The Food Programme

Jaega Wise delves into the history, traditions and culture surrounding the birthday cake, meeting bespoke baker Adam Cox, and attending a traditional Mexican "cake smash" along the way. She'll also find out what happens when a cake historian takes on the task of baking a traditional roman-style cake, and pick up some tips for the best birthday bakes from none other than Dame Mary Berry. And there's a very special delivery for one 13 year old girl from a community network of bakers trying to ensure that absolutely all children get a birthday cake.

Produced by Tory Pope for BBC Audio in Bristol

Dan Saladino explores the relationship between tunes and taste with Andi Oliver on the link between Sam Cooke and roast chicken and chef Stephen Harris on food and The Buzzcocks.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Richard Corrigan's is a story of Ireland, the story of a turning point in British food culture and the story of a deep connection to the land and its produce. But most of all it is the story of a man committed to his principles in a notoriously unforgiving industry. He is a rare voice of authenticity from the kitchen and one of our most important chefs.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Siobhan Maguire.

For food writer Yasmin Khan, the Balti conjures up family meals out in her childhood home of Birmingham where she would regularly tuck into deep bowls of the city's most iconic dish -- richly spiced chicken or lamb, that she scooped up with freshly made warm naan breads.

In it's heyday, the Sparkhill area of Birmingham was saturated with Balti restaurants, so much so that it became known as the "Balti Triangle", a place which defined Birmingham's food scene and became one of the few parts of the UK where working class, immigrant, food was celebrated.

Since then, the Balti has grown in reputation as one of Britain's truly regional dishes, so much so that a bid was made, albeit unsuccessfully, to give it protected EU status.

Now, Yasmin heads back to Birmingham to explore what this uniquely British-Pakistani dish means to a new generation of people growing up in the so-called 'Balti Triangle'. What she finds is a community with strong bonds and deep pride, that continues to come together around a deep love of food.

Presented by Yasmin Khan Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

To celebrate the start of the Tour de France, cycling presenter and former racer Rebecca Charlton takes you behind the scenes at one of the world's biggest bike events to find the race is on in the kitchen to fuel riders who need to eat up to 8,000 calories per day for three weeks straight. She learns about Chris Froome's nutrition plan with Olympic coach and now Team Principal at Team Sky, Sir Dave Brailsford, she joins chef Sean Fowler as he cooks for the Groupama FDJ team as they fight for a place on the podium and she hears how the author of the Grand Tour Cookbook Hannah Grant had to battle to get her meals on the table in some of the worst kitchens imaginable.

This week's programme about the Eatwell Guide featured an interview with Prof. Louis Levy from Public Health England. This is the unedited version of his interview with Sheila Dillon.

Sheila Dillon questions whether the government's Eatwell Plate that's issued to the medical profession and used as public guidance for a balanced diet could actually be harming us. An increasing number of medics are abandoning the plate because they say it still promotes dangerously high levels of starchy carbohydrates and processed foods that contain high levels of the sugars that cause many of today's chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra author of the Pioppi diet is campaigning to change the official advice and says that a healthy diet and lifestyle are the key to reducing disease and the need for medication, but he says that vested interests from the food and pharmaceutical industries make some of these healthier choices more difficult to achieve. Dr David Unwin is a GP who has seen a huge spike in patients presenting with Type 2 Diabetes since he began practicing forty years ago. He advises lifestyle changes that include abandoning the Eatwell Guide and cutting out the starchy carbohydrates, processed foods and sugars and has seen a reversal of the disease in a significant number of patients. Sheila also visits Tameside Hospital in Greater Manchester which is overhauling its canteen food and vending machine produce to reduce processed carbohydrates and sugary drinks and snacks. In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the NHS the hospital will go completely sugar free on July 4th. Is it time to revise the Eatwell Guide and what will it take to do so?

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

Grace Dent, restaurant critic and broadcaster asks what's going wrong in the restaurant trade. With hundreds of small and large food outlets closing their doors, some say the restaurant business is in crisis, yet many argue that as an industry its contribution to the British economy is vastly overlooked and underrated. Recorded at Bristol Food Connections in front of an audience, Grace chairs a discussion with guests, Russell Norman restaurateur and TV presenter, broadcaster, critic and restaurant owner Tim Hayward, West Country chef and restaurateur, Romy Gill and chef proprietor Cyrus Todiwala OBE to find out what ails the restaurant scene and how it can be remedied.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

Sheila Dillon presents the people and the stories behind this year's Food and Farming Awards. Hear the winner of this year's Derek Cooper Outstanding Achievement Award, join Adam Henson and Charlotte Smith as they go in search of the farmers in the running to win Countryfile's Farming Heroes Award 2018 and hear who became this year's Food Chain Global Champion.

Andi Oliver, Alex James and Matt Tebbutt join Sheila Dillon for a night once dubbed 'the Oscars of the food world'; the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2018. The night that the country's best loved chefs, cooks and food writers gather to celebrate unsung food heroes. Farmers, community cooks, shop owners, food and drink producers; You nominated them in your thousands. Now, at the Food and Farming awards ceremony in Bristol, the winners are revealed.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

As part of the BBC Food and Farming Awards Nigel Barden and Tom Parker Bowles met an amazing array of street food vendors. In this programme Nigel tells the finalist's stories and visits KERB market in Camden to hear how the industry is rapidly evolving across the UK.

First they meet Manjit Kaur and Michael Jameson from Manjit's Kitchen in Leeds. Manjit and Michael started by doing home deliveries of vegetarian traditional Punjabi food and now have a permanent home in Kirkgate market as well as a horsebox they use to serve across the country.

The Bees Country Kitchen in Chorley is run by Sarah and Mike Bryan. The Bees serve a huge array of dishes from Chorley Market including vegan and healthy meals. They have a huge commitment to using local produce and serving their community.

The Old Granary Pierogi in Herefordshire is run by Emilia Koziol-Wisniewski, husband Piotr and brother Jacek Koziol. They talk about the difficulty they had as immigrants coming to this country and starting their business selling traditional Polish food when hardly anyone knew what it was.

Nigel also talks to Mark Laurie from The Nationwide Caterers Association (NCASS) about how the industry has changed even in a short amount time as well as what we can expect in the future.

Presented by Nigel Barden Produced in Bristol by Sam Grist.

Dan Saladino and drinks writer Pete Brown find out why Belgium beer is so influential.

From prisons to research chefs, Sheila Dillon and chef Romy Gill hear how food is used around the country to transform lives.

As judges on the 2018 BBC Food & Farming Awards, Romy Gill and writer Kathleen Kerridge visited three finalists in the UK - Helen Boyce who cooks with inmates at Hydebank Wood College and Women's Prison in Belfast, the Welcome Kitchen and Cinema in London where Rose Dakuo cooks for refugees, asylum seekers and the general public and Sam Storey, a research chef in Newcastle working with head and neck cancer survivors who have been left with altered eating difficulties.

Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced in Bristol by Caitlin Hobbs.

Europe's migrant crisis is far from over. Already in 2018, the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR) estimate that more than 24, 475 people have arrived in Europe by sea. 609 people are dead or missing since January*. The conflict in Syria is now into its 7th year.

With an ongoing backdrop of war and violence, and more people arriving into Europe from Syria and elsewhere, Sheila Dillon wants to hear how people fleeing the crisis are living, eating and using food to tell the stories of the journeys they have made. In summer 2017, she travelled to Greece to speak to people living the migrant crisis every day.

In Greece, Sheila spends a day with a man who since arriving in the country has volunteered all his time to coordinating a vast network of volunteers distributing food to thousands of migrants and refugees in Northern Greece. She travels to refugee camps, meeting people distributing and receiving the food donations which supplement any support payments.

In a remote, coastal refugee camp, she meets a teenager with his mind firmly set on travelling to the UK to reunite his family with his father. Sheila hears how the family cook and eat every day, how they found food during their journey to Greece, and asks whether the family ever make it to the UK.

And in London, Sheila meets a chef from Damascus who has found a way back to cooking the food he was once famous for in his own city. She hears how he is spreading the message and raising money for people who have stayed in war-torn Syria.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury

* UNHCR figure last updated 7th May 2018.

Dan Saladino goes on a journey through the history, culture and flavours of Japanese whisky. Why and how has this nation taken a drink so strongly associated with Scotland and made it their own?

In 2001, the drinks world started to pay attention to Japanese whisky after one if its distillers scored top marks in an international whisky completion. In the years that followed, the awards and the global attention for Japanese whiskies continued to grow. Critics have described some Japanese whiskies as the "work of genius" and, just last year, one whisky produced by a small, new-wave distillery in the north of the country was voted the world's "Best Single Cask Whisky".

With the help of whisky writer and author of the award-winning 'Way of Whisky: A Journey Round Japanese Whisky', Dave Broom, Dan asks: what lies behind the rise and rise of Japanese whisky and who are the people who helped make all this global recognition possible?

The story has its origins in the 1860s when a recently opened up Japan started to forge close trading links with Scotland, paving the way for whisky imports. Once the taste for the spirit developed, distillers and chemists within Japan started to work on ways of producing a home-grown version of the drink.

A breakthrough came in 1919 when a young student called Masataka Taketsuru travelled to Scotland, worked inside some renowned distilleries, married a Scottish woman and returned home with the secrets behind Scotch. Another pioneer, Shinjeero Torri, would put that know-how to good use and create the Suntory distilling empire and brands such as Yamasaki and Hakushu. Taketsuru would go on to found another respected and award winning whisky brand, Nikka.

After record whisky sales in Japan throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the industry fell into decline for the next quarter of a century, with drinkers switching to other spirits and beer.

A range of factors lie behind the recent whisky revival and boom, ranging from Japanese innovations in fermentation, distillation and barrel aging as well as the drink that brought whisky to the attention of a younger generation - the High Ball, a mix of whisky and soda.

As Dave Broom also explains, the resurgence has encouraged a new generation of distillers to enter the whisky world, including Chichibu, an operation run mostly by people in their twenties, now winning awards.

To explore the unique flavours on offer in Japanese whisky, Dan travels to the Highlander pub in Craigellachie, Scotland, where he meets landlord Tatsuya Minagawa and samples a "next to impossible" to find bottle of whisky.

Recommended reading: Dave Broom: The Way of Whisky - A Journey Through Japanese Whisky. Dominic Roskrow: Whisky Japan - The Essential Guide To The World's Most Exotic Whisky Brian Ashcraft: Japanese Whisky - The Ultimate Guide to The World's Most Desirable Spirit Stefan Van Eycken: Whisky Rising

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

You know their names, now Sheila Dillon helps tell the stories of the finalists in the BBC Food and Farming Awards 2018. For the last month, our judges, including Tim Hayward, Andi Oliver, Tom Parker-Bowles and Romy Gill have travelled the length and breadth of the UK to meet this year's finalists.

In this programme, our judges meet a Northern Irish farmer who went from never trying salami to producing award winning charcuterie in a year. They visit a local deli and cafe owned by a fisherman who has spent his life catching eels and salmon on the Severn. And speak to the founders of a brewery devoted to making great tasting beers with less than 0.5% alcohol.

In the first of two editions of The Food Programme, we celebrate our BBC Food and Farming Awards 'school of 2018'.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Salt has long been prized, but in recent years it has become, for many, something to be avoided: to reduce or even eliminate. At the same time, there are new salt making businesses popping up all over the UK, celebrating salts with - they claim - unique characteristics due to their location and methods of production; they are salts of a place. In this edition of The Food Programme Sheila Dillon asks if there is a place for salt - in our kitchens and on our plates.

Featuring chef and writer of 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' Samin Nosrat, lexicographer and etymologist (and Dictionary Corner resident) Susie Dent, Senior Health Correspondent for online news site vox.com Julia Belluz, salt makers Alison and David Lea-Wilson, and the chef and author of 'Salt is Essential': Shaun Hill.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

The reading of 'Sugar and Salt' in the podcast and Monday's broadcast is by Vicky Coathup.

Sheila Dillon travels from the border to Belfast to learn why Northern Irish food has blossomed in recent years and what leaving the EU could mean for producers.

Dan Saladino looks behind the headlines of the newly introduced sugar tax.

Dan Saladino reports from Parabere Forum, with five life changing food stories. At the annual gathering for women working in food Dan finds unexpected and inspirational stories.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

The NHS is at crisis point. Despite the diet books, the fitness videos, the health bloggers, in 2016, Public Health England estimated that Illness associated with lifestyle costs the NHS £11 billion every year.

But are we missing something obvious? Could we bring down the cost to the taxpayer, reduce pressure on the health system, with simple advice on what we should eat and drink when we go to see our GP?

A growing group of medical professionals think so. Meet the doctors demanding better training on food and nutrition for students at medical school; Dr Rangan Chatterjee (BBC One's Doctor In The House), Dr Michael Mosley, (BBC Two's Trust Me I'm a Doctor) and Dr Rupy Aujla (The Doctor's Kitchen) and many more, all believe that if tomorrow's doctors were taught more about nutrition and diet, it could have a transformative effect on the health of the UK.

In this programme Professor Sumantra Ray, doctor and founding chair of NNEdPro Global Centre for Nutrition and Health describes a decade of work which could soon see widespread training for trainee doctors. And Sheila Dillon meets the students taking the conversation about food and health into their own hands.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury

Photo credit Neil Macaninch (above).

Dan Saladino talks to Modernist Bread author, Nathan Myhrvold, about one of the biggest bread research projects ever undertaken, which involved the baking of 36,000 loaves.

Nathan Myhrvold has spent his life trying to understand how things work, he's been a post doctoral fellow researching quantum theory with the late Stephen Hawking, he went on to work as the chief technology officer at Microsoft working directly with Bill Gates and then....... he turned his attention to food.

In 2011 he published Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, which explored the history, science and techniques of cooking, including the world of Modernist cuisine, in which chefs continue to push the boundaries of the kitchen. Now he's turned his attention to bread.

The research for Modernist Bread goes beyond the production of a book, new ideas about bread history are introduced (the first baker could have lived 100,000 years ago), myths are dispelled (French baguettes and Italian Ciabatta are not as traditional as we think they are) and techniques explained (why kneading might often be a waste of time and a squeeze of pineapple juice can work wonders for dough).

Dan and Nathan discuss bread history, correct some falsehoods and ponder on the need for a Modernist bread movement (and Nathan also explains which loaf out of the 36,000 they baked is his favourite).

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

It's a matter of course that in January, food writers, critics and chefs try to predict the food trends of the year ahead. And if you trawled the columns in 2018, no doubt you would have found 'African food' among them.

For Zoe Adjonyoh, restaurateur at Zoe's Ghana Kitchen in London and author of cookbook of the same name, this is a difficult term. Africa is the second biggest and most populous continent in the world and its 54 countries are home to a plethora of localised and regional cuisines. Yet, so many of these cuisines have failed to make a mark in mainstream restaurant culture internationally and in the UK, can a new interest in promoting African flavours help us to discover more about them?

This programme is Zoe's guide to getting to know African cuisines becoming more available in the UK. She meets British chefs and cooks exploring their African heritage through food, and asks them the worth, or worthlessness of the term 'African food'.

The first of The Food Programme's 2018 season of African food stories in Britain.

Presented by Zoe Adjonyoh Produced by Clare Salisbury.

Dan Saladino meets the runners convinced low or no carbs is the way to peak performance.

Tim Hayward embarks on the big pig road trip to meet some of the people who devote their lives to rare breeds of British pigs. He speaks to Adam Henson, best-known as a presenter on BBC One's Countryfile, about why pigs like the Gloucester Old Spot and Tamworth are important to the heritage of the UK, and explains the work his late Father Joe did to keep these breeds alive. Two of Adam's Tamworth pigs became the starting point for brothers John and Nick Francis who came to pig-keeping fresh out of university and now produce meat for a number of Michelin-starred restaurants. Robert Buttle gives Tim slices of artisan charcuterie which he produces from his Large Blacks and Oxford Sandys and explains why pork of this quality needs to be treated like the finest steak. Tim also meets the next generation of pig keepers at Holme Grange School in Berkshire and discovers that showing pigs is not as easy as it looks.

Producer: Toby Field.

Sheila Dillon celebrates the power of food to comfort us in hard times, especially during these dark days of the year. Dumplings, marshmallows, chicken soup, fried chicken, curried goat: all the things we long to eat when we're sad, or sick, or homesick. She talks to Antarctic explorers about the food they miss from home, and eating marshmallows at the South Pole; to teenagers in a Fried Chicken shop; to homesick Polish emigres eating proper Polish dumplings, and to a class of eight-year-olds about what their parents cook for them when they're sick. Chef Raymond Blanc goes into an almost mystical trance as he remembers the puddings his mother cooked for him as a child and their trembling caramel; he confesses this is what he craves now when he's sick. Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner reveals the secret of "Jewish penicillin", or chicken soup; Dr Rupy Aujla reflects on what you might call the culinary placebo effect; and Reggae singer Levi Roots explains about the consoling power of curried goat. Not forgetting Jill Archer's famous flapjacks - the Food Programme presents a comfort feast for February!

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Elizabeth burke.

Sheila Dillon and Dan Saladino pay tribute to greengrocer extraordinaire, the late, great and encyclopaedic Charlie Hicks with help from Jamie Oliver, Gregg Wallace and Raymond Blanc.

Many radio listeners will remember Charlie Hicks as a co-presenter of BBC Radio 4's Veg Talk series, in which listeners phoned in to speak to two great experts of fresh produce. Charlie was a 4th generation, Covent Garden market fruit and veg man, but he was so much more including a great cook, a food scholar and broadcaster.

Charlie, along with Gregg, helped changed British food culture in the 1980s and 1990s. They supplied London's top chefs with fresh produce and helped introduce new flavours and varieties to British tables. Food fashions spread as chefs influenced supermarkets who then made relatively obscure ingredients such as rocket, artichoke and baby beets popular with domestic cooks.

The series Veg Talk, which ran from 1998 to 2005 attracted all of the UK's top named chefs including Jamie Oliver (who described Charlie as a "Vegetable Yoda" and "the Chef's Secret Weapon", Angela Hartnett, Michel Roux Jnr and Cyrus Todiwala. The programme gave Charlie a platform to share his knowledge and expertise of fruit and vegetables, as well as his sharp sense of humour and unique banter with his co-presenter Gregg.

Charlie Hicks passed away in January and all parts of the food industry mourned his loss.

Dan and Sheila tell his food story and explain why he made such an impact on British food culture.

Produced by Dan Saladino.

When the BBC World Service's Language Services moved into New Broadcasting House in central London, different services would take it in turns to host a 'Meet-Your-Neighbour' event to introduce themselves to other parts of the BBC. People started bringing in food that reflected their country or region. Other people took up the mantle and an idea was born. Three years on and this extraordinary collection of recipes has been compiled into a truly global cookbook, available for staff to download.

But this is just more than a collection of recipes - this is food that connects the journalists, correspondents, managers and producers to their homes, and provides a cultural bridge between themselves. Sheila Dillon meets Paula Moio who describes how a fish stew - Calulude Peixe - epitomises long Saturday afternoons in Angola when friends and family come to put the world to rights over long lunches, and how on moving to London a Saturday afternoon could be a poignant and emotional time. Sadeq Saba discusses the flavours of North Iran and why nothing can dampen down the Iranian's love of food. Lourdes Heredia gives Sheila a tour of the fifth floor before unveiling an incredible selection of salsas that has colleges from the African and Middle Eastern sections arguing about which country produces the hottest chilies. BBC Urdu presenter Aliya Nazki talks quinces and Kashmiri food, and Dmitry Shishkin is joined by his daughter Masha to explain how there's a lot more to Russian cooking than meets the eye.

Producer: Toby Field.

Saffron is one of the world's most evocative spices, shrouded in myth and mystery and conjuring up images from the ancient Silk Road. Often seen as 'expensive', 'complicated' or perhaps for a special occasion, for British food writer Yasmin Khan, the spice was a store cupboard stable. Because of her mother's Iranian heritage, as a child she ate it almost every day.

Later, Yasmin's love affair with saffron inspired her to travel across Iran, documenting the country's rich culinary heritage in her book 'The Saffron Tales'. On her journey she learnt that the saffron crocus was cultivated in Iran by the 10th century BC and today has multiple uses in perfuming a variety of Iranian dishes. But she also made another discovery, that saffron has a unique and mysterious British history, that brings this magical spice, much closer to home.

In this programme, writer Pat Willard, chef Charlie Hodson, botanist Dr Sally Francis and community grower Ally McKinlay help to unfold an almost forgotten British saffron story, one that captivates and entrances everyone that comes into contact with it.

Presented by Yasmin Khan Produced by Clare Salisbury.

Dan Saladino looks at ideas that could make an impact on our food future featuring America's Impossible Burger, a Sardinian maggot infested cheese and mussels being grown in downtown Copenhagen.

Most people are aware of the challenges that lie ahead linked to predictions of population growth peaking at 9bn by 2050 but who is coming up with ideas of how we can feed more people with a finite amount of land, water and other resources? Dan looks at three ideas that provide an insight into work underway to find solutions.

The expert on the science of cooking Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, tells the story of The Impossible Burger, a decade long endeavour, based in California, to find a plant based replica of beef and burger patties. Impossible Foods was founded by a bio-chemist Professor Patrick Brown. Because he was approaching the problem of rising global meat consumption from outside of the food industry he was forced to ask some very basic questions, most important of which was "why does meat taste like meat"? One of the answers Pat Brown discovered was a molecule called heme. He also knew heme could be found in plants. The outcome of years of work and millions of dollars of investment is The Impossible Burger. It's aimed not at vegetarians or vegans but meat lovers and has been designed to have the meaty, bloody juiciness of a real burger. Harold McGee describes the science behind the burger and the experience of eating one.

By the way, listen out for the traditional Sardinian music "Su Cuntrattu de Seneghe" performed by Antonio Maria Cubadda who is from Seneghe town.

The next future food story has its origins in Sardinia and a cheese called Casu Marzu. As the cheese ferments a fly called the Cheese Skipper is attracted by the aromas being released and lays its eggs inside the cheese. The larvae then hatch and start to digest the proteins and turn a hard textured cheese into a soft one. The cheese is then eaten while the wriggling maggots are still alive within the cheese. A researcher working for the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation's Edible Insect project, Afton Halloran went in search of the cheese as a rare example of a European food involving edible insects. In Sardinia she met a chef Roberto Flore . They eventually married and since, have travelled the world in search of other examples of edible insects that could provide a clue to future foods. They tell Dan the story of the cheese and the conclusions they've reached so far when it comes to the potential of insects in feeding the world.

The final story comes from Copenhagen where Joachim Hjer is attempting to get people in the city to grown their own mussels in the heart of the city.

In the studio with Dan is Dr Morgaine Gaye, a "Food Futurologist" who explains which of the three stories she believes will be the one to watch in 2018.

Presented and produced by Dan Saladino.

Where are the cooks changing the lives of their communities? Which food shops or markets make shopping a more unique experience? Who is making the UK a more delicious place through food and drink?

Rick Stein, Giorgio Locatelli, Angela Hartnett, Yotam Ottolenghi and this year's head judge Andi Oliver join Sheila Dillon to launch 2018's search for the best in UK food, drink and farming; the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2018. Sheila celebrates the impact of previous award winners and reveals the expert panel of judges who'll crown the Food and Farming Awards 'Class of 2018'. But it all begins with your nominations...

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury

NB. The BBC Food & Farming Awards will open for public nominations on Sunday 14th January for 2 weeks, closing on Monday 29th January. Details can be found at bbc.co.uk/foodawards.

The sudden proliferation of porridge is there for all to see, across the country. Café chains like Pret, Starbucks, McDonalds; instant tubs on offer in your local supermarket; on the train, even. Sheila Dillon explores the current fashion for porridge, and meets the "porridge pioneers" who have ridden the sticky porridge wave and created booming porridge businesses. She eats breakfast with Alex Healy Hutchinson, founder of the Covent Garden porridge restaurant 26 Grains; she tours the Edinburgh factory of Stoats Oats, a business which started from a mobile porridge van at rock festivals and is now on track for a turnover of £10 million. She hears from contestants from all over the world at this year's Golden Spurtle International Porridge Championship, and she talks to the Harvard scientist who published the largest study about the health benefits of porridge. (Yes it certainly is good for you.) Finally, back in her kitchen Sheila convenes her own porridge championship with Jamaican chef Levi Roots, Scandinavian chef Trine Hahnemann and Scottish chef Shirley Spear. Whose porridge will taste best? And which Bob Marley song has a verse about cooking porridge?

Champagne sceptic Dan Saladino travels to the French region in search of the mavericks of fizz. These wine producers are part of a movement that's causing many to re-evaluate the world's most celebrated bubbles.

For many, including Dan, champagne is a drink purely of fun and celebration, a glass of bubbles most often enjoyed standing up; popping a cork has played a part in countless moments and memories of joy. But to others, it's also increasingly being treated as a serious wine, that as with the world's best bottles, can offer a sense of place, and that behind the fizz champagne can also be a wine of "terroir".

Dan is taken on a road trip through the Champagne region to meet a movement of small scale, vineyard driven "grower champagnes" by award winning wine writer Dan Keeling of the magazine Noble Rot. Influenced by the approach more often found in Burgundy and Bordeaux they're using specific vineyards to produce great wines that just happen to have bubbles.

As wine merchant Robert Walters, author of Bursting Bubbles: A Secret History of Champagne and The Rise of the Great Growers explains in the programme champagne was a product of the scientific and industrial revolutions.

Initially an unwanted accident in winemaking in the 18th century, this sparkling wine became a popular novelty feature across Europe. However it would take 200 years to master the bubbles.

The complex process of secondary fermentation of wine in bottles needed a huge amount of technical innovation and capital investment. From stronger glass bottles to muselet (the wire cage that helps to hold the cork in under great pressure), better understanding of fermentation and skills such as riddling, disgorgement and dosage all needed to be mastered and funded. This explains why champagne production fell under the control of the big houses, the "Grand Marques" e.g. Krug, Dom Perignon and Bollinger. These brands, also known as negociant houses, typically buy in grapes and wine from thousands of growers throughout the Champagne region and then make a blend in their house style.

Dan and Dan visit Krug, one of the most prestigious Grand Marques, to hear how this model works.

Meanwhile, from humble beginnings in the 1990s, a small group of growers have taken a different approach. They've decided to stop selling their grapes to the negociant houses and produce their own champagnes that are very much the product of their vineyards. Dan Keeling takes Dan on a tour of some of the best "grower champagnes" to see if this can convert a bubble sceptic into a lover of fizz.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Additional reading; Bursting Bubbles: A Secret History of Champagne and The Rise of the Great Growers - Robert Walters. Champagne: The Essential Guide to the Wines, Producers and Terroirs of the Iconic Region - Peter Liem.

Sheila Dillon invites some special guests, friends old and new, to come and share a festive meal.

Before they start to arrive, Nigel Slater drops by to help Sheila prepare. Each visitor will bring a dish, or a drink, that for them captures something unique of the flavours and spirit of the season.

Knocking on Sheila's door are: Giorgio Locatelli, Angela Hartnett, Anna Jones, Pete Brown, Neil Borthwick and Yotam Ottolenghi.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Dan Saladino reports on the past, present and future of what's thought to be the world's most widely produced and consumed cheese, Cheddar. Dan also meets producers who are trying to discover what cheddar might have tasted like more than a century ago, using some of the earliest known Cheddar recipes.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

We have a national passion for crisps. Every week, on average, each person in Britain eats 4 bags of crisps - a staggering 240 million bags a week. This is a good moment to look more closely at crisps, since this year they celebrate their bicentenary. It's 200 years since the eccentric Dr William Kitchiner published "The Cook's Oracle", a best-seller in its day, with the first recorded crisps recipe. But quite what made them such a part of British life it's hard to say. In search of answers, Sheila Dillon is allowed a rare visit to the Walkers crisps factory in Leicester to meet people whose job it is to taste crisps all day long. What new flavours are in the pipeline? She hears from schoolchildren about why they insist on crisps in their lunchbox, and from twenty-somethings spending a wild Friday night at a "bottomless crisps party" in a Birmingham bar with all the crisps you can eat. She meets Charles Spence, Professor of Psychology at Oxford, who won an "Ignobel Prize" for his "sonic experiments" with crisps, and talks to Dr Sara Lodge, historian of the crisp, who believes crisps are a symbol of proud British individualism: the individual bag of crisps is on a par with other national icons like the mini or the red telephone box. More disturbingly, Sheila discovers from investigative reporter Joanna Blythman what is actually in crisps and what this gargantuan national consumption might be doing to our health.

Producer Elizabeth Burke Presenter Sheila Dillon.

It's that time of year when Sheila Dillon and special guests take a close look at the food, cookery and drink books of 2017.

Joining Sheila are the food writer Bee Wilson, and the Features Editor at the book trade magazine The Bookseller, Tom Tivnan. Expect tales of literature, simplicity, deliciousness... and a deep dive into the idea of 'comfort'.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Dan Saladino is at Food On The Edge, a gathering of people with food stories to tell; from a Black Panther breakfast to a chef convinced her emotions could be detected in her food.

Held in Galway, the west of Ireland each year chef JP McMahon invites fellow cooks, chefs and restaurateurs to take to a stage and for 15 minutes share a food story of experience. Over two days more than 40 different stories from countries as diverse as Japan, Italy, Bolivia and Australia are told.

Dan selects a handful of the stories that made an impact on him during his time at Food On The Edge.

The first story is of how a Syrian kitchen came to be set up in Amsterdam. Tens of thousand of Syrians arrived in the city during the peak of the recent refugee crisis. Among them was a photographer, fashion designer, fitness machine repair man and a lawyer. Together they ran a kitchen in the Salvation Army centre where they were being housed, aiming to feed their fellow refugees with food from home. After spotting an appeal for help on Facebook, Dutch chef Jurriaan Momberg visited the kitchen to see if he could help teach them to cook. What he discovered were some of the greatest culinary talents he'd encountered in his career. It led to the creation of a pop-up restaurant which caused a sensation in Amsterdam. But all good things comes to an end and in the programme Jurriaan explains why one day he walked into an empty kitchen.

Another story comes from Oakland California. It was there in 1966 that the radical political movement The Black Panthers were created in response to police violence against black communities. By 1969 what had first looked like a militia, promoting armed resistance, the organisation had also created a series of social programmes. The most successful of which was a breakfast programme set up to feed black children who were often going to school undernourished and hungry. Chef Saqib Keval of the People's Kitchen Collective, a group of cooks, historians and researchers who tell stories through food, explains why he's brought the free breakfasts back to California.

Meanwhile Chef Matt Orlando of the Copenhagen restaurant Amass reveals some of the kitchen experiments he's been undertaking to convert so called "waste food" and by-products into delicious meals. He explains the ingenious way flavours and nutrients inside used coffee grounds can be released to make a meal.

Irish chef Domini Kemp took to the stage to express her frustration of how, based on her own experience of cancer treatment, the medical profession neglect the power of food in conversations about prevention, recovery and long term health.

Finally, New York chef Elise Kornack tells the story of how a mental breakdown led her to become convinced that her own powerful emotions were being transferred through her cooking and onto her customers. Like a scene from the book and film, Like Water For Chocolate, she believed every mouthful of food she was serving would result in diners sensing what was unfolding in her troubled mind.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Additional recording in Oakland, California by Meradith Hoddinott.

The number of young people turning vegan is rising. Grace Dent meets some of the people opening vegan eateries and finds out how creatives are using social media to further the "vegangelical" cause.

Grace goes to the Hackney Downs Vegan Market to speak to Jay Brave who argues that adopting a vegan diet is as much about personal autonomy and challenging the status quo as it is an ethical step. He delivers a few bars of 'Vegan Shut Up', his parody of Stormzy's 'Shut Up' released on World Vegan Day, and tells Grace why veganism is becoming big in the London grime scene. She also speaks to Sean O'Callaghan AKA Fat Gay Vegan who set-up the market and has seen its popularity grow, and gives his reaction to the mainstream restaurants who are falling over themselves to come up with vegan menus.

Ian Theasby and Henry Firth from Bosh! create simple and imaginative vegan recipes which are filmed and broadcast to over 1.4m Facebook users. Toby Field visits them at their studio to find out what fuels their idea to create plant-based options and to ask why they keep out of the argument around the ethics of veganism.

Maria Rose has just opened a vegan cafe in Barnstaple and explains how it's slowly creating a more enlightened scene in North Devon.

So is this just a trend that's fine for the hipster herbivores of Camden, or can it gain traction across the country and start a food revolution?

Producer: Toby Field.

With Catalonia in the midst of a political crisis, Sheila Dillon travels to the region just as they self-declared independence and discovers how the spirit of the region and its people are very much reflected in their passion for food.

Dan Saladino gets a practical masterclass with the world-renowned teacher and author of 'The Art of Fermentation' - Sandor Ellix Katz.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Following years of reporting on UK chicken scandals, Dan Saladino looks at investigations now underway by The Food Standards Agency and MPs into practices at supplier 2 Sisters.

In this final programme of the series How We Eat, Sheila Dillon explores eating as a family, the reality and the myth. As working hours increase and with both parents working, it becomes more and more difficult to sit down together with the children for meals. Separate meals, often in front of the tv, are more the reality in Britain today.

But in this programme Sheila meets two families who believe that there is nothing more important than eating together. The Parker family have two children of their own, but they have also fostered dozens of children, some with special needs. Crucial to the success of their extended family, they believe, is the fact that they sit together every night at six o'clock round the table to eat. Sheila Dillon joins them to find out why this structure is so important to the children they look after. She visits too the Brooks family, who sit down together every Friday night for the Jewish Friday night dinner. Emma Brooks married into Judaism and found it strange at first; she reflects on the demands but also the benefits of this ritual meal.

So what exactly can family meals do for us? Sheila talks to best-selling child psychologist Steve Biddulph whose books ("Raising Boys", "Raising Girls") are in 4 million homes, and finds out why he thinks eating together is crucial if you want to solve conflict and raise happy children. He gives his top tips for successful family meals. But many people, Sheila included, remember dreadful family rows over the childhood dinner table. With historian Chris Kissane, the programme explores whether the family dinner, like the perfect family itself, has always been more of a myth than a reality.

Increasing numbers of people in Britain seem to eat according to very clearly defined rules, from fashionable Clean Eaters to religious believers to professional sportspeople. In this third programme in the series How we Eat, Sheila Dillon talks to them about the rules they follow and why, sometimes, rules make life not only easier but more enjoyable. She meets vlogger Madeleine Shaw, an Instagram Star with 275,000 followers, whose 12-point eating philosophy includes the rule "Don't Eat Anything Beige". She talks to followers of the ancient Jain religion, who believe it's deeply wrong to eat root vegetables or anything raw. If they break the rules, there is a complex system of atonement. She visits a slimming class to discover the pleasures of eating according to a clearly defined plan and why iced Chelsea buns are evil. And she talks to professional athletes, a jockey and a boxer, about how they eat when they know that their entire livelihood depends on not gaining a single pound.

What happens when you share a meal with strangers? What chemistry fizzes around the table, what bonds are formed, what happens next? In this programme Sheila Dillon talks to people who believe that eating with strangers is the greatest pleasure in life, and to people whose lives have been transformed by those meals.

She visits the largest Sikh temple in Europe, where hundreds are fed every day for free, and hospitality to strangers is a sacred religious duty. She meets the woman who started the supper club movement in Britain when she began inviting people into her small flat for dinner. She talks to an unlikely couple - with a 60 year age gap - who formed a firm friendship thanks to the charity the Casserole Club. And she visits the Glasgow couple who met as strangers at a supper club for singles - and knew after that first dinner that they were destined to share the rest of their lives together. It was his table manners that did it.

How we eat says so much about us. Where we come from, our family background, our feelings about our bodies even - our appetite for all kinds of pleasure... There was a time when how we eat was mostly about class, but whether you called it "tea" or "dinner" or "supper", there were still fixed conventions about when and where we ate, and what we ate. These days the certainties, the boundaries, have been broken up. How do we eat now? Well, differently, as this series reveals.

This first programme of How We Eat explores the pleasures and pitfalls of eating alone. As one in three households in Britain is now a single-person household, increasing numbers of people ARE eating on their own. Do we eat differently when we eat unobserved? How do people of all ages, from students to widowers, adjust to suddenly having to cook for themselves?

Sheila Dillon investigates the booming business of ready-meals for one, and hears embarrassing confessions about secret snacks: such as people who shut themselves in the utility room to gorge on chocolate, pretending they're doing the laundry. She visits inspirational cookery writer Anna del Conte, who's in her 90s, to talk to her about the delicious meals she makes for herself now that she's a widow. She goes to a cookery class at a hospice. She talks to students who admit to living on alcohol and crisps. And she meets a man who cooks fresh meals to share with his dog.

Sheila Dillon presents the highlights of this year's awards with Giorgio Locatelli

Seaweed, hydroponics and seeds. Dan Saladino meets the 'Future Food' finalists in the 2017 BBC Food and Farming Awards, and asks what their stories tell us about the future of what, and how, we all eat.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Dan Saladino travels into the Caucasus in search of "zero compromise" natural wine makers. He finds them in Georgia, thought to be the birthplace of wine, and home of the qvevri.

Dan Saladino travels to a Georgia, considered to be an undiscovered food and drink gem at the heart of the meeting point between Europe and Asia.

Food writer Carla Capalbo, author of Tasting Georgia: A food and wine journey in the Caucasus guides Dan through a supra, a traditional feast.

Georgia, a country the same size as Scotland, south of Russia and north of Turkey, has one of the oldest, richest and, to many of us, unknown food and drink cultures in the world. On the silk and spice routes, for centuries, it was a battleground between Persian, Turkish and Russian empires. In the 20th century, Georgia, birthplace of Stalin, became part of the Soviet Union until its independent in 1991.

Throughout generations of conflict and hardship Georgia's food culture has endured. It can claim to be the birthplace of viticulture and wine making and when it comes to dining experiences, it has one of the most sophisticated and emotional dining experiences in the world. Dan experiences a supra, a traditional Georgian feast, in which an array of dishes are woven around a series of polyphonic (many voice) songs, amber wines and heartfelt toasts given by a tomada (toast master).

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Once a cheap dish to feed workers, salted cod has been preserved by cooks around the world who serve it to celebrate: On Sundays, at Carnival, at Christmas. It's an ingredient which has played a part in the forming of empires, fuelled armies and cured hangovers. Sheila Dillon meets cooks and hears the enduring and surprising stories of cuisines shaped by salt fish. She asks why some of the best new British chefs are choosing to include saltfish on their menus.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Dan Saladino investigates current pressures on chefs and the darker side of the restaurant kitchen. From breakdowns to addictions, is it a profession with more problems than most?

Dan hears from a range of chefs who open up about the way their chosen profession has affected their lives, including Mark Hix, Rene Redzepi, Matty Matheson, Paul Cunningham, Shaun Hill and Philip, who works through an agency cooking in the kitchens of pubs, chains and restaurants on our high streets.

Giving an over view is Kat Kinsman, a journalist who came out about her own experiences with depression when she was working for CNN in the United States. After meeting a succession of chefs who spoke to her in confidence about their own mental health problems she set up a website "Chefs With Issues". She's now head from thousands of chefs around the world who have spoken out about the impact the restaurant world and kitchen life has had on their mental health.

Mark Hix talks about his friend, the late chef Jeremy Strode who took his own life after decades of cooking in Sydney. Jeremy had invested much of his time raising awareness of mental health issues and had supported a suicide prevention charity, RUOK. Mark opens up about the impact Jeremy's death has had on him, as well as the wider pressures facing people in the hospitality industry.

Chef Paul Cunningham, describes how he woke up one Sunday afternoon and realising he couldn't move his left arm. A stress related blood clot was the cause and he ended up spending five weeks in hospital recovering. He describes the addictive quality of kitchen work, and also the stresses and strains it can bring.

Penny Moore, Chief Executive of Hospitality Action, the benevolent organisation set up in 1837 to provide help for people working, or have previously worked in the hospitality industry, explains that the hospitality workforce of more than 3 million, has higher rates of alcohol and drug abuse. The main issues they also deal with is bullying and harassment in the workplace. Penny believes a culture shift is underway in the industry with chefs, including Sat Bains, reducing working hours and opening times to improve the work-life balance of staff.

Philip, a 63 year old agency chef describes his working life in the kitchens of pubs and restaurant chains, saying a just-in-time work culture is making the profession a tougher one to survive in.

Shaun Hill, the celebrated chef at the Walnut Tree Inn in Abergavenny provides a reminder of why so many people love to work in kitchens and why he's loved spending his working life in restaurants.

Grace Dent discovers what has made Anthony Warner into the Angry Chef and unpicks the role that social media plays in spurring people towards diet plans and 'healthy-eating' regimes

Anthony set up a blog last year to vent his fury at what he describes as bad science in his quest to reveal the truth behind so-called 'healthy eating'. He believes we're bombarded by false messages and claims about food.

In his quest to find out if Anthony's claims are justified, we meet Helen West, a registered dietician, and asks how damaging 'fad-diets' are. What happens if you cut out carbohydrates, dairy and gluten from your diet and we meet Eve Simmons. Eve became seriously ill with anorexia and blames the array of glossy websites featuring perfectly sculpted bodies, in part, for her illness.

We'll meet Dr Judy Swift who has been studying the link between social media and Orthorexia: eating disorders brought on by obsessing about eating certain foods.

But is Anthony's anger justified? James Duigan is the man behind 'Bodyism'. He's developed a plan of eating healthily whilst exercising regularly, but encourages detox plans. But what exactly is wrong with wanting to exercise and make yourself feel better?

We'll discover if Anthony has every right to be angry, or whether he should simply calm down.

"Poverty rather than wealth gives the good things of life their true significance. Home-made bread rubbed with garlic and sprinkled with olive oil, shared - with a flask of wine - between working people, can be more convivial than any feast." So writes Patience Gray in the introduction to her 1986 award winning book 'Honey From A Weed: Fasting & Feasting in Tuscany, Catalonia, The Cyclades and Apulia'.

To some, Patience's name evokes a masterpiece, one of the most evocative and imaginative food books written in modern times. To others, her name will mean very little; Patience Gray, by her own admission, kept a low profile, living and writing for most of her working life among rural people in Italy, Greece and Catalonia.

Patience, who died in 2005, would have been 100 in 2017. So Sheila Dillon looks back on Patience Gray's life through food with the help of Adam Federman, author of a new biography 'Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray' and food writers Jojo Tulloh and Louise Gray. They hear from the Food Programme archives. From two visits to Patience's home in Puglia recorded by Derek Cooper and Simon Parkes.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Sheila Dillon and The Food Programme team go camping, to discover the possibilities of food and drink in the outdoors.

Joining Sheila around a Monmouthshire campfire are BBC 6Music presenter Cerys Matthews, author of 'How to Eat Outside' Genevieve Taylor, forager and wild drinks teacher Andy Hamilton, Matthew De Abaitua - author of 'The Art of Camping: The History and Practice of Sleeping Under the Stars', and Josh Sutton - who has just written a book called 'Outdoor Ovens' and is also known as the Guyrope Gourmet.

Produced by Rich Ward.

This week, Sheila Dillon is in Greece to speak to farmers and food producers about how they are carving new lives for themselves out of the financial crisis.

Greeks have now lived through seven years of austerity after the most catastrophic European financial crisis in modern times. Unemployment is above 23%, higher than anywhere in the EU. Amongst the under 25's the figure is more than 46%. Life is tough in Greece.

But food and farming tell a more uplifting story. Employment in food production and farming is up. Many young people left their former lives in the cities and moved back to the countryside to start farms and food start-ups.

Now, Sheila Dillon takes a trip from Greece's second city Thessaloniki in the north, to the capital, Athens to meet food producers and farmers in Greece. She asks how they are surviving, and whether food and farming might help Greece in it's recovery. She asks senior advisor in the Greek Ministry of Rural Development and Food, Professor Charalambos Kasimis, what the Government are doing to help Greece's newest farmers. And finds that part of the story involves a failed UK crowd-funding campaign to pay off the Greek national debt.

Presented by Sheila Dillon. Produced by Clare Salisbury.

Sandor Katz has been enchanted by fermentation, the mysterious process by which microbes transform food and drink, for some two decades. Since making his first crock of sauerkraut, his fascination with fermentation has broadened, deepened, and he now travels the world giving workshops. Based in Tennessee, his books including 'Wild Fermentation' and the encyclopaedic 'The Art of Fermentation' have helped many thousands of people to get started with making their own ferments, experimenting with flavours, fruits, vegetables, spices... and microorganisms.

Dan Saladino travels to Sandor's forest home in rural Tennessee to meet Sandor, hear his story, and discover for himself the transformative, delicious potential of these mostly simple culinary processes.

Coming up in a future edition of The Food Programme, a practical masterclass in fermentation with Sandor Katz.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Photo: Jacqueline Schlossman.

Dan Saladino asks if hunter gatherers, the Hadza tribe, hold the key to our future health. Presented and produced by Dan Saladino.

Dan Saladino eats with one of the last remaining hunter gatherer tribes, Tanzania's Hadza.

What can I do? That was the question posed to us by Food Programme listener Angie Roberts who cares for her mother Clara. Clara, like 850 thousand others in the UK, has dementia, and meal times were making her anxious.

9 months on from our last edition on food and dementia, Sheila Dillon hears from people living with dementia to see how food figures in their lives. She catches up with dementia entrepreneur James Ashwell, founder of Unforgettable.org and hears how he has made gadgets to make eating and drinking easier, available on the high street. Sheila also hears again from award winning food writer Paula Wolfert and her biographer and friend Emily Kaiser Thelin, and their work together on a book telling Paula's life story. From documenting Morocco and its cuisine in the 1970s, to the changes Paula has made to her diet to try to ameliorate her disease.

Sheila speaks to Professor of nutritional medicine, Margaret Rayman and nutritional epidemiologist Dr Martha Clare Morris, on the latest research into the connections between what we eat and whether or not we develop dementia.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury

This programme is an update of the edition 'Diet & Dementia' from October 2016 which recently won 'Radio Programme of the Year' at the Fortnum & Mason food and drink awards.

Photo credit: William Bayer.

As he prepares to move to Australia, leaving a lasting culinary legacy here in the UK, chef and food writer Alastair Little shares his life in food with Sheila Dillon.

Born in Lancashire, from a very early age Alastair Little paid careful attention to the food and flavours around him. On early holidays around Europe with his parents, his eyes (and tastebuds) started to open up to a new world of possibility. After graduating from university, a career in food was far from clear; but 1970s Soho in London became the launchpad for a self-taught chef who has had a real and lasting impact.

His eponymous restaurant in Frith Street was pioneering; and legendary - and a new generation of chefs passed through its kitchen, sat at the tables and drank at its bar. His books, including Keep it Simple (written with Richard Whittington) and Alastair Little's Italian Kitchen, transmitted his simple, thoughtful approach to home cooks all over Britain.

Featuring chefs Angela Hartnett and Jeremy Lee, baker and food writer Dan Lepard, former Editor of the Good Food Guide Tom Jaine, and the chef, restaurateur and writer Jacob Kenedy.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Think beer. Think boys with beards? Think again. The last time Sheila Dillon reported on the women in British beer, in 2013, she met Sara Barton head brewer at Brewster's brewery in Lincolnshire. At the time Sara was the only woman head brewer in the country and women were drinking only a tenth of all the beer sold in the UK.

Today that figure has nearly tripled, Sara has become the first woman to be named 'Brewer of the Year' by the Guild of Beer Writers, and women all around the UK are turning to jobs in brewing.

And yet Sheila still prefers a glass of wine in the pub.

In this programme, beer sommelier Jane Peyton introduces Sheila to some of the most exciting beers being brewed by women brewers (or brewsters) in the country. Louise Mulroy and Lucy Stevenson, co-creators of podcast 'We Made a Beer' demystify the art of brewing. Chemical engineer-come-head brewer at London's award winning Wild Card brewery shares a one-off brew created by a group of brewers on International Women's Day. We hear from 'FEM.ALE' a British festival for all celebrating beer brewed by women. And Sheila asks if there is a biological reason she remains unconvinced by a pint of bitter.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

From Confederacy of Dunces to Absolute Beginners and On The Road, Dan Saladino explores cult novels to find out how writers Jack Kerouac, Colin MacInnes and John Kenney Toole used food.

Authors have always used food and drink in their narratives to help develop plots, bring characters to life and give a sense of place but Dan chooses three novels with in which food and drink plays a very specific role.

In Jack Kerouac's On The Road, the "beat life" of the 1940's and 1950's turns out to be one of feast or famine. The book, a disguised autobiographical work based on his travel journals across America, contains some of the most delicious and rich descriptions of food, as well as mournful accounts of hunger and longing.

Colin MacInnes, the author of the novel Absolute Beginners, set in late 1950's London, uses brief food and drink references to reveal the lifestyle and mind-set of a teenage counterculture and early modernist movement. DJ Ed Piller helps explains the surprising significance of a smoke salmon sandwich.

And then there's A Confederacy of Dunces. A comic novel whose main character Ignatius has a legendary appetite for the junk food of New Orleans.

Sheila Dillon takes a journey into the culinary use, history and the latest medical findings about turmeric.

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a member of the ginger family of plants - and its rhizome, the part mainly used in cooking, has a deep orange-golden colour that marks it out. Responsible for this distinctive hue is the bioactive compound, curcumin. Turmeric - and curcumin - have attracted a lot of attention in recent years, and much has been claimed about medicinal properties. In India, where most turmeric is still grown, turmeric - or haldi - has long been revered and widely used both as an essential savoury food ingredient and as a medicine, with the golden rhizome being particularly valued within the ancient medical system of Ayurveda.

Sheila investigates the health claims about turmeric and curcumin, talking to Dr Michael Mosley - former GP and presenter of BBC Two's Trust Me I'm A Doctor, about his team's recent research findings. Sheila also hears about an article published last month in British Medical Journal Case Reports, and speaks to its co-author Professor Jamie Cavenagh, a leading expert on blood cancer - and one of his patients Dieneke Ferguson, who turned to curcumin after all conventional treatment for her cancer was stopped. Also featuring in the programme are cook and food writer Monisha Bharadwaj - author of The Indian Cookery Course, Susie Emmett - radio producer who went to Andhra Pradesh, India, on the turmeric trail, as well as Dr Stephen Harris, Druce Curator of the Herbaria at Oxford University.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Sheila Dillon charts the rise of the humble mac'n'cheese: a dish that crosses culture and classes and has established itself as a popular comfort food across the world.

We discover the history of the dish. Food historian Polly Russell tells us how a macaroni recipe first appeared in the UK in the 1700s and slowly it became more and more prevalent over the subsequent centuries.

We'll hear how macaroni cheese became a staple in the UK: cheap and easy to make its popularity spread. It was also embraced by Caribbean cuisine, regularly eaten as a side dish, especially with Sunday lunch, and now there's even an annual celebration of the meal. Each May Glasgow hosts 'Pastaval' - a festival of Mac n Cheese. The event sells-out each year and is popular with everyone.

And whilst you can still buy basic packet versions, tinned macaroni cheese and simple home-made macaroni cheese is easy to make, there are many 'going-to-town' on the dish: Lobster mac n cheese anyone?

This is the story of a dish that crosses cultures and classes to be the world's favourite comfort food.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.

At the age of 30, with no formal training, Jeremiah Tower became a chef. His approach to cooking changed the food world for good, then he walked away. Dan Saladino tells the story of the man who many consider to be the first "celebrity chef".

The food writer and broadcaster Anthony Bourdain has described Jeremiah Tower as a "dangerous person to know", to others he's the Jay Gatsby figure of the restaurant world. Born in the USA, brought up in Australia and England, his childhood was, on first appearances, a privileged one. He was born into a world of wealth, travel and a first class lifestyle. It was also however, strange and difficult with a mother and father who were often detached and uninterested in their young son. As he got to experience more of the world's best restaurants, hotels and ocean liners he sought comfort and pleasure in food, kitchens and cooking.

At age 30, following studies at Harvard which resulted in a failed career as an architect, he answered a job advertisement to work in California's Chez Panisse restaurant, founded by the cook of America's counter culture Alice Waters. Both the restaurant and Jeremiah's cooking would become world famous.

In 1984 he set up his own restaurant in San Francisco, Stars, which went on to become one of the most celebrated and lucrative restaurant in America. Jeremiah's approach to breaking free from French influences and cooking with local ingredients would go on to influence chefs and restaurants around the world. Evenings at Stars would become the stuff of legend with diners ranging from Rudolph Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn to Pavarotti and the Beastie Boys.

Just over a decade later Jeremiah Tower would put down his apron and walk away. Dan Saladino tells his story.

Culinary herb grower Jekka McVicar shares her life through food with Sheila Dillon. Taking a walk through the small herb farm where Jekka grows some 600 varieties of herb (300 of them culinary), Sheila discovers a world of ancient knowledge, vivid flavours, and taste possibilities.

Having worked closely with chefs from Jamie Oliver to Raymond Blanc, and played with her band Marsupilami at the first ever Glastonbury Festival (and being paid in milk), Jekka is also inspiring a new generation of chefs including Peter Sanchez-Iglesias at the Michelin-starred restaurant Casamia. Peter shows Sheila just two of the many ways he uses herbs in his highly original cooking.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Lamb. Long a staple of the UK dinner table. But one glance at the statistics and it's obvious that 'Generation Y' aren't inspired. Estimates suggest under 30s are buying just 15g of lamb a week. That's just over 10 lamb chops in a year and less than half the UK average.

In this programme Sheila Dillon asks young butchers, food entrepreneurs and a 3rd generation sheep farmer in his thirties whether there's any saving shepherd's pie, lamb shanks and Irish stew. She gets a lesson in Iranian midweek lamb cooking from cook and author of 'The Saffron Tales' Yasmin Khan. And Ben Ebbrell and Barry Taylor from SORTEDfood share the lamb recipes which excite their 1.7 million Youtube subscribers.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Sheila Dillon digs up the remarkable story of how potatoes changed the world, offer a whole spectrum of flavour, and might shape our food future.

With Sheila are cook and food writer Anna Jones, Charles C. Mann - author of '1493 - How Europe's Discovery of the Americas Revolutionized Trade, Ecology and Life on Earth', and the potato revolutionary and agronomist Alan Wilson.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Dan Saladino meets a woman who believes Venezuela's escape from crisis rests on chocolate. Maria Fernanda Di Giacobbe is on a mission to reclaim her country's former cacao bean glory.

Venezuela is seeing its worst economic crisis in living memory. As some of the most basic ingredients become unavailable or unaffordable Dan Saladino tells the food story.

Blood in food is about as divisive as it comes. But Tim Hayward loves it. A rare steak, a carefully crisped slice of black pudding, a blood meringue...?

In this programme Tim meets butchers, cooks and chefs determined to put blood back on the dining table. From the Fruit Pig Co. Cambridgeshire butchers taking black pudding to its traditional routes; Otto Tepassé an Austrian born restaurateur preserving and performing the theatrical French canard à la presse with a sumptuous sauce thickened with blood; to award winning writer Jennifer McLagan baking blood sweets - chocolate brownies, blood ice cream, and even blood cocktails.

If the thought of a truly Bloody Mary makes you weak at the knees, don't adjust your set. As Tim explores the world of blood in food and drink, he also uncovers the deep relationship we have with blood - cultural, physiological, religious as well as culinary. Featuring Professor Emeritus of Cultural History Sir Christopher Frayling, and American author and academic John Edgar Browning.

Presented by Tim Hayward. Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Dan Saladino profiles the influential US chef and writer Dan Barber, author of 'The Third Plate - Field Notes on the Future of Food'. Originally with plans to become a novelist, Dan Barber opened his first restaurant, Blue Hill, in Greenwich Village in 2000 followed by Blue Hill at Stone Barns in 2004. He had early success as a 'farm to table' chef, but has since been on a journey, documented in his book but still ongoing, to reimagine the relationships between chef and farmer, landscape and deliciousness - and much more.

Citing flavour as a 'soothsayer', and a passionate advocate of the role of the chef in bringing about change in the wider world beyond the walls of the restaurant, he is currently in the UK with a project called 'WastED London' - an unusual temporary restaurant taking aim at the problem of food 'waste'.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Photo: Richard Boll.

You've cast your nominations in the thousands. Now it's time to reveal who's in the running in the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2017. Judges including Giorgio Locatelli, Joanna Blythman, Allegra McEvedy, Stefan Gates, Romy Gill and Gill Meller help Sheila Dillon to reveal this year's finalists. They prepare to embark on journeys which will take them up and down the UK in search of the best British food and farming the country has to offer.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury.

Do we pay enough for tea? Dan Saladino - a long-term and deeply committed coffee drinker - continues his look at our love affair with the leaf.

Dan catches up with the BBC's South Asia Correspondent Justin Rowlatt, who has reported on conditions for tea workers in Assam, India. He also discovers a world of 'rock-star' tea growers and learns how to tell the difference between CTC and orthodox tea - and why it matters.

There is also advice on how to make a 'nice cup of tea' from... George Orwell.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

Hardened coffee drinker Dan Saladino investigates tea's past, present and future and finds out how our preference for the leaf has changed over three centuries. He visits the location of Britain's first tea retailer, hears the adventures of legendary tea hunter John Fortune and visits the site of an auction house which oversaw 85 per cent of all global tea trade. In south west India we hear from a team of tea pluckers and get an insight into the skill and labour involved in producing tea. Do we pay enough for a cup of tea? It's a question Dan will develop in the second instalment of this tea story.

Presented by Dan Saladino and produced in Bristol.

Historian Dr Polly Russell and chef Ashley Palmer-Watts visit farming communities in the Northern Chang Mai province of Thailand who have given up farming opium in favour of Western vegetables and salad crops for fine dining restaurants in Thailand's biggest cities. It's one of a series of hundreds of national development projects pioneered by the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej and started in Northern Thailand in 1969. Over the course of his reign Thailand's beloved monarch experimented with rice fields, vegetable beds, fish ponds, and a rice-mill within the grounds of his royal residence, before scaling the work up across the country.

Polly and Ashley hear how these projects have become part of a food and farming system for Thailand. A food system that's unique in the world, but could provide a model for current opium growing regions. They hear how by growing Western vegetables, flowers and fruits and farming fish, a new supply chain for some of Thailand's finest restaurants is being developed which doesn't rely on expensive imports. Polly visits 'Gaggan' in Bangkok, recently voted best restaurant in Asia, by '50 Best Restaurant Awards' for the second year running, to discover how some of the best chefs in the world are working with the Royal Project.

Presented by Dr Polly Russell & Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

What did you eat for lunch today? Whatever you ate, according to our recent national survey you took less than half an hour to do it. Twenty five minutes twenty four to be precise.

We're living in an era of grab-and-go. It's a sector of the food industry already worth £16.1 billion pounds and which forecasts suggest could rise by more than a third by 2021. If we eat, we do so 'al-desko'... or maybe we don't eat at all.

Whether you opt for sausage rolls or sushi, last night's leftovers or a just a latte, Sheila Dillon hears what the modern British lunch break says about us. And what it might suggest about where our midday meal is headed. She meets the thinkers and cooks who believe that in time poor Britain, it's perfectly possible to reclaim your lunch break.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury.

Sheila Dillon goes on a citrus journey, discovering vivid flavour possibilities and hidden histories.

Joining Sheila are Catherine Phipps, food writer and creator of a new book 'Citrus - Recipes that Celebrate the Sour and the Sweet' out this week, Helena Attlee author of 'The Land Where Lemons Grow' and Michael Barker, Editor of Fresh Produce Journal.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

What can one single dish can tell you about America's history? One particular bowl of soup gives us an insight about the future of cultures that convene around it. Gumbo is eaten by nearly everyone in New Orleans, but its past speaks of the deep inequalities in American history that still resonate to this day. The BBC's Dan Saladino looks into the origins of this dish and discovers influences from Native Americans, slaves from West Africa, settlers from Nova Scotia, and European immigrants from Spain, France and Italy. Dan tries to track down the perfect recipe for one of Louisiana's most famous dishes, and discover how the politics of which food belongs to whom, is still at play, hundreds of years later.

Meet 94 four year old Leah Chase. For seventy years she has led the kitchen at New Orleans famous Dooky Chase restaurant. During her time she's hosted US Presidents, and civil rights activists, and music legends from Ray Charles to Michael Jackson. Her specialty is serving creole food specialties like gumbo, fried chicken and sweet potatoes. Dan Saladino sits down with Leah as she tells her story through the food she's cooked and asks whether a restaurant can change the course of a country.

Sheila Dillon returns to her food roots in Lancashire, meeting people doing and creating extraordinary things - from food producers, to cooks to campaigners. As nominations come in for the 2017 BBC Food and Farming Awards, celebrating people and businesses from all over the UK - Sheila is taking the opportunity to celebrate the county she grew up in, and is going on a road trip through the county of the Red Rose.

Graham Kirkham makes an unpasteurised Lancashire cheese near Goosnargh that's now celebrated far and wide - but things were nearly a very different story. Ian and Sue Steel made an audacious offer to a coffee merchants that was founded in Lancaster in 1837. They're now running a business with their two sons, that's growing and thriving, and are guiding that deep history into a new caffeinated future. Every region needs a storyteller for its food, and for Lancashire that person is Nigel Haworth, respected chef based at the Michelin-starred Northcote - who opened a pub in the Ribble Valley in 2004 specifically highlighting local produce and local producers, which was truly groundbreaking at that time.

Kay Johnson is a food campaigner who grew up in Lancashire, worked abroad, and came back to the county six years ago. Noticing a deep disconnect around food, she's working to reconnect people, food producers, and the fresh local produce of the region. Kay draws direct inspiration from a social reform movement that was involved with setting up the Sailor's and Soldier's Free Buffet that operated at Preston station during World War One. Sheila meets James Arnold, history curator at The Harris in Preston, on the platform to find out the remarkable story of what took place.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

The BBC Food & Farming Awards are back. Based on public nominations, the awards celebrate the unsung heroes of UK food and farming; From school cooks to chip shops, from cider makers to supermarkets, corner shops to carrot farmers.

In the awards' 17th year, Giorgio Locatelli and Yotam Ottolenghi are part of a national appeal by chefs, cooks, food writers and food producers from across the country, calling on you to nominate the people who make food great where you live.

And in 2017, the BBC Food & Farming Awards are going global. For the first time, the judges will be honouring someone who has changed the way the world thinks about food and farming.

Let the search commence...

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury

NB. The BBC Food & Farming Awards will open for public nominations on Sunday 15th January for 2 weeks, closing on Sunday 29th January. Details can be found at bbc.co.uk/foodawards.

In this series of four programmes broadcast over Christmas and the New Year, Sheila Dillon explores the link between tradition and food.

Sheila ends the series by exploring the creation of a new food culture - in Northern Ireland. It started with the revival of the St George's market in Belfast - now in full swing, and hundreds of young businesses are now thriving. Sheila tours the market with chef Paula McIntyre and meets people with a new take on traditional Irish food. She catches up with butter and cheese producers who were in the vanguard of this new movement, and asks how you carry on innovating - and what they've learned on the way. And she travels to the island of Rathlin off the north coast of Ireland, to meet a family who are making an international business out of growing kelp, and exporting it to Japan.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.

In this series of four programmes broadcast over the Christmas period, Sheila Dillon explores the link between tradition and food.

Food can bind a community together, and give it new life. In this third programme of the series, Sheila travels to Loch Fyne to see how this rural Scottish community has preserved its food traditions, with recipes handed down for generations. She discovers how local food businesses have become international, working together to sell their fish in the Far East - despite the frustrations of poor broadband connections. And she eats dinner with a group of local food producers, feasting on mutton - a traditional dish for the Christmas holiday.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.

In this series of four programmes broadcast over Christmas, Sheila Dillon explores the link between tradition and food.

For Christmas Day, Sheila celebrates The Wild Boar Feast - an ancient Viking tradition which still lingers on in Britain (think of 'pigs in blankets') and inspires our love of the Christmas Ham. Historian Eleanor Barraclough introduces Sheila to a stuffed boar's head in the cellars of Queen's College, Oxford, and explains about how the boar was at the centre of mid-winter pagan fertility rituals. In Cumbria, Sheila meets a field of wild boar and talks to farmer Peter Gott about the fearsome intelligence of his huge beasts. Scandinavian chef Trine Hahnemann reveals the huge importance of the Christmas boar in Sweden, and how to make a meatball sandwich for Boxing Day. And chef Giorgio Locatelli explores the passion for wild boar across Italy.

With music from The Boar's Head Carol, the oldest printed carol in English, and recipes from Trine Hahnemann and Giorgio Locatelli.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.

In this series of four programmes broadcast over Christmas, Sheila Dillon explores the link between tradition and food.

First, in the run-up to Christmas, she takes an irreverent look at baking - and the connection between baking and being a "Good Wife and Mother. She begins by visiting a "Clandestine Cake Club", which meets every month in a secret location. This month's location takes the theme of the Mad Hatter's tea-party; the members have risen to the challenge and the cakes are truly extravagant. The founder of the cake club, Lynne Hill, sets out her vision for a world brought together by sharing cake. Sheila visits a cake-decorating competition for teenagers, and talks to girls about the particularly feminine lure of cake. She meets a cultural historian of cake, Professor Nicola Humble, whose book on cake traces our current passion back to Elizabethan days, and who explains the long connection between women and cake. But we also have a perspective from a man devoted to cake, former Bake-Off winner John Whaite. He reflects on the connection between gender and cake, and introduces his alternative take on Christmas Cake.

With cake recipes, both ancient and modern, for the website.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.

Dan Saladino finds out what the future holds for cheese, including the role of raw milk. It's a story of microbes, mystery, discord and symphony.

Dan is joined by Bronwen Percival, cheese buyer for Neal's Yard Dairy and contributor to the new Oxford Companion to Cheese. Also featuring John Gynther from Arla Unika, cheesemakers Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore, food writer Patrick McGuigan, researcher Dr Mélanie Roffet-Salque from the University of Bristol, and epidemiologist Professor Tim Spector.

Presenter: Dan Saladino Producer: Rich Ward.

'Pop-up' chef and food writer Olia Hercules, The Great British Bake Off contestant turned Youtube star Chetna Makan, Film academic come supper club hostess Dr Alissa Timoshkina and cafe chef / 'instagrammer' / writer Elly Curshen are among ten women from different food cultures coming together for the first time to cook a truly female feast. It's a 'pop-up' dinner hosted and put together in Bristol by Romy Gill and Kim Somauroo to raise money for international charity 'Action Against Hunger'.

Sheila Dillon speaks to the 'Severn Sisters' as well as their guests, including former BBC Food & Farming Awards winning Shauna Guinn and Sam Evans, about what it means to be female in food in 2016.

Also interviewed are Eleonora Galasso, Natasha Corrett, Rosie Birkett, Laura Field, Fiona Beckett and Xanthe Clay.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.

Sheila Dillon and guests discuss the year's food and cookery books - focussing on debut food books.

Joining Sheila in the studio is cook, gardener and writer Jojo Tulloh, journalist and food writer Alex Renton, and the Features Editor at the trade magazine The Bookseller, Tom Tivnan. There's also tales of cider, science and rogueishness with drinks writer Henry Jeffreys. Also offering up her 2016 choices - is food loving BBC 6 Music DJ, Cerys Matthews.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Sheila Dillon heads to Galloway, Scotland, to meet forager and wild food teacher Mark Williams - who claims to be able to match anything in our spice racks with flavours found in the wild, in the UK. Can he assemble a 'native spice rack'? What might a 'wild Scottish curry' taste like?

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Spain's Basque region exerts a powerful influence on global cuisine, Dan Saladino finds out why. Heston Blumenthal and writer Harold Mcgee provide insights into this food culture.

Every four years, the most established names in Chinese cuisine pitch their skills against each other in an international competition which has become known as the Olympics of Chinese food. This year the World Championship for Chinese Cuisine was held in Europe for the first time in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Teams of chefs descend on the competition from around the world and compete for highly prized gold, silver and bronze medals. The pressure and the standard are high.

In 2016, another first. The first UK based team are travelling to Rotterdam to take on the champions. Among them is 25 year old sous chef Gavin Chun. Gavin and his team are going for gold.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury.

Sheila Dillon and special guests discover a delicious world of pumpkins and winter squash.

It's Halloween time, and pumpkins are making their annual appearance in windows and on doorsteps. But these winter squash are part of a fascinating family of fruit (yes, fruit - not vegetable) with huge culinary potential that many feel uncomfortable around. This programme aims to change that. Sheila invites chef, restaurateur and squash-lover Romy Gill to her kitchen, where they're joined by Neil Munro - manager of the Heritage Seed Library at Garden Organic (formerly the Henry Doubleday Research Association). To help with the deeper history, they enlist the help of Ken Albala, Professor of Food Studies at the University of the Pacific in California.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

From ancient Egyptian bread to Native American food, Dan Saladino reports from Terra Madre.

Dan Saladino reports from Slow Food's global food event Terra Madre with stories from Africa.

Terra Madre (aka Mother Earth) is probably one of the world's biggest gatherings around food. Thousands of farmers, cooks and producers travel from 140 countries and five different continents to congregate in the northern Italian city of Turin.

Hundreds of thousands of people simply interested in food also travel from Italy and beyond to join in the spectacle; to watch events, join discussions and (importantly) experience the most diverse range of food and drink imaginable.

The biannual event is organised by the international Slow Food movement to raise awareness about issues around food and drink and to celebrate the diversity of food cultures around the world. It is also a unique opportunity to hear inspirational stories of how people produce and cook food.

Dan Saladino was there to collect as many stories as he could from around the world. Over two editions of The Food Programme he tells highlights from Terra Madre. In this first programme the focus is on Africa and features the story of three people who in their home countries are trying to make a positive change through food.

The first comes from a village thousands of metres up within the highlands of south-eastern Ethiopia, Rira. There, honey producers use bamboo to create bee hives. They smoke the bark of a tree to "perfume" the hive and attract the bees. These long bamboo tubes are coated in leaves, sealed with animal manure and then placed 25m high up in trees among the rainforest canopy.

In recent years the honey they collect has been sold to the producers of a honey wine in Ethiopia which is both traditional and popular. However the prices paid for this hard to get honey have been low.

Terra Madre is an opportunity for producers around the world to meet and exchange ideas and over the years the Rira villagers have met honey producers from Macedonia, Brazil, Japan and Indonesia. From this "knowledge exchange" the Rira were able to set up a co-operative, improve the quality of the honey and sell it in Ethiopia's biggest towns and cities. This has meant more people are now able to make a real living from honey production and remain in the village (and important opportunity when the country is seeing large numbers leave rural areas and move to the cities).

The second story comes from Uganda and is told by Edward Mukiibi who oversees Slow Food projects in the country. One of the most important involves the world's (and the UK's) most popular fruit, the banana. In Uganda 50 different varieties are used on a daily basis. Some are used to brew beers or distil drinks that feature in ceremonies.

The banana we know well in the UK is the Cavendish, the variety that has dominated the global trade for more than half a century. The fungal, Panama disease, has had an impact on Cavendish plantations around the world leading to reduced production in Australia and Asia. In Africa, more Cavendish plantations are being established. Edward explains in the programme why he's now on a mission to save Uganda's traditional banana varieties and protect the country's biodiversity.

The final story from Sierra Leone and is that of the experience of a child soldier who was involved in the violent civil war that tore the country apart in the 1990's. Ibrahim was abducted by the RUF rebel force at the age of nine. As he explains to Dan, he was involved in atrocities and had to fight against the government's forces in armed combat. For seven years he lived and fought with this rebel army. When he finally managed to escape he was rejected by his community. It became clear his return wouldn't would easy and forgiveness hard to win.

In the programme Ibrahim describes how food and farming was the key to his eventual redemption.

Presented and produced by Dan Saladino.

Photo: Carla Capalbo.

As apple fairs and celebrations are held all around the country, Sheila Dillon travels to an orchard in Devon for a conversation with drinks writer Pete Brown, who has just written a book about his two-year journey into all things apple: 'The Apple Orchard'.

Sheila and Pete are joined at Otter Farm by its owner - food grower and writer Mark Diacono. From the Hoary Morning to the Bramley's Seedling to the Old Somerset Russet, from Kazakhstan to Paganism to the Garden of Eden - this is a celebration of a fruit with an incredible story to tell and with a unique place both in Britain, and the world.

Please note: the podcast of this programme is a special extended edition.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

For the 850 thousand families in the UK living with dementia, the simple daily practise of eating a meal can escalate into a dreaded challenge. Spurred on by a listener's personal experience, Sheila Dillon meets people living with dementia to ask how their relationship with food has changed.

American food writer Paula Wolfert has written award winning books on the food of the Mediterranean. In 2012, she was diagnosed with a form of dementia and after careful research she transformed her daily diet. As Paula prepares to release what will be her final book, Sheila speaks to her about what food means now. Sheila also meets James Ashwell, a young entrepreneur whose online business venture was inspired by caring for his mother who loved to cook.

Sheila hears from Professor Margaret Rayman, who heads the nutritional medicine course at the University of Surrey. Her book 'Healthy Eating to Reduce the Risk of Dementia' draws on hundreds of academic papers into nutrition and the brain. And in an area which still requires so much research, Sheila speaks to an American academic embarking on what could be the 'gold standard' study into how what we eat affects the development of dementia.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Clare Salisbury

Photo credit: Alison van Diggelen.

This week, as aid convoys carrying food into Syria have been under attack, Dan Saladino revisits the conflict. A year ago, he reported on how displaced Syrians managed to eat and survive in conflict and its impact on the country's ancient food culture. In this episode he investigates how food is being used as a weapon - and target - of war.

He hears from the World Food Programme about new efforts they've been making to reach over 4 million people with food aid, many of whom live in besieged and isolated areas, with staff risking their lives to do so. Bakeries have reportedly been targeted in bombing raids and traders have been profiteering by controlling the availability of food, creating a wartime economy. Yet despite the attacks and broken ceasefires, efforts are already being made to create new food businesses for when peace returns. Work to train up beekeepers and tomato growers is already taking place to sustain a post-conflict Syria.

Here in the UK, Dan meets some of those whom the Government pledged to resettle from camps outside Syria. In Mansfield, Nottinghamshire he shares lunch with two families for whom Eid is a very different and emotional experience. We also hear from American-Syrian journalist Dalia Mortada who has charted the Syrian diaspora to see how this age-old food culture is being shared and celebrated around the world.

Presented by Dan Saladino Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.