The British Food History Podcast

In today’s episode, I am talking with Ian Anderson who has written a fantastic book published by the History Press called The History and Natural History of Spices . We discuss what a spice is – the definition changes through time, and includes animal as well as plant products – black pepper, the Portuguese spice trade, sugar as a spice, mustard and Thomas Moore’s head – amongst many other things....

In today’s episode I am talking to returning guest and friend of the show food historian and writer Sam Bilton about her new book The Philosophy of Chocolate published by the British Library. Today Sam and I talk about how the peoples of Mesoamerica took their chocolate, how it came to Britain, chocolate houses, the sexualisation of chocolate, and the Cadbury’s Crème Egg Controversy, amongst other...

S07E03 Apples & Orchards shownotes Happy New Year and welcome to episode 50 of the British Food History Podcas t! I talk to Joanna Crosby about the history of apples and orchards in England. I saved this episode specially for today because it is Twelfth Night – the last day of Christmas – the traditional day of the Wassail, the blessing of the apple orchards. Joanna’s new book Apples and Orcha...

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! Leaving a mince pie out for Santa this year? I do hope so. This year’s Christmas Special is all about mince pies: the history and baking, as well as the confusion surrounding the fact that there’s no meat in them. Neil makes some early 18th-century-shaped pies and makes a sweet lamb mincemeat from the North of England. He’s on a mission to get the meat back into mincem...

Welcome to a special bonus episode of the podcast which is a collaboration between myself and the Delicious Legacy, hosted by Thomas Ntinas. It’s all about some of the women who were writing cookery books in the 18th century, their characters and the influence they still have upon us today. Things mentioned in today’s episode: Thomas’s podcast Delicious Legacy The Compleat Housewife by Eliza Smith...

It’s the end of the current run so that means it is time for the now traditional end-of-season special postbag edition. Thank you to everyone who has listened, downloaded, donated and spread the good word. I’ll be back in a couple of months (hopefully) for season seven! Previous episodes mentioned in the episode: The School Meals Service with Heather Ellis Tudor Cooking & Cuisine with Brigitte...

Neil’s guest is Diane Purkiss and they talk about just some of the topics covered in her book English Food a People’s History published by William Collins. Diane is Professor of English Literature at Oxford University, and she has written about such topics as the English Civil War, the supernatural, especially witchcraft; folklore and fairytales; writer’s block and of course food and food history....

 S06E09 The School Meals Service with Heather Ellis: shownotes Neil’s guest today is Heather Ellis from Sheffield University. Helen is a historian of Education and she, along with academics from the University of Wolverhampton and UCL, have just embarked on an ambitious project looking at people’s experiences and memories of their school dinners in all four UK Home Nations. School dinners hav...

Neil talks to returning guest Kevin Geddes. He told us all about the wonderful, fabulous Fanny Cradock, but today he is talking to me about Television Cookery Shows and their cookbook tie-ins. Kevin wrote a very interesting paper on the early history and origins of TV Cookbooks, and Neil found it so interesting, and he thought you would find it interesting too. We talked about the early cooking pr...

Esteemed food historian Marc Meltonville returns to the podcast to talk about taverns, 18th century dining and the cook and author Richard Briggs, the focus of his new book The Tavern Cook: Eighteenth Century Dining Through the Recipes of Richard Briggs which has recently been published by Prospect Books. We talked about how he found out about Richard Briggs and his book; the similarities and diff...

Today Neil talks with Brigitte Webster about her new book Eating with the Tudors which has just been published by Pen & Sword History. We talked about how she came to live in her Tudor house; how the food changed going in and coming out of the Tudor period; food and the four humours and how ideas about those also changed; favourite cookbooks; fritters; sops; mince pies; cheese; and many other...

Today Neil talks to food historian and returning guest Lindsay Middleton about the history of tinned food –something one doesn’t really think about, tinned food being just so every day. We talked about what led her to take on the topic, its origins, how people had to be convinced by such an alien concept, the big sell to the navy, and to well-to-do housewives, the big tined food scandal, and the i...

In this week’s episode, Neil talks to medlar expert Jane Steward. Jane has done sterling work in the area of medlar awareness, and now the medlar is not the forgotten fruit it once was. She has a medlar orchard and associated business Eastgate Larder selling a whole range of medlar products, and is the author of Medlars: Growing & Cooking , published by Prospect Books. We discuss how Jane disc...

Today Neil talks to Susan Flavin and Marc Meltonville about recreating as close as possible beer from the accounts of Dublin Castle right at the end of the 16th century. This investigation is part of a much larger project called Food Cult, which is, according to their website “a five-year project funded by the  European Research Council . This project brings together history, archaeology, sci...

We kick off the new season with a fascinating chat with Aaron Allen at Edinburgh University about cake baxters in Early Modern Scotland – usually women – who were unfree, and how they fit into society at this time. Making and selling of baked goods were highly controlled, and – quelle surprise – it was not in their favour. We also discuss the ways oatcakes and wheaten bread were baked, beehive ove...

In a special bonus of the podcast, Sam Bilton and Neil Buttery have combined forces to make a whole episode about all things tripe. We discuss our experiences, and why it is viewed rather differently in different countries and it’s indelible association with poverty. Sam interviews chef and food writer Rachel Roddy for some tripe inspiration, and Neil visits Chadwick’s stall at Bury Market to inte...

Neil’s polishing off season 5 with a postbag edition of news, readers’ questions, comments and queries, special events and other miscellany. Previous Episodes discussed in this episode: Invalid Cookery with Lindsay Middleton Traditional Food of Lincolnshire with Rachel Green Christmas Feasting with Annie Gray Hogmanay and Hamely Kitchen with Paula McIntyre Eel special: 1. Elvers with 'Elver' Dave...

Today the tables are turned, and Neil is the guest on his own podcast and is interviewed about his new book Before Mrs Beeton, Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper , about c18th cook and Manchester legend Elizabeth Raffald, published on 28 February. In the interviewer’s chair is previous guest and friend of the show Alessandra Pino. Alessandra is co-author of A Gothic Cookbook...

In this episode, Neil talks to chef and food writer Rachel Green about the traditional foods of Lincolnshire. Rachel is a chef, author, TV presenter, demonstrator, food campaigner and passionate ambassador of British produce, especially that from Lincolnshire. She comes from 14 generations of Lincolnshire farmers. spoke to Rachel in her home in the beautiful Lincolnshire countryside about Lin...

In this episode, Neil talks to food historian Lindsay Middleton about invalid cookery – an important part of cookery books of the 18th to early 20th centuries. Lindsay has produced an excellent online resource called Dishes for the Sick Room, and has trawled through the collection of cookery books at Glasgow Caledonia University that date from the 18th and 19th centuries. Cook books at this time d...

In this special episode Neil’s guest is esteemed food historian Ivan Day. Ivan is a social historian of food culture and a professional chef and confectioner. He has contributed to dozens of tv and radio programmes over the years, and he is also the author of a number of books and many papers on the history of food and has curated many major exhibitions on food history in the UK, US and Europe. Th...

Happy New Year! In the first episode of 2023 Neil talks to historian Charlie Taverner about London’s street food sellers. Charlie’s book ‘Street Food: Hawkers and the History of London’ is published by Oxford University Press on the 12th of January 2023, and it looks at every aspect of sellers’ lives from the latter 16th to the early 20th century. They talked about how one approaches col...

Today Neil talks with Paula McIntyre about Hogmanay and her BBC TV show, the excellent Hamely Kitchen. Paula is an Ulster-Scots chef who lives on the north coast of Northern Ireland and she specialises in combining those two cuisines, reviving traditional recipes and shouting about good producers. Paula has a Hamely Kitchen Hogmanay special out on 30th December, 7.30pm on BBC1 Northern Ireland. Pa...

Neil kicks off the season with a Christmas special, talking Christmas feasting – and cooking – with scholar and author Dr Annie Gray. Annie is author of books such as the excellent The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria and Victory in the Kitchen: The Life of Churchill’s Cook . Her new book At Christmas We Feast: Festive Food Through the Ages , published by Profile Books, is out now in paperback,...

Welcome to the first postbag edition of ‘The British Food History Podcast’. On this episode: memories of Glyn Hughes; listeners letters; Yorkshire puddings; and new book news. Links to things mentioned on this episode: ‘The Foods of England’ website: http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/ Glyn Hughes’s book ‘The Surprising History of Fish and Chips’: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1471631656 Contain the Sa...