at times.

From the first last supper to the resurrection roll.

William Rubel doesn't think there is good bread or bad bread, but he knows what he likes.

The first farmers and their crops moved much further, much earlier, than previously thought. As they did so they grew the confidence, the resources and the knowledge to move up into the mountains and down into the river basins.

Meat exercises the imagination in a way no other food can match. Some people have always wanted to ban carnivory. For others it is an essential fuel. And now, meat is central to nutrition, sustainability, health and capitalism. What does meat mean?

Fake news. A Senate bought and paid for. Newspapers printing press releases verbatim. And all more than 100 years ago.

Insights into building and running a very successful small bakery, plus the "super colloidal suspension of fat and sugar" that is a specialty of the house.

The staggering agricultural biodiversity that is such an important aspect of Lao food is on display at a new website.

There's nothing new about persuading influencers to quaff your brand of bubbly

From the all-seeing Dom Pérignon to the young bucks of London’s high society, champagne’s true history is absolutely intoxicating.

What makes the lebkuchen from Nürnberg so special?

Jan Davison has written Pickles: A Global History, the perfect accompaniment to her previous book, English Sausages.

Spaghetti Carbonara Day, read by the author. (I didn’t steal it; I set it free.)

Is dessert a pointless overindulgence, or perhaps the most interesting and creative part of a good meal out? I know what I think.

A communal oven helps a community to bake bread and rebuild after two massive earthquakes.

The law that protects pubs from the perceived challenge of restaurants was passed by a Parliament full of publicans

Unless you already know what you're doing, modern cook-books may be a recipe for disaster.