The Food Programme

In 1968 Claudia Roden published her first book, 'A Book of Middle Eastern Food', and with it introduced many people to an unfamiliar food culture.When she arrived in Britain in the fifties, foods like hummus and pitta were nearly unheard of, and "to talk about food was a taboo subject". Things have changed. That these foods are now common-place and mainstream is in large part due to Claudia Roden's work.Going on to write 'The Book of Jewish Food', 'The Food of Spain', 'Arabesque', 'Mediterranean Cookery' and others, and with a new edition of 'The Food of Italy' out next month twenty-five years after its first appearance, Sheila Dillon meets Claudia Roden. Sheila discovers a colourful and turbulent life in which food has meant so much, a life which has shaped a unique and powerful voice in food writing.Claudia was born in 1936 into a family of Sephardic Jewish merchants, into a cosmopolitan Cairo that has, in the wake of the Suez Crisis, long since disappeared. This is the story of a family in exile and the power of food to sustain individuals and entire cultures.With the help of Simon Schama, who is a long time admirer since coming across that first book as a young history teacher, Sheila Dillon charts a remarkable life in food.Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Rich Ward.

Ready meals divide Britain, some love them, others think they're a problem for our health and wellbeing and a major culprit in de-skilling us in the kitchen. In the last four decades we've helped lead the way in the ready meal's innovation and in its consumption. We're now Europe's biggest consumers of the "prepared meal".All of this came into sharp focus with the horsemeat scandal. A 100pc horsemeat lasagne came to symbolise the problems and anxieties of allowing others to cook our meals for us. As a result some frozen ready meals were consigned to the history books, never to be seen in a frozen cabinet again, and manufacturers reported a big drop in sales.That's not the full picture however. In 2014 we're seeing the continued rise and rise of the premium chilled ready meal, the "posh" answer to the Italian, Indian and Asian frozen options. What does this trend tell us about our ongoing, and sometimes guilt-filled, romance with the ready meal? Who's buying all of these ready meals anyway?Sheila Dillon visits high-end ready meals manufacturer Charlie Bigham whose business is growing in double digit figures. Sheila also hears from a sociologist (Miriam Glucksmann) about our relationship with the ready meal. Meanwhile Arabella Weir puts the ready meal in the context of more of us having to feed our families on a tight budget.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

In the Great Taste Awards last year, a yogurt from a small British dairy beat over 10,000 competitors to win the Supreme Champion title. This surprised many, not least because it was a simple, plain, 'Greek-style' yogurt.This type of fermented milk product, often strained to remove whey, is a relative newcomer in the UK - but is on the rise. In fact, Greek and Greek-style yogurt is the fastest growing sector of the UK yogurt market. It has also been at the centre of a High Court battle, an American health craze and a multi-billion dollar yogurt war.In this edition of the Food Programme, Sheila Dillon discovers the secrets of making this thick, creamy... and delicious cultured food. It was originally made in this country by immigrants such as the founders of Tim's Dairy, now run by four brothers whose Greek Cypriot uncle started making yogurt in a small London workshop in 1949, and now make around five to ten thousand litres of Greek-style yogurt a day.Collete and David Strachan are dairy farmers, but after losing cows (even though none were infected) during BSE and with the price of milk spiralling ever downward, the future of their Suffolk farm was in question. Ten years ago they started to experiment with yogurt-making, and along the way, as Sheila discovers, they have been joined by two of their children James and Katherine- and it's their plain Greek-style yogurt made at Marybelle Dairy that has just won the Supreme Champion award.So what is 'Greek' yogurt? With the help of BBC producer Aylin Bozyap-Hannen who learnt how to make yogurt from her Turkish mother, Sheila reveals a traditional, regional food that has been on an incredible, controversial, and tasty journey.Producer: Rich Ward.

Sheila Dillon hears the latest on the role of food in the future of the British pub. From traditional Asian curries to the influence of Michelin starred chefs.Producer: Perminder Khatkar.

Sheila Dillon revisits the inspirational caterers from the very first BBC Food & Farming Awards. They share stories of cooking for people with cancer, HIV and mental illness. Sheila finds out how the work has changed in the last decade and a half.In the case of the Bristol Cancer Care Centre (now called Penny Brohn Cancer Care) work on food and nutrition considered radical and alternative back in 2000 has now received wider acceptance and a place within the NHS.A cafe run by and for people with mental illness in Stirling in Scotland has also continued its work since becoming a finalist in the awards 14 years ago, but funding has been difficult to find and it has had to move to a different location. However, people with depression and anxiety still use the cafe as a way of having social contact.The final catering team, The Food Chain, based in London was set up in 1988 to serve meals to people with HIV. As medication has improved the long term welfare of sufferers, so the charity's work has changed and it's become a place where people come together to share food and learn about nutrition.

Sheila Dillon, chef Richard Corrigan and food writer and broadcaster Valentine Warner help launch the 2014 BBC Food & Farming Awards. From the UK's Best Food market to the Best Drinks Producer, The Food Programme explains how to get involved and nominate your very own food hero. Sheila will be catching up with the previous year's winners to find out what happened next, and she'll also be explaining why 2014 is a particularly important year for us all to share our food stories and experiences with the judges.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon explores a renaissance in the great British fish and chip shop, with the help of food blogger Daniel Young.At Upton Chippy near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, not much has changed since the first fry there in 1948. The fish comes fresh from Grimsby market, the potatoes from a local farmer. The batter recipe is the same (and yes, it's a secret) and it's all cooked in beef dripping on a coal-fired range, one of the last in the UK. Not many fish and chip shops have kept the faith like owner Sally Shaw and her loyal customers, one of whom admits that even when he owned his own fish and chip shop, he always had Friday off so he could come here.Sheila visits Rhoti Chai, an Indian street-food restaurant in London, for an Indian-style pop-up fish & chips event organised by food blogger Daniel Young. Amritsari fish and masala fries as well as curried mayo and chai-spiced pickled eggs are on the menu.James Ritchie of Simpsons in Cheltenham explains why there's nowhere to hide with a chip and Mitch Tonks of the multi-award-winning Rockfish Seafood & Chips in Devon explains why you have to know the fish game to become a winner.Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

Sheila Dillon and Tim Hayward discuss the legacy of Elizabeth David 100 years after her birth. The iconic food writer is credited for bringing Mediterranean cooking to post-war Britain.Sir Terence Conran speaks about Elizabeth David's influence on kitchen design. Her nephew Johnny Grey discusses the shop Elizabeth David opened in Pimlico. And Elizabeth David's editor, Jill Norman, says that today she would not have been published.Presented by Sheila Dillon and Tim Hayward. Produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

For cook and author Nigel Slater, 'Nutmeg and citrus are the scents of Christmas' but Sheila Dillon needs convincing.Together they look at the versatility of nutmeg as a spice that can bring life to mulled wine, egg custards, meats and puddings.People take it for granted now but nutmeg was highly prized in the kitchens of 16th and 17th century Europe. Traders ventured to the ends of the earth to secure it because of its value. The Dutch and the English vied for nutmeg supremacy and, in December 1616, Nathaniel Courthope and his small army saw off all competitors to gain control of the valuable nut so it could be shipped back to Britain for the culinary elite to enjoy.Today in Grenada the spice is so important it features on the national flag. But when Hurricane Ivan struck in 2004 it devastated the entire crop and hit the economy with a vengeance. Almost ten years on the nutmeg crop seems to be well on its way to recovery and we find out how it is used on the island. Producer : Perminder Khatkar.

Cambridge University historian Lesley Steinitz explains the pioneering story of Bovril. From its beginnings at the end of the 19th Century there are many parallels between Bovril then and our food production today.Robert Opie takes Sheila round the Museum of Brands to see Bovril's strong advertizing campaigns. Pete Simson drinks beef tea with the crowds at a Bristol Rovers game. And Sheila samples a Bovril cocktail.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

The Californian chef and campaigner Alice Waters shares her story with Sheila Dillon; from early life in the 1960's counter-culture to influencing the food thinking of Presidents.Alice Waters founded the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley in 1971. Her life had been changed forever by experiences as a student in France and at UC Berkeley, where the Free Speech Movement lay the ground for the big political movements of the sixties. Alice and her restaurant went from these humble and idealistic beginnings to international recognition. With a focus on local, organic ingredients and farmers' markets before they were widely celebrated she moved on to educate children and prisoners about growing and cooking food. In her own words Alice's food journey became a 'delicious revolution'.As debates in the US rage about healthcare and the nation's relationship with food, this is a story of one woman's attempts to show the way to an alternative way to eat. It's a story that took her from small French taverns to Californian growers and even to the White House.Producers: Rich Ward & Dan Saladino.

Cookery Books of 2013.Ahead of the Christmas shopping season Sheila Dillon reviews this year's best cook books. Sheila is joined by comedian Stephen K Amos and food writers Catherine Phipps and Fiona Beckett.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

Fenland celery has recently joined a select list of only fifty-five British foods to achieve the same EU protection as champagne, stilton and Melton Mowbray pork pies. But what difference will this status realistically make to the people who grow it?Sheila Dillon investigates the longer term impact of PGI status on another iconic English product, Grimsby Traditional Smoked Fish.She visits Grimsby fish market to meet the owner of the only remaining Grimsby-based fishing fleet, Andrew Allard, the chief executive of Grimsby Fish Merchants Association Steve Norton, and Richard Enderby, whose family have been smoking fish for generations.

Leontino Balbo - The Sugarman of Brazil. The incredible story of one maverick farmer who is trying to change the way we produce our food.David Baker brings us a story from Sao Paulo about a man who is managing to produce sugar whilst also helping wildlife.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

In January of this year the Food Standards Agency confirmed results showing horsemeat had been found in supermarket burgers. Over the next few days and weeks, more DNA testing would reveal more beef products contained horsemeat.Ten months on there have been no prosecutions or fines and we're still waiting to be told how the unlabelled horsemeat entered the food chain, and who put it there.Criminal investigations are underway across Europe, led in the UK by the City of London Police. Most public information on the scandal however has come from two sources, a report by Ireland's Department of Agriculture and secondly, the hours of evidence heard by MPs on the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee.The Food Programme explains what we know from these sources and also why an out of court settlement between two companies reveals much about one of the meat supply chains from the Netherlands into the UK.The programme hears from the Guardian's Special Correspondent, Felicity Lawrence, whose updated book, Not On The Label, gives a detailed account of the scandal. Reporters Ella McSweeney and Anna Holligan give the latest developments in Ireland and the Netherlands. The Grocer magazine's Julia Glotz, explains how our shopping habits have changed since the scandal and why this proving to be a problem for companies with no involvement in the contamination.Where are the investigations heading and what chances of successful convictions? These are questions Sheila Dillon puts to Andrew Rhodes of the Food Standards Agency.The programme is produced by Dan Saladino.

Restaurant reviews - who can we trust? Sheila Dillon investigates online review sites, newspaper reviews and guidelines to try and discover the impartiality of different criticism. She is aided by reviewer and editor Joe Warwick and previous restaurant inspector Peter Chapman.Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Emma Weatherill.

Award winning drinks writer Pete Brown joins Sheila Dillon to explain why bottles of cider should be the drink of choice on the UK's dinner tables.A cider revival has been building for a number of years, many credit the "over-ice" advertising campaigns of the last decade for raising mainstream interest. What's happened since that time has been fascinating to watch for producers and drinkers alike.At the premium, craft end of the cider business more and more small scale producers have arrived on the scene. Wales alone, which all but lost its cider making culture, now has more than 40 new ciders being produced. Pete Brown, author of the recently published, World's Best Cider, has travelled across the globe to document the fact that this is a revival that's spread far beyond the United Kingdom.As part of this world tour Sheila and Pete tell the story of the Tieton Cider Works, a new cider business in Washington State in North West America. The Tieton producers are experimenting with new techniques and flavours, including the use of hops and natural fruits. This might sound like a step too far for many traditionalists and in the programme Sheila and Pete give their verdict.Meanwhile in high-street pubs, supermarkets and off-licences more big brands have moved into the cider market, including Carlsberg and Stella Artois, they along with more familiar names like Bulmers and Thatchers have launched a wide range of fruit ciders. It's this part of the market that is really booming, but is it really cider? Sheila looks at the often confusing world of the ingredients and liquids that are allowed to become part of a glass of cider.Produced by Dan Saladino.

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.

Every year at the WOMAD festival, one tent in a field in Wiltshire becomes the venue for a remarkable meeting of food and music. Solo artists and bands from all over the world gather to share recipes and stories with the audience, who get to taste dishes created in front of them, often by musicians who have never cooked in public before.In this edition of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon is at the 'Taste the World' tent and uncovers some of the food stories and experiences that have shaped these unique performances.On the journey Sheila encounters Guo Yue, who grew up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and is now a master flautist and respected cook. There's also Nano Stern from Chile, Québécois band Le Vent Du Nord as well as South Louisiana's Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys.In the company of Taste the World's host Roger de Wolf, there will be roux bubbling, passionate story-telling and a culinary phone-call to the deep wilderness.

Sheila Dillon asks why the future of the UK's most popular fruit, the banana, is uncertain.Producer: Emma Weatherill.

Sheila Dillon meets the cooks specialising in great food on small budgets, part of a world of food blogging influenced by life of benefits, periods of homelessness and shopping budgets that can be as little as ten pounds a week.One of the highest profile blogs is "A Girl called Jack", written by Jack Monroe, a single mum who lives in Southend-On-Sea. Out of work, having complications with benefits and reduced to feeding her small boy Weetabix mashed with water, she went online to share her experience and started writing about food. What followed was a record of some of the most savvy shopping tips to be found anywhere, from dishes that can be cooked for 27p a portion, through to a forensic guide to every supermarket shelf, freezer cabinet and fresh produce aisle. In a recent report by Oxfam, the numbers of people now using food banks has reached 500,000, linked, charities say, to recent reforms of the benefits system. The government disputes this link, but food insecurity is increasingly found in every region of the UK.Others who have taken to writing about their efforts to cook and eat well on low budgets include Belfast born, now London based, Miss South who along with her brother, who lives in Manchester, Mr North, share recipes and pictures of the food they enjoy. Miss South recently came out as being "properly poor" in a blog posted last November and her writing has inspired others who need to cook on food budgets hovering between £15 and £20 a week.The third blogger in the programme is Tony, aka Skint Foodie. Once a high flying, restaurant going professional, his writing documents a determination to eat well despite losing everything to alcoholism.Producer: Dan Saladino.

The word 'vegan' has for the nearly seventy years of its existence - represented a diet and a way of eating that has not captured hearts - or stomachs - beyond a small, dedicated group of people calling themselves vegan.In this edition of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon hears from two influential and meat-loving food writers, Mark Bittman and Alex Renton, who have found themselves looking again at a vegan plant-based diet. Sheila Dillon joins in at a Vegan Potluck and discovers a new chain of German vegan supermarkets and asks if there is a wider shift in attitudes towards veganism underway.Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

In part two of their exchange of food stories Magnus Nilsson invites Valentine Warner to venture into the lakes of Sweden's Jamtland in search of wild trout.In the summer the sun remains in the sky and so at midnight they head into the forests of northern Sweden to catch brown trout, an important and traditional food for traditional communities in the region.Producer: Dan Saladino.

In a two part special Valentine Warner and Swedish chef Magnus Nilsson swap food stories from their own very different food cultures.Magnus Nilsson comes from the hunting culture of northern Sweden, a region called Jamtland. The long, harsh winters and shorter but still intense summers, inform this now world famous chef's work. Valentine Warner has a lifelong passion for seasonal cooking and sourcing ingredients from the wild.In part one, Valentine invites Magnus to venture into woodland in east Sussex woods to search for British wild boar.In southern England indigenous wild boar populations were wiped out generations ago, but in recent years, after farmed boar escaped into the wild, measures have had to be put in place to control pockets where a new population has been outgrowing their habitat.Valentine and Magnus meet Simon Barr, an experienced hunter, and the man licensed to control a population of boar on the Sussex and Kent border to share a food experience long disappeared, to hunt and cook a British wild boar. In part two, Valentine travels to Jamtland to experience a food story Magnus is determined to share.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon meets a new generation of producers making butter special again.

Sheila Dillon looks at the award winners who are leaving high flying careers to follow their passions and dreams in food productionProducer: Maggie Ayre.

The story of Mott Green, cocoa farmer and chocolate maker, who was changing the industry one bar at a time.Born in New York, this gifted engineer and mathematician left Manhattan in his twenties to explore the Caribbean. He ended up in Grenada, fell in love with cocoa and with a local drink, "cocoa tea". Despite this chocolate tradition and Grenada having some of the finest cocoa trees in the world, farmers were leaving the land and abandoning their crop because of low prices. Mott Green took it upon himself to change that.By using hand built machines and creating a co-operative, Mott managed to build a chocolate factory in a tropical climate, the first time this had been done. Sales of his quality bars grew and cocoa farming on the island once again became profitable. His success was documented in a film, Nothing Like Chocolate, and he was celebrated in Grenada as someone who had not only made a big impact on the island's economy but also changed thinking about chocolate around the world.Tragically, shortly after the Food Programme recorded with Mott Green he was killed in an accident as he was repairing some equipment. The programme follows him through the chocolate making process and as he embarked on a three month voyage transporting his bars across the Atlantic using only wind and solar power.Producer: Dan Saladino.

In the throes of bereavement food can seem unimportant. People lose both their appetite and their sense of taste. But food and cooking can also play a positive and healing role in helping individuals come to term with their loss. Sheila Dillon explores the healing power of food and how it can help to remember and recapture memories of those who have died.Sheila visited the Hospice of St Francis in Berkhamsted which runs cookery courses for those who've been bereaved. Some of those taking part had lost the will to cook - especially the prospect of making meals for one rather than two. Others found they'd lost the partner or parent who'd made all the meals and found themselves not only grieving but without the knowledge and skills to cook for themselves. They explained how a simple course has given them far more than just a collection of recipes.The programme also looks at the legacy of recipes which can be a way to remember loved ones and connect with them after they have passed on. Over the years Bridget Blair has gathered together the recipes of relatives, friends and neighbours for posterity and while the book is covered in spatters and finger marks her children are keen to inherit the secrets of those recipes and the memories. Meanwhile Rob Tizzard is trying to replicate his late mother's bread pudding recipe from memory which somehow never seems to come out exactly the way she made it but brings him joy trying.Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.

Sheila Dillon speaks to the writer Michael Pollan on the craft, science and pleasures of cooking. In his new book, Cooked, "a love letter to cooking", Pollan who is one of the world's most popular thinkers on food reflects on the value of being a cook and preparing our own food.From understanding the physics and culture of the barbecue to the art of fermentation, Pollan has spent the last two years researching cooking techniques around the world to help explain how transforming food has influenced our evolution and development over millions of years.Cooking, says Pollan, is "baked into our DNA", we are "the cooking animal". For that reason he examines what we've lost as rates of domestic cooking have declined since the 1960's and what it will take for more of us to make a meaningful return to the kitchen.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon finds out why the debate about the role of sugar in our lives is hotting up. Recent books and news stories have re-awoken a forty year debate about what makes us fat.Robert H. Lustig is a paediatric endocrinologist at the University of California, San Francisco. A lecture he gave on sugar has attracted more than three million hits. He makes a case that sugar is problematic, not just because it contains calories, but because the fructose component of sucrose interacts with our bodies in a very specific way. His claim that sugar not only causes obesity but a wide range of other conditions including type 2 diabetes, is disputed, but he's succeeded in capturing public attention. Sheila Dillon speaks to Robert Lustig about his research, and she explores other reasons why sugar is back in the headlines.

Sheila Dillon asks if food and nutrition should have a bigger role in treating cancer. Is the medical profession too reluctant to see food as an essential component in improving the well-being of cancer patientsProducer: Maggie Ayre.

Jancis Robinson remembers the specific bottle of wine which ignited her passion for both drinking wine and writing about it. She began reviewing for the University paper 40 years ago and has grown to become a world renowned author and critic on the subject.Sheila Dillon explores some of the big trends that have taken place during her career, from the growth of English wines, to the rise of supermarkets as the wine sellers to the nation.She talks about those who influenced her in the early years of tasting and writing and what she makes of other reviewers like Robert Parker who can decide the fate of a wine around the world.Produced in Bristol by Dan Saladino.

Inside one kitchen in Bristol, thirteen strangers from all over Europe gathered to share food and stories about food. The Food Programme was there to capture it all as the cooking got under way. As well as resulting in one of the most diverse menus ever assembled it was an event that explained why cous-cous can spark conversation, how a special Bulgarian dish can help tell your fortune and why a hippy commune in 1970's Exeter was ahead of its time in how we think about food.This unique event was the result of a project run by the Watershed arts centre in Bristol. The thirteen Europeans were taking part in a workshop to learn more about digital technology, food however, was the subject they would use to make this happen. In one day, participants from Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Turkey, France and the UK would come up with a dish that would help them tell their life stories. In Bristol they'd shop, cook, share their food and their stories. The progamme captured this special food event and a restaurant and menu that would exist for one night only.Hear the wonders of Bulgarian Banitsa, the pleasures of a Turkish Karnıyarık and the delights of a two hour meal over Algerian cous-cous.Producers: Dan Saladino and Hannah Briggs.

Charles Campion reports from Normandy in France as he helps judge the world black pudding championships, which features entries from Japanese, Austrian and Irish butchers.Each year the "knights of the black pudding", a long established organisation of food lovers, hold the annual Foire au Boudin. Nearly six hundred butchers from around the world enter the competition to help celebrate the ancient dish.As Charles discovers most of the world's great food cultures have some form of blood sausage and they vary in size, shape, texture and flavour. Although we've been making this dish since the arrival of the Romans, many parts of Britain have fallen out of love with the black pudding. The simple recipe of blood, barley, fat, onions and spices is affordable, delicious and a complete meal, and there are signs of a chef led revival. The competition, and the work on display of some extremely creative butchers provides many delicious reasons why this humble food really is worthy of a revival. Young chef and rising star James Winter based in Gloucestshire, also provides some tips on how to cook black pudding.Producer: Dan Saladino.

There's an army of lorries at work right now, transporting food and other goods all over the country. They keep food on our shelves and without them the UK's economy would collapse within days.But what's it like to work, live - and eat - on the road?Reporter Andrew Webb spends a day at the Orwell Crossing truck stop near the port of Felixstowe, with its 24-hour restaurant. Truck driver Dougie Rankine shares an audio diary of his perspective from high up in his cab, searching for the right meal at all times of day and night. Veteran driver John Eden recalls stopping off for nocturnal breakfasts in a notorious truck stop after negotiating 'suicide alley'.In this edition of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon reveals a food story on very big wheels.Producer: Rich Ward.

Tim Hayward bites into Britain's growing chilli scene, from growers to expert eaters and those who like their chillies red hot.Producer: Maggie Ayre.

Sheila Dillon meets Madhur Jaffrey, Indian cooking legend, who's just returned from the sub-continent on her latest adventures into its vast food culture.This year the actress, broadcaster and food writer turns eighty. She left Delhi sixty years ago to pursue a career in the west, but still remains the world's most influential and respected exponents of Indian cuisine. With her BBC television series and more than fifteen books she's managed to convey the rich history and flavours of authentic Indian regional cooking. Now, as India becomes one of the most important economies in the world, and a nation increasingly interested in western tastes and modern brands, Sheila meets Madhur to reflect on her early food life in Delhi and to ask her about a rapidly changing India.This is a life story of exquisite family meals in the 1930's that mixed British and Indian traditions, of school lunches where food would be shared between friends from very different food backgrounds and where watching a mushroom dish, "devoured by greedy men" was one of the images that led her to leave India. The programme also includes a fascinating encounter between Madhur and a British food tradition, chips with curry sauce.Producer: Dan Saladino.

Sheila Dillon looks at the practice of fasting - then and now - from a religious and medical perspectiveProducer: Maggie Ayre.

Each January, with the arrival of the seville oranges, hundreds of people across the UK ritually boil and jar batches of marmalade, following family recipes and leaving their kitchens sticky and fragrant with citrus. But who's eating it? For years sales figures have been in decline and the under 25s say it's 'boring'.So Tim Hayward heads out to a little corner of Cumbria to the Dalemain estate where the amber preserve is celebrated at the Marmalade Championships. From 'dark and chunky' to 'any citrus' hundreds of home-made and artisan examples have been entered for judging while enthusiasts dressed in orange accessories browse the presentations.He asks whether marmalade, once commonplace on British breakfast tables, is dying a slow death or becoming the preserve of the wealthy or an enthusiastic elite. He also learns a worrying truth - could foreign marmalade makers now be beating us at making the best?Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.

Sheila Dillon looks at how our sense of taste develops throughout our lifetimes, and what happens when we lose it, through old age, illness or injury. Two hundred thousand people a year seek medical help over loss of taste, Sheila hears the story of Marlena Spieler, a food writer who lost her sense of taste following a road accident.

Sheila Dillon explores Africa's forest foods, both an emergency larder and source of wonderful flavours.With the support of Comic Relief and funds raised through Red Nose Day work is underway to tap into the potential of this neglected food source.From Shea butter to Maringa, Sheila tastes her way through this story with Tony Hill of the charity Tree Aid, and Malcolm Riley, "the African Chef", whose cooking career started in Zambia. On the menu, prawns stir-fried in an ingredient from the baobab tree, and as Malcolm explains, it's "modern African cuisine".Producer: Dan Saladino.

Hectic lifestyles are increasing the demand for ready-made, 'grab n go' convenient foods. Today's time pressed commuters buy bagels at the station or carry breakfast bars in their briefcase. Retailers have led this change - offering snack size portions and handy grab packs to stave off hunger. Gourmet 'food on the go' has been identified as a key growth sector and sales are increasing. Sheila Dillon asks if, in our hurry, we've forgotten the value of three square meals a day, eaten at a table at set mealtimes.She meets restaurant guide writer Richard Harden who takes her on a whistle-stop tour of the speedy choices on offer including the fashion for "the small plate menu". There's now no distinction between lunch and dinner - if you fancy a steak at 4pm most cities will be able to help. Consequently people seem to be losing track of when and how much they can eat. It's all just one long munchfest.Sheila also hears from staff and children at a Nottinghamshire school where pupils were arriving having had no breakfast and sometimes no dinner. Their response was to offer free breakfasts to those from families on low incomes but their experience offers some revealing insights into the eating habits of children across all incomes.With so many snacks to choose from, do those "on the go" have more nutritious options than simply crisps and a chocolate bar or should we be asking if there is a more serious cost to this new bite-sized way of eating? What is the true cost of speed and convenience?Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.