The British Food History Podcast

Welcome back to The British Food History Podcast. In this episode, I am speaking with Peter Ross. Peter was, until recently, the Principal Librarian at the City of London's Guildhall Library. He is an historian of both food and crime in Georgian London, an Arts Society lecturer, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.

He has also written a fantastic book called Insatiable Appetites, Eating Out in Georgian London, published by the Bodleian Library. Published 14 May 2026.

We talk about the migrating mealtimes of the Georgian period, chophouses, the importance of satirical cartoons when studying...

Welcome back to the British Food History Podcast. In this episode of the podcast, I am speaking with fish and seafood cookery expert CJ Jackson, author of The Great British Seafood Revival, published by Merlin Unwin

We talk about cod alternatives like coley and hake; the loss of the street fishmonger; sustainability; fish farms, and whether they are a good thing; the future of Billingsgate Market; and my old fear of bivalves, amongst many other things.

Those listening to the secret podcast get to hear about the popularity of seaweed and disco scallops!

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I received the sad news of the death Joanna Crosby when I was at the Leeds Symposium of Food History and Traditions in April.

Joanna was a talented food historian specialising in the history of apples and orchards, and she came on the podcast in 2024 to talk about her research and excellent book Apples and Orchards since the Eighteenth Century.

I thought I would put out the episode we recorded together, published in January 2024 as a special episode in her memory.

Welcome back to the British Food History Podcast. In today’s episode, I am speaking with Great British Bake Off alumnus Briony May Williams about retro foods. She’s on a mission to bring back some of the foods of the 21st century that are maybe not being enjoyed as much as they should be in the 21st. I am very much in agreement with this – obvs.

We talk about how Briony became interested in retro foods and historical cooking (we all have an origin story, don’t we?), memories of Bake Off, puddings as comfort...

Today, we are going on an excursion to the Netherton Foundry workshop, nestled in the Shropshire countryside, to find out about spun iron cookware – something that was essentially extinct in this country until owners Neil and Sue Currie brought it back.

Neil and Sue are very kindly sponsoring season 10 of The British Food History Podcast makers of high-quality kitchen and outdoor cookware. Netherton Foundry ships to several countries outside of the UK, including the USA and Canada. Visit www.netherton-foundry.co.uk to find out more about their wonderful products – approved not just by me but by folk...

My guest on The British Food History Podcast today is Mark Dawson, a food historian specialising in the food and social history of the early modern period, but also on the regional food of the Midlands. Today we are talking about the traditional food and drink of his home county of Derbyshire.

You may remember he was on last season talking about Derbyshire Oatcakes, well, since then he has written a fantastic book called Lumpy Tums: Derbyshire’s Food & Drink published by Amberley and out in the wild from the 15th April 2026.

We talk about oa...

Welcome to a brand new season of The British Food History Podcast!

On the podcast today is medieval scholar Katherine Harvey, a scholar specialising in medieval and early modern history.

Kathryn’s new book The Medieval Guide to Healthy Living is out now, published by Reaktion Books.

We talk about humoral theory and health, the dangers of eating fresh fruit and fish, the importance of sauces, drinking and drunkenness, how obesity was viewed by medieval society and the importance of cleanliness amongst many other things.

Those listening to the secret podcast ge...

The British Food History Podcast will return in April 2026!

Please subscribe to the podcast on your favourite podcast app so that you don't miss an episode.

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock lots of premium content, including bonus blog posts and recipes, access to the easter eggs and the secret podcast, or treat me to a one-off virtual pint or coffee: click here.

Welcome to the second of a two-part special all about Burns Night.

Burns Night, celebrated on Robert Burns’ birthday, 25th January, is a worldwide phenomenon and I wanted to make a couple of episodes focussing upon the night, the haggis, but also the other foods links regarding Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.

So, if you’re readying yourself for a Burns supper, I hope this episode gets you even more into the celebratory spirit. If you’re not marking Burns Night – well, hopefully after listening to this, you will be inspired to get yourself some haggi...

Welcome to the first of a two-part special all about Burns Night.

Burns Night, celebrated on Robert Burns’ birthday, 25th January, is a worldwide phenomenon and I wanted to make a couple of episodes focussing upon the night, the haggis, but also the other foods links regarding Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns.

Burns was born in Alloway, Ayrshire on 25 January 1759 and he died in Dumfries on 21 July 1796 at just 37 years old.

My guest today is food historian Jennie Hood, who has written an excellent article for the most recent edition of food hist...

It’s time for the now traditional end-of-season postbag episode of The British Food History Podcast, where I (attempt to) answer your questions, read out your comments and mull over your queries.

Several photos and illustrations are mentioned in this episode: to see them, visit the accompanying blog post on British Food: A History: www.britishfoodhistory.com

I’ll be disappearing for a couple of months, unless of course, you are a monthly subscriber, where there will be a bonus episode coming up for you to listen to via the website: Keeping Food Traditions Alive with...

My guest on The British Food History Podcast today food historian and friend of the show Sam Bilton, podcaster and author of Much Ado About Cooking Delicious Shakespearean Feasts for Every Occasion, published by Headline and commissioned by Shakespeare’s Globe.

It was, of course,  a great opportunity to talk about the food of Shakespearean England as well as the food and drink references in Shakespeare’s plays, and what they meant to those watching the plays at the time they were first performed.

We talked about lots of cookery manuscripts, the importance of keeping histo...

My guest today is food historian Carwyn Graves, a specialist in the foodways and traditions of Wales, and we are talking about Welsh Sheep and Cattle – and their products.

Carwyn has written a wonderful book called Welsh Food Stories, published in 2022 by Calon, which explores more than two thousand years of history to discover the rich but forgotten heritage of Welsh foods – from oysters to cider, salted butter to salt-marsh lamb. Despite centuries of industry, ancient traditions have survived in pockets across the country among farmers, bakers, fisherfolk, brewers and growers who are taking Welsh food back to i...

My guest on The British Food History Podcast today is historian Mark Truesdale, scholar of the fifteenth-century King and Commoner tradition and its early modern afterlife and author of The King and Commoner Tradition: Carnivalesque Politics in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, published by Routledge.

We talk about medieval carnival, the plot of a king and commoner tale, spying foresters, rude monks, the love of eating tiny birds, who the audience might be, and the ridiculousness of baking a venison pasty in Sherwood Forest – amongst many other things.

Those listening to the secret podcast can he...

In today’s episode, I speak with Peter Brears, a world-leading food historian. He was director of both York and Leeds City Museums, and is a consultant to the National Trust, English Heritage and Historic Royal Palaces.

He is the winner of the André Simon award for his book, Cooking and Dining in Medieval England, published in 2012, which is a must-have, as are his other books in the series that focus on upper-class cooking and dining in the Tudor and Early Stuart periods, and most recently in the Victorian country house.

He is also a fou...

In this episode, I talk with ceramics expert Paul Crane FSA about the early years of Worcester porcelain. Paul is a consultant at the Brian Haughton Gallery, St James’s, London, and a specialist in Ceramics from the Medieval and Renaissance periods through to the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. He presently sits as a Trustee of the Museum of Royal Worcester and is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, an independent historian and researcher and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Art Scholars.

Our conversation was recorded in person at the Museum of Royal Wo...

In this episode, I speak with Christina Wade, a beer historian specialising in the UK and Ireland, with a particular focus on women. She has written an excellent book, Filthy Queens: A History of Beer in Ireland, which was published by Nine Bean Rows earlier this year (2025).

We talk about ale and beer in Ireland, and how colonisation by the English, and then the British, affected beer production and consumption. Topics include: ale in early medieval Ireland, the man who inspired the title of her book, ale consumption during the Irish Rebellion and the Potato Famine, and...

Hello there everyone!

Here’s a quick special bonus episode for you – the lowdown on the Serve it Forth Food History Festival 2025 sponsored by the excellent Netherton Foundry.

My fellow festival coordinators Sam Bilton, Thomas Ntinas and Alessandra Pino and I are here to tell you more about it: how the day will work, what the sessions will be like, the topics and the guests – including my guest Tom Parker Bowles.

We have a brief discussion about our own interests and how we all got into food history. We also talk about our bigges...

My guest today is Mark Dawson, food historian, specialising in the food of the Tudor period, but also the food of Derbyshire. We met up at Mark’s home in Derbyshire to talk all things Derbyshire oatcakes.

Mark and I talk about the oatcakes of Britain, doshens and sprittles, the usefulness of probate inventories, oatcakes as penance, and oatcake goblins – amongst many other things

Those listening to the secret podcast can hear about other Derbyshire foods made from oats; a discussion about why oatcake is better than porridge; and I grill Mark on one very impo...

My guest today is Alex Bamji, Associate Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Leeds, and we are talking about a rare treatise on cheese dating from the Early Modern Period.

We met up at the Brotherton Library which is home to a fantastic collection of cookery books and manuscripts. We talk about cheese, health and humoral theory; what makes a good cheese; the early modern cheese landscape; cheese as a cure for gout; and cheese haters – plus many other things.

Those listening to the secret podcast: Alex and I talk about why co...

My guest today is third generation baker, writer and teacher David Wright author of the excellent book Breaking Bread: How Baking Shaped our World published by Aurum.

We talk about the social benefits of bread making, milling grain into flour, the anatomy of a grain, roller mills, the Chorleywood process and why gluten can be compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

Those listening to the secret podcast: you get a little over 15 minutes of bonus material that includes additives that don’t have be named on ingredients lists, flatbreads, the National Lo...

My guests today are archaeologists Chris Wakefield from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit of Cambridge University Rachel Ballantyne from McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and they are here to tell me about an absolutely amazing site close to Peterborough that tell us a huge amount about daily life in a late Bronze Age settlement. Prepare to have your minds blown!

We talk about the unique circumstances of how and why the site is so well preserved, kitchen clutter, animal husbandry, querns, frumenty, pike sushi, and whether the English’s love of mustard goes back 3 millennia – among many other thin...

My guest today is food writer, podcaster and cheese enthusiast Jenny Linford and we are going on a bit of a regional food tour across the UK.

We talk about her new book The Great British Food Tour published by the National Trust. It’s beautifully illustrated and contains recipes too. Also discussed: our mutual appreciation of Jane Grigson, Welsh cakes, English fish dishes, marmalade, champ and Tunnock’s teacakes at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games – amongst many other things.

The Great British Food Tour by Jenny Linford

Jenny’s website (include information about all thre...

Welcome to the first episode of season 9 of The British Food History Podcast!

Today I am talking with Matthew Cockin and Grant Harper of Fruit Pig – the last remaining commercial craft producer of fresh blood black puddings in the UK.

We talk about how and why they started up Fruit Pig, battling squeamishness, why it’s so difficult to make fresh blood black puddings, and serving suggestions – amongst many other things

Fruit Pig are sponsoring the 9th season of the podcast and Grant and Matthew are very kindly giving listeners to the...

Hello there everyone! Exciting news: the ninth season of the British Food History Podcast will return on 9th July 2025.

I have been busy collecting an eclectic range conversations for a baker’s dozen of episodes on topics such as bread and bakers, black and white pudding, Irish beer, Derbyshire oatcakes, dining and porcelain, and Bronze Age food and foodways.

If you have any comments questions or queries regarding  any episode please contact me or leave a message on social media. There will be a postbag episode at the end of season, so please contact me: ema...

It’s time for the fifth traditional postbag episode, where I (attempt to) answer your questions, read out your comments and mull over your queries.

In this edition: giant turkeys, great crisps we have known, burnt bread and Yorkshire puddings – plus much, much more!

Thank you for your support in this eighth season of the podcast. It shall return later in the year.

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock lots of premium content, or treat me to a one-off virtual pint or co...

Today I speak with food historian, podcaster and friend of the show Lindsay Middleton about arguably the first celebrity chef, Alexis Soyer, focusing mainly on two of his books: The Gastronomic Regenerator and The Modern Housewife.

We talk about the kitchens at the Reform Club, Soyer’s literary inspirations, cookery books as entertainment and his meta approach to writing The Modern Housewife, amongst many other things.

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock lots of premium content, or treat me to a one-off virtual pint or coffee: cli...

Today I am talking with podcaster and blogger Alison Kay of Ancestral Kitchen all about recreating medieval ale at home – and how one adapts the making of them to modern kitchens.

We talked about the difference between ale and beer; the process of ale-making; sterilisation versus good old cleaning; wild yeast; and (most importantly) what the ale tastes like – amongst many other things.

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock lots of premium content, or treat me to a one-off virtual pint or coffee: click here.

Anc...

I'm on a break so to fill the gap here are some of my favourite episodes from the podcast's vaults.

Welcome to episode one of the new fourth season of The British Food History Podcast.

Kicking us off is Neil’s guest Felicity Cloake. Neil & Felicity talk all things breakfast and Felicity’s new book Red Sauce, Brown Sauce, a celebration of the breakfast in all four home nations of the UK.

We talk about how breakfast might be the only thing uniting all 4 countries that make up the UK, the complexities of plan...

I'm on a break so to fill the gap here are some of my favourite episodes from the podcast's vaults.

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, science and information technology to explore the diet and foodways of diverse communities in ear...

I'm on a break so to fill the gap here are some of my favourite episodes from the podcast's vaults.

Neil has a most enlightening chat with Kevin Geddes about the fabulous television cook Fanny Cradock (1909-1994). Fanny has a reputation for being difficult to work with, cruel and monstrous, and that she was a fake. In this chat Kevin upturns SOME of those preconceptions. We talk about her way into radio and television, her manner and presenting style, the fantastic Christmas special, as well as her decline and fall from television cookery. Much of her life...

I'm on a break so to fill the gap here are some of my favourite episodes from the podcast's vaults.

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.

Paula and Neil talked about Hogmanay traditions, like first footings...

Merry Christmas everyone! Welcome to the 2024 British Food History Podcast Christmas special.

Today I am talking with Tudor Food historian Brigitte Webster about what Christmasses were like in Tudor times – just what were the Tudors eating and drinking at this time of year?

We talked about harrowing Advent and its stockfish, food as gifts, the boar’s head, venison, frumenty and the similarities and differences between Christmasses then and now – amongst many other things.

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unl...

The tables are turned today for I am being interviewed by Lindsay Middleton and Peter Gilchrist of The Scottish Food History Podcast about my book The Philosophy of Puddings, published by the British Library.

We talk about the origins of puddings, the emergence of the pudding cloth and the pudding mould, blancmange, the work of Catherine Brown and the Be-Ro book, amongst many other things

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock lots of premium content, or treat me to a one-off virtual pint or coffee: click h...

Today I talk about Irish food, food history and identity with Michelin-starred chef Jp McMahon.

Jp is the culinary director of the EatGalway Restaurant Group and runs the restaurant Aniar in Galway, Ireland. He’s the founding chair and director of the Galway Food Festival, Jp is an ambassador for Irish food. He has written several books including the excellent Irish Cook Book published by Phaidon. However, the subject of our discussion was his new book, An Irish Food Story: 100 Foods That Made Us, published by Nine Bean Rows, which delved into Irish food identity, traditions and his...

It’s December, Advent has begun, and we can officially start discussing Christmas so I have put together an episode about turkey that is very much of two halves. There’s an interview with Tom Copas, a turkey farmer who really looks after his flock: slow-grown, high welfare, and I have bought many a turkey from him over the years. Before that, I have prepared a little bit on the history of the turkey in Britain, spanning from Tudor times to the 20th century where it went from regal food to Christmas Day staple. Tom and I talked about farm...

Today I am in conversation with Jill Norman – author of several books, and editor at Penguin. She very kindly talked to me about Jane Grigson and the book English Food at the start of this season. Well, Jill is on the podcast today to talk about her new book The English Table.

We talk about service a la française and a la russe, important food writers throughout history like Hannah Woolley and Claudia Roden, the origins of fish and chips, and the time she met Dorothy Hartley, amongst many other things

If you can, sup...

The tables have turned today because I am being interviewed by author, food historian and friend of the show Sam Bilton. My book Knead to Know is out now and published by Icon Books, and Sam very kindly agreed to interview me about it for the podcast. We talk about baking evolution, bakestone cookery, Jaffa Cakes and taxation, what’s so great about wheat plus many other things.

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock lots of premium content, or treat me to a one-off virtual pint or coffee: cli...

Today is an exciting day because we are tackling a topic that I consider extremely important, CRISPS, with food writer and journalist Natalie Whittle.

We talk about the North American origins of the crisp, the excitement of discovering the crisps of other countries, iconic brands like Walkers and Tayto, and most importantly what the best flavour is – amongst many other things.

Natalie’s book Crunch: An Ode to Crisps is published by Faber & Faber.

Natalie’s website

If you can, support the podcast and blogs by becoming a £3 monthly subscriber, and unlock...

The book English Food by Jane Grigson was published 50 years ago this year. It’s a book that has completely changed my life and I wanted to celebrate it with a three-part special. This is part three.

I am going back to my roots here talking with three good friends of mine Nicola Aldren, Simone Blagg and Anthea Craig, all of whom were there at the inception of my idea to cook every recipe in English Food.

We talk about memorable recipes, the large amounts of offal that were consumed, sous cheffing, pudding clubs and po...