The Food Programme

Sheila Dillon and Genevive Taylor explore why Bristol has such a strong food scene.

Food in the most extreme cooking environment, space. Dan Saladino tries menus for Mars.

Continuing our series of programmes on cooking and eating in challenging conditions in remote places: The Royal Navy's submarines make their own air and water so food is the one factor limiting how long they can remain at sea. Sheila Dillon explores life, and the role food plays in it, on board HMS Artful- a nuclear-powered but not nuclear-armed submarine. More than simply for nutrition, food acts...

Across all of the world, weather doesn't get more extreme than the Antarctic winter. The continent is plunged into 24 hour darkness from from March to October with strong polar winds and temperatures that can dip to minus 50. But for the staff of the Halley Research station, work and life goes on. In 2014 experienced Antarctic chef Gerard Baker joined the base for the cold Antarctic winter to cook...

From the guerilla gardener Ron Finley in South Central LA fighting the law to grow vegetables to the project training children in Brazilian favelas to train as chefs, Dan Saladino has shared some inspiring and life changing food projects shared at the MAD symposium in Copenhagen in 2014. But what's happened since then? He wants to hear what those projects have gone on to achieve. MAD (the word for...

Dan Saladino charts the rise, fall and rise of traditional Neapolitan pizza. He's joined by Daniel Young whose "Where to Eat Pizza" lists 1700 great pizzerias around the world. A common theme in the book, Daniel argues, is that after decades of competition from less authentic rivals, the Neapolitan style pizza is making an impact on restaurant scenes across Europe, Asia and north America. Professo...

Fermentation is one of our oldest methods for preserving food. All around the world people have been transforming food with the help of microbes for thousands of years. The problem is, this simple method has had an identity crisis. We tend either see it as a fashionable fad, or a strange science. But there are people who want things to change. So in this programme Sheila Dillon meets 'The fermente...

Sheila Dillon unveils the list of this year's BBC Food & Farming Awards finalists. Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

If your experience of sake has been limited to simply 'a hot cup of alcohol after a meal' like Sheila Dillon it's time to listen without prejudice. With thousands of breweries each producing dozens of varieties there is more range than most of us understand. After a slump in sales in Japan young people are now returning to sake and in the UK interest is growing rapidly with top restaurants listing...

Dan Saladino explores the fierce debate over how 1.2bn people will be fed in the future.

In her new book, First Bite - How We Learn To Eat, Bee Wilson takes a deep and reflective look at how food choices and habits are shaped, and how they can be changed. Sheila Dillon is joined by Bee Wilson and special guests to discuss the book's surprising findings, and how to make positive changes where positive change is needed. Sheila and Bee are joined by Rosie Boycott, who advises the Mayor o...

Ultra-marathon champ and vegan Scott Jurek tells Dan Saladino how to eat and run 100 miles. Fermented food and Paleo diets are also put to the test in Food and Running Part 2.

Dan Saladino meets the people working to improve the food future of Newcastle.

Welcome to Cardiff, Croeso i Caerdydd. The capital of Wales and the fastest growing urban population in the UK. For centuries, people have come to the city to live from Wales, and from far beyond the country's borders, attracted by the prospect of a life between the sea and the hills. It's a city with, at once an international community and a strong Welsh identity. In this programme Sheila Dillon...

When the Food Programme went to Leeds to cover its growing food and drink scene many areas of the city had recently been flooded. At the time community groups, including Muslims and Sikhs, were taking part in a food operation to feed those forced out of their homes - meeting the fundamental need for food while showing the strength of the community. Dan Saladino explores the city - which has histor...

Sheila Dillon reveals this year's team of judges, and launches the 2016 BBC Food and Farming Awards. Sheila will be catching up with some of last year's winners and nominees and explaining how you can send in your all-important nominations. Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

How important is diet to running performance? It's a question Food Programme listener and runner Nicole Marais wanted answers too and so she emailed the programme's production team. This programme explains what happened next.... When Dan Saladino went to meet (and run with) Nicole she explained she had tried lots of different diets, from one based on meat, to a vegetarian diet and onto veganism. S...

Food writer, chef, restaurateur, philosopher...? Since 'Ottolenghi: the cookbook' was published in 2008, Yotam Ottolenghi has become one of the UK's most followed voices on food and cooking. Nearly eight years later, Ottolenghi's cookbooks total five, the last written in collaboration with head chef at his London Soho restaurant NOPI, Ramael Scully. The restaurant is one of five in the capital, wh...

For some, trifle is an essential part of Christmas - a star centrepiece at the dinner table. For others its a reminder of 70s food hell - soggy sponge, jelly, hundreds and thousands dissolving into custard and cream and possibly crowned with glace cherries. Tim Hayward argues pretty much every food writer of the last 50 years has pronounced on trifle in a massively doctrinaire fashion. He wants to...

As she readies herself for an imminent move back to her native New Zealand after three decades in the UK, Juliet Harbutt, cheese educator and campaigner, shares her life in food with Sheila Dillon. Born and raised in Auckland, an experience with some French cheeses in Paris changed everything for Juliet, who decided there and then that cheese would be her life's focus. She sold her deli-restaurant...

If you were to create a museum telling the story of food and drink what would you say or put on display? What about interactivity - tastes and smells? Is it about flavour and experience or the process of creating the ingredients from the farmers to gastronomes? Sheila Dillon steps inside London's new British Museum of Food (BMoF) created by 'jellymongers' Bompas and Parr to see what their creative...

Sheila Dillon and guests reflect on a year of cookery and food books. Sheila is joined in the studio by Bee Wilson, historian and food writer who's about to publish First Bite: How We Learn to Eat, journalist and food writer Alex Renton, and Features Editor at trade magazine The Bookseller, Tom Tivnan. Tim Hayward meets chef Magnus Nilsson - who has just completed a nearly 800-page work called The...

Nearly every major city in the world has one- a district where Chinese immigrants have settled to live, work and eat. This week Dan Saladino takes you on a tour of Chinatowns around the world. From one of the oldest, in Manila, to one of the newest, in Johannesburg, Chinatowns create a global trail of economic and culinary influence. And the food that they serve reflects not only the tastes of hom...

Scotch eggs may conjure memories of Summer picnics, school dinners or even Alan Partridge but the humble bar snack has been elevated to a culinary canvas on which chefs can make their own mark and feature on the menus of some of the UK's top restaurants. Food writer Joe Warwick invites you to the madness and mayhem of the Scotch Egg Challenge at which chefs and retailers compete with traditional a...

Trish Deseine may not be a household name in the UK. But in France, the home of gastronomy, her 12 cookbooks, all written in French, have sold hundreds and thousands of copies, and influenced a generation of chefs, food writers and home cooks. She has won international awards and in 2009, was named one of the 40 most influential women in France by French Vogue magazine. But don't let a surname dec...