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James Martin’s Home Comforts at Christmas: Just yum

2015-12-15T09:54:32+00:00

Do you like food? Have you been watching James Martin’s Home Comforts at Christmas? In greedy appreciation of the series, we’ve plated up some Twitter chat about the show for you.

All 10 episodes have different themes so there’s way more being served than the traditional roast. James is making all kinds of wintry dishes that you can cook in advance, edible gifts you can make, simple recipes for new cooks - and alternatives for the turkey and Christmas pudding haters which still feel sumptuous. It’s really helping us feel Christmassy, where the weather is kind of not.

The series kicked off with James cooking for Sir Michael Parkinson, who provides the Christmassy quote of the episode "I hate turkey, full stop."

So James whips him up a pork fest instead: barbecue ribs and pork belly, garnished with a pork pie on top (really) and to Michael, it’s "Paradise" - just watch this:

This external content is available at its source: James Martin's tweet linking to his recipes on the BBC Food website

For lovers of traditional scoff like gingerbread, gammon, figgy pudding, roast meat – even sprouts – James is catering for you. And if you’re with Michael Parkinson and you object to traditional Christmas food, James is championing comfort food alternatives like his ultimate macaroni cheese.

Start by melting butter in a warm pan...

Cheddar's not enough, mind. James has leftover gorgonzola dolce, Caerphilly and parmesan going into his sauce, although Adrian has a point here:

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BassmanBowman/status/674259200025960449

We've learned some interesting things. Firstly the words "pan bagnat". Translation: it’s the best and biggest roast dinner sandwich you’ve ever seen. Watch episode six to find out how to make it. Your friends will love you. If you do share it, that is.

And then we can't be the only ones who've wondered why mince pies are called mince pies when they don't have actual minced meat in them. It's because they used to. Seventeenth Century mince pies were filled with minced tongue, cooked Islamic style with dried fruit and sweet spices.

Not everyone wants to be part of that particular ancient tradition though:

This external content is available at its source: Tweet from @Stellabranch Catching up on @jamesmartinchef #HomeComfortsForChristmas. Tongue in mince pies?! Just no!

Lovely Mary Berry is in episode six. And because she is lovely, her ideal Christmas foodie gifts are homemade mulberry jam, marmalade and "nicely presented" biscuits.

This external content is available at its source: Instagram picture of Mary Berry and James Martin in the kitchen

Watch for the laugh out loud moment when Mary tells James off for separating eggs with his bare hands – now that’s just "typically cheffy" behaviour.

For us, the most imaginative tip so far is this one – who wants to try it with a fry up?

This external content is available at its source: Tweet from @frazermac: @BBCFood @jamesmartinchef recommend saving Christmas pudding for next day. Best as part of a full English breakfast.

And finally…

This external content is available at its source: Tweet from @Flissime: @jamesmartinchef your gorgeous food on @BBCOne #HomecomfortsatChristmas has restored my happiness.. Thankyou chef #heisgoodisnthe

Fiona Wickham is the editor of the BBC TV blog.

Home Comforts at Christmas continues daily on BBC One at 3.40pm until Friday, 18 December. All episodes are available to watch in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

All James Martin’s recipes from Home Comforts at Christmas are on the BBC Food website.

Great British Menu: 'I love homely food that reminds me of gran'

2015-08-03T09:00:00+00:00

Chef Jak O'Donnell and her signature pink apron made it to the finals on Great British Menu last year, and now she's back for more. As she competes to get her Scottish-inspired dishes into this year's banquet, Jak explains just how much food means to her, and her young family.

My kids love seafood. It all started when my daughter was just coming up for two and a half: we went for dinner and ordered her a pot of mussels, and it was one of those moments my husband Ewan and I won't forget. Mesmerised by the amount of bits and bobs the waiter put beside her, she sat still for the first time in two years, glued to the spot, carefully shelling and eating the mussels. Ewan and I thought we were in heaven: a full conversation together and a content wee girl! It took a long time for her to demolish everything, but she was very proud of her sculpture of shell art.

Obviously watching me cooking mussels at home it seemed easy peasy to a now four-year-old, and one day I came into the kitchen to find her with a pot on the stove, throwing in my tub of mussels and popping the lid on. It was a fast snack which made for a happy four-year-old! My son on the other hand is not so keen on cooking as much as consuming food. I think he has hollow legs...

When the two of them come to work with me they’re like kids in a sweet shop. They prefer coming on early mornings to help with the bread, and when the deliveries arrive I love the ‘wow’ on their wee faces. Although by that point half the produce is being plundered by them.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/chef_jacqueline/status/571730932614471681

Surprisingly there’s nothing I can think of that they wouldn’t eat. They love a roast beef, carved at the table with all the trimmings and usually with a seafood starter. And anything round the table for sharing ticks my box!

I go on about it all the time, but I think as parents we should let kids cook. They will eat more if they have ownership of their tea, and obviously you decide the menu with them and involve them all the way. Don't just let them make cupcakes! Knife skills, both holding and using (under proper supervision of course) and not wasting food are all very good to learn.

So much of my actual love of food I got from my parents. With gran, the hub of the house was the kitchen, where we all sat round the table so everyone was involved. Even now that's what we love at home in the kitchen: watching; smelling; it's just a busy, great place to be.

Fellow Great British Menu competitor Graham Campbell's skills are scrutinised by Jak

From being allowed to grate carrots for grannie’s soup and getting to pluck the chickens that my grampa brought home, I was in my element. All the other grandchildren thought I was mad: they were out playing in the park, and I was in the kitchen!

I love food memories that remind you of when you were wee. Recently I brought a clootie dumpling home, lit the coal fire - just like what grannie had - dried the dumpling out that night and popped it on an old-fashioned china plate the same as my grannie’s. I sat it on an old wooden stool and shared a picture on Twitter. The amount of almost tearful comments I got in reply was amazing: it conjured up memories that meant so much to so many people.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/chef_jacqueline/status/598616481392373761

That's what I base my menus on: a dish giving you feeling of how it used to be when you watched your mum or gran cooking at home, and getting a great plate put in front of you.

Jak O'Donnell is a chef and competitor on Great British Menu.

Great British Menu starts on Monday, 3 August at 7.30pm on BBC Two. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

How To Survive Celebrity MasterChef: Heat one with Tish Potter

2015-06-18T12:22:27+00:00

What do you tell yourself to help cope with nerves in the competition?

I had to have a firm chat with myself and made the decision to have a bit more gumption. I really enjoy cooking but not under pressure. I don’t know why it should be so nerve-wracking, but for some reason it really is.

What are you learning about yourself during the competition – any strengths or weaknesses you were not aware of?

I am learning that I respond really well to pressure, funnily enough. Give me clear instructions, a bit of pressure and a bit of encouragement and I will happily work for as long as you like. However, I'm hopeless at making decisions and taking initiative... When I have to make up a recipe for example in the invention test, I panic.

Will the heat one cooks survive service at two busy London restaurants?

What is the secret of good cooking, for you?

Good cooking absolutely relies on good ingredients. Keep it simple. Make it tasty. Salt.

What’s your best cheat tip in the kitchen?

Best cheat in the kitchen? A tablespoon of hazelnut spread in a chocolate fondant stabilises it so it'll (almost) always have a spongey edge and a lovely gooey middle. Also herb scissors and garlic squishers save tons of time.

Tish Potter is an actress and Celebrity MasterChef contestant.

Celebrity MasterChef starts on Thursday, 18 June at 9pm on BBC One. Each episode will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Great British Bake Off: The rocky road to the quarter-finals

2014-09-17T17:56:09+00:00

Attention: This post contains spoilers and is intended for viewers who have already seen episode seven, Pastry, of The Great British Bake Off.

The final five bakers are gearing up for Advanced Dough week and while we’ve seen some outstanding original creations, it hasn’t been easy baking the whole way.

With 21 challenges behind them it’s not hard to lose track of all the signatures, technicals and showstoppers, so we decided to take a look at the bakes that have earned Chetna, Luis, Martha, Nancy and Richard a place in the quarter-finals:

Chetna

Dubbed the Flavour Queen by Paul Hollywood, Chetna has consistently delivered tasty bakes from the start, including tiered Victoria sponges (which Paul thought were too tall) and a cardamom, pistachio and coffee Swiss roll:

Her flavourful bakes also include aromatic fenugreek and carom crackers, crispy lentil kachoris with a “staggering” amount of spices according to Paul, lemon meringue eclairs and chocolate eclairs with mango and praline.

The only bake Chetna seems to have missed on the flavours was during Pies and Tarts week with her rice custard tart with mangoes and raspberries:

Even when her onion and pine nut rolls came out flat Paul thought they were “absolutely delicious” and when her baked Alaska melted, Mary Berry assured her that “the fact that it looks a bit messy, I forget about that. It just is stunning when you eat it.”

Chetna finally won star baker for European Cakes week when she came second place in Mary's Swedish prinsesstarta technical challenge, and decorated an impressive caramel-covered almond liqueur dobos torte with spheres made from dipping grapes in caramel. These left quite an impression on Mary who seems sure that “everybody will be copying that!”

Luis

A graphic designer by trade, all of Luis’ bakes have demonstrated meticulous military precision, from his George versus the Dragon biscuits that married flavour with theme so well that Paul “ran out of superlatives”:

To his apple and cinnamon kugelhopf:

Although Luis' presentation is consistently praised by Paul and Mary as spectacular, stunning and amazing, sometimes the flavours don’t quite come together.

For the European Cakes week, his beautiful monumental caramel work ultimately left Mary feeling it was “far too sweet” and Paul adding that “it’s quite washy with the flavour”:

While Mary and Paul disagreed on whether the flavours worked in Luis' roscon de reyes, a beautifully decorated showstopper centrepiece loaf, he still won star baker in Bread week:

And he’s back on track, with Paul declaring Luis had “nailed it on all counts” with the clean lines and different flavours in his stars and stripes eclairs:

Martha

At 17 Martha is the youngest baker to be in the tent and the only quarter-finalist not to have won star baker yet, but she has won the technical challenges for mini pear pies and tiramisu.

She has produced innovative bakes including adding paprika to her pie pastry and a goat’s cheese-filled twist on a classic sandwich biscuit:

And made snow from marshmallows for her charming 3D ski village scene:

She also baked a stuffed sunflower loaf with cheese that Mel Giedroyc could hear bubbling away:

But challenging recipes also can make for some less successful outcomes. Paul and Mary weren’t fans of the look or the flavour of Martha’s maple syrup and bacon eclairs:

Nancy

Even though she forgot Paul’s name and called him “the male judge” Nancy has been one to watch out for since the beginning, winning both star baker and the technical challenge in the first week for an “absolutely perfect” cherry cake and her Jaffa orange cakes that looked identical:

Nancy also produced a stunning baked Alaska for her showstopper:

And earned extra brownie points for her hand-raised trio of apple pies:

Not every bake has been flawless though. Her signature rum punch savarin with coconut cream and tropical fruits was overproved, leaving a crease:

But Paul and Mary still thought the flavours were fantastic and since then Nancy's baked a showstopper dobbos torte, the first savoury eclairs we’ve ever seen, as well as a technically perfect Swedish prinsesstarta:

Richard

Richard has won star baker a record-breaking three times, coming first in the technical challenges for two of those weeks with his pencil behind his ear at every bake.

His florentines with the perfect zigzag and biscuit showstopper Pirates! gingerbread boat and peanut butter island won over the judges in Biscuits week:

The previously unknown Breton kouign amann technical challenge that baffled all the bakers, along with his eclair stairs and these signature minted lamb pasties earned Richard star baker for Pastry week:

He also won during Desserts week, being the only baker to deliver a truly saucy signature pudding that both judges enjoyed without quibble, and which Paul proclaimed as “complicated but exceptionally baked”:

But even Richard has a few wobbles now and again, often having a tougher time in the week after being star baker. The curse of the star baker might explain why he came last on this pear-shaped challenge...

What were some of your favourite bakes from the quarter-finalists?

More on The Great British Bake Off
BBC One: The Great British Bake Off: Meet the judges and presenters
BBC Two: The Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice

Discover more bakes with BBC Food
Episode One: Cake recipes
Episode Two: Biscuits recipes
Episode Three: Bread recipes
Episode Four: Desserts recipes
Episode Five: Pies and Tarts recipes
Episode Six: European Cakes recipes

The Great British Bake Off continues on Wednesday, 24 September at 9pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Men Who Made Us Thin: Can you be fit and fat?

2013-08-08T08:51:12+00:00

Making The Men Who Made Us Thin for BBC Two has profoundly changed how I view my body.

I visited Brazil where gastric surgery is a huge industry. Watching a gastric bypass in the operating suite is somewhat equivalent to those anti-smoking ads of the 70s and 80s when school kids were shown the amount of tar in their lungs.

If you wanted an ad to put you off highly calorific processed food then it should show the fat around your vital organs. It's revolting and changed my attitude to being overweight.

Of course if you're morbidly obese there are serious health consequences, but for most of us who struggle to lose a few extra pounds the lesson I took from making this programme was to stop focusing on the weight and instead on being fit and happy.

Encouraging teenagers to be skinny? Jacques meets diet guru Venice A Fulton

In my experience people want to be thin partly for cultural reasons - to fit in to the desirable norm.

But these cultural reasons also start to become biological reasons over time - when being thin becomes equated with being more attractive, and this means attracting a mate, this becomes a biological imperative.

One reinforces the other - it's a vicious circle.

Looking back to the post war period, before we even had an industrialised diet industry as such, one American insurance company reclassified the body mass index (BMI) scale.

The decision labelled at least half the US population as overweight when they had previously been categorised as normal.

Arguably this triggered a sense of panic about weight which stays with us to this day.

The series also made me realise how the overweight are doubly discriminated against.

First they are shamed by society, then they are told that when they don't lose weight long term through commercial diet programmes that it is their fault.

It was interesting meeting the people who had created the diets worth literally billions - Danny Abraham with Slim-Fast and Pierre Dukan and learning about Jean Nidetch of WeightWatchers - what they all share is huge charisma.

This is why they become gurus - people want to believe in someone who says: trust me, I will help you lose weight.

I spoke to a lot of scientists for this series and discovered that around 85% of people put the weight back on after five years.

Personally I think people should stop worrying about their weight and focus on being healthy and happy, at any size.

Exercise is often seen as an important tool of weight loss but I was really interested to speak to Dr Terry Wilkin who is conducting a long-term study at Plymouth Hospital.

He explained to me that 75% of the calories we use we burn just by staying still. These calories fuel the metabolic processes which keep our bodies functioning.

A trip to boot camp proves that you can be fit and fat, but can Jacques hack the workout himself?

So no matter how much you exercise your calorie burning effects are limited by your metabolism.

Therefore although exercise is fantastic for getting fit it’s not necessarily great for losing weight.

People who say they lose weight through exercise have actually done so because they already have the right mental attitude towards it.

The psychological battle has already been won before they put on those running shoes.

But exercise is undoubtedly good for you. Fit people live longer. Thin people however do not necessarily live longer.

Being underweight can be as serious a health issue as being obese. Being overly thin - ask any recovering anorexic - is not a good place to be.

In the programme I attended a boot camp with two obese women - both named Katie - who proved they were far fitter than me in spite of their weight.

Being beaten was a real lesson - it proved that being fit is more important than what size you are. And losing so easily was even more humiliating than having to wear the boot camp's pink T-shirt!

Both Katies had found that by focusing on fitness rather than weight loss they had lost weight as a by-product.

They had begun to eat more healthily but with fitness always the goal, weight loss had happened anyway: very small changes on a daily basis make a huge difference.

But the key advice which I picked up again and again throughout the making of this series was that it’s important to change your mental attitude.

The key seemed to be not to focus on the weight but on getting fit and whatever you do, don't crash diet or go on a fad diet.

Jacques Peretti is the presenter of The Men Who Made Us Thin.

The Men Who Made Us Thin starts on Thursday, 8 August at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Supermarket Secrets: Feeding a nation

2013-07-03T07:46:32+00:00

In presenting Supermarket Secrets I have had the most incredible insight into one of the undoubted phenomena of the modern era.

Quite how supermarkets have become such an essential part of our lives is an amazing and thought-provoking story.

The weather plays a huge factor in what we buy, especially when the sun comes out

I know of no other industry that is so interwoven into the fabric of our society, yet gets so little love from that very society.

Can anyone reading this think of any other business or service that is used by such a high percentage of the population, yet comes under such criticism?

Virtually everybody in the UK uses supermarkets, yet few of us seem to enjoy it. Many of us go as far as to say the supermarkets have not only destroyed the High Street but also parts of our community and even our Britishness.

Why if this is so, do so many of us visit them and spend our hard-earned money?

Never before this series have the supermarkets allowed television so much access to their inner workings.

Over the course of a year I watched, worked, probed and filmed the technical teams, the product developers and the buyers from Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose and the Co-operative.

Has Gregg got what it takes to be a master butcher?

It is an incredible story. These people play a huge part nowadays in the feeding of a nation. How on earth do you do that? How do you get so many eggs fresh on a shelf every day? That’s just for starters.

What do we want when the sun shines? What do we want when it gets cold? Do we all want the same thing?

I, like most of us I should imagine, don’t give it a moment’s thought. I wander in to my local supermarket with a list of the things I want. It’s mostly food but it could be carpet cleaner, mouth wash or a television.

I don’t wonder how these things got into the store: I just take it for granted that what I want is going to be there.

Once I started thinking about it my head exploded. Every sporting occasion, every bank holiday, every religious festival and every single change in temperature will dramatically alter what it is we want to buy.

I, with the help of some very dedicated and patient television makers, have followed the story of the produce on our shelves from planning, through purchasing, transport and packing.

I promise you, the scale, the work and the science that goes on behind it is amazing.

Gregg Wallace is the presenter of Supermarket Secrets.

Supermarket Secrets begins on Thursday, 4 July at 9pm on BBC One. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Operation Hospital Food with James Martin: The biggest challenge

2013-02-25T08:15:10+00:00

There is no denying that hospital food can have a pretty poor reputation and often it is well deserved.

So to be able to work on a BBC One series that aims to improve hospital food, and hopefully change the public’s perception of what is served in our hospitals, has been fantastic.

As the series producer, easily the biggest challenge for me was simply finding and convincing a hospital to open its doors to our cameras and presenter, TV chef James Martin.

James and the catering team at Birmingham's Royal Orthopaedic Hospital

Myself and the producer/director Johnny Perks travelled all over the country speaking to countless hospital managers but generally they were pretty guarded.

I think this is a natural reaction; why wouldn’t they be wary of a film crew descending on their hospital and exposing their flaws?

I found honesty was the best policy. Yes, we were looking for problems or weaknesses in their food, but the aim of Operation Hospital Food with James Martin is to improve the meals served and leave the catering in a better state than it was in when we arrived.

When we first visited Birmingham’s Royal Orthopaedic Hospital they were very open about the issues they had with the catering department, in particular the overspend, the levels of food returned uneaten from the wards every day, and the low morale of the kitchen team.

Once food has gone up to the wards it can’t be served to anybody else, even when it’s untouched

Head chef Tracey and head of facilities Emma were very keen to take part in the project because they had been warned that unless things changed, the catering department faced the prospect of losing their jobs and an external company being brought in to provide the patients’ meals.

The kitchen team did have concerns with allowing us in, as they didn’t know how James was going to react to them or what changes he would implement, but after a few tense moments they came to realise that he was on their side and his changes were for the better.

Filming in small and noisy working hospital kitchens presented plenty of technical challenges for the crew, but it was the British weather that nearly scuppered one of the big moments of the series.

James asks some of the country's top chefs for a hand

James had invited a group of top class chefs to his home to ask them to join him in his mission.

To set the scene, we put together an outdoor summer garden but after spending most of the day setting up, the proverbial heavens opened! Good old British summer time!

The day was a wash out, but fortunately the chefs took it in good humour. You can enjoy watching them in episode two cooking huddled under golf umbrellas - and they still ate the soggy pizzas they'd all been preparing in the rain.

Throughout the series we faced many challenges but we built up a fantastic relationship with all the staff at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, which made it much easier - especially the early morning starts!

James became very close to everyone we worked with at the hospital. As you’ll see, there were a few difficult situations as emotions ran high, but they always ended positively.

James even treated the team to a day out go-karting to help boost morale, which you don't see in the series.

Everyone got stuck in with the racing especially James and Gaz who were determined to beat each other; I’m still not sure who actually won as they both claim they had the fastest lap!

The highlight has to be being able to play an admittedly small part in transforming hospital food around the country.

At some point we are all going to have a loved one spend time in hospital. So if the work we have done on Operation Hospital Food makes their stay even a little easier, then the hard work was definitely worth it.

Lucy McLennan the series producer of Operation Hospital Food with James Martin.

Series two of Operation Hospital Food with James Martin begins on Monday, 25 Feburary at 9.15am on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Hospital food: The chef that hopes to improve standards: Read the BBC Food feature

BBC Food: Recipes from Operation Hospital Food with James Martin: Try one of the exclusive recipes from the series

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Nigellissima: How we built the kitchen set

2012-09-28T13:21:11+00:00

The essence of the new series Nigellissima is to show how easy it is to bring the spirit of Italy into the kitchen and onto the plate - using ingredients available in any English supermarket.

As the series producer it's my job to pull all six programmes together and deliver them on time and in budget.

This is only possible if you have a great team like I have with Nigella's camera crew and director, who have worked with her for many years.

One of the early decisions to be made is always where to film.

In a perfect world we would film Nigella Lawson in her own kitchen where she feels most at home cooking.

But this would be impossible to do safely considering all the camera and lighting kit that is involved. And that's before adding all the crew into the mix.

I'm not sure Nigella's family would be too keen to have 14 of us hanging around for 12 hours a day for a six week stretch.

The next best option was to recreate Nigella's kitchen in a studio.

Nigella would still feel confident cooking in a familiar kitchen layout and the camera and sound crew would have the control, space and flexibility they needed.

Once we'd found a suitable studio we had eight days to build a fully functioning kitchen and patio garden from scratch.

Day one was spent putting fake walls or 'flats' up to create our room within a room.

Our kitchen only has three walls - the cameras and monitors all sit where a normal fourth wall would.

Just as in Nigella's own home we all wanted our set kitchen to have a large bookcase.

We needed this to be as light as possible so that we could physically move it safely when we needed to reposition the camera or lights.

Our design assistant Vicky came up with a fantastic idea and if you look closely at the pic above you'll see on the floor spines of books made of cardboard.

See below how they were mixed in with the other real books, most of which are Nigella's own. She's quite a reader.

Our small patio garden was based on something similar that Nigella has in her London home.

Luckily the studio had a large brick wall (see below) so that made for a great natural backdrop.

We then hired lots of large bushes and plants. With no natural light they had to be kept alive with a special lamp which we put on each night after we had wrapped shooting.

The plants needed even more watering than usual too because of the hot studio lighting.

We laid a real concrete patio and even brought in live moss to fill the cracks.

After bringing in many of Nigella's own pots, pans and props the last stage was a lick of paint on the floor and we were ready to go.

One of the common questions is what happens afterwards?

Well, the set goes into a special BBC storage area for the next time. The books and props all went back to Nigella's home.

The plants are returned to thrive in the natural light and hopefully get a little more TLC than they got from our very un-green fingered crew.

Jennifer Fazey is the series producer of Nigellissima.

Nigellissima continues on Monday, 1 October at 8.30pm on BBC Two. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Our Food: Exploring Britain's colourful history

2012-04-04T11:00:33+00:00

Our Food is a celebration of the nation's food - its origins, its tastes and the story it can tell us about our island's history.

I'm passionate about food and where it comes from.

At home I try and grow as many fruits and vegetables as the garden and greenhouse will allow and firmly believe the love and care put into the growing of food comes out in the flavour.

For me Our Food was an opportunity to extend that passion nationally and to explore the story of my favourite food and the people responsible for its production across Britain.

Alex Langlands meets Gwyn Thomas and his mountain sheep

You might think that as an archaeologist there isn't much call for my services in the food industry, but you'd be wrong.

Archaeologists - especially on TV - have been guilty of portraying archaeology in too narrow a light.

Over the last decade or so it has moved on as a discipline and has become so much more than a few trenches, some broken pottery and a handful of dusty old bones.

Archaeology is all about the material world around us and how to read that world.

Our own lives leave in their wake an archaeology of sorts, and even the most contemporary of industries leaves behind an archaeological record that can be studied in its own right.

The structured landscape of the world around us and the built environment are archaeological resources that can tell us a huge amount about ourselves.

For example I was amazed to discover in Scotland just how big the herring industry had been and how crucial to its growth the railways were.

The smokehouses of Mallaig, the dry stone walls of the Welsh valleys and the ancient field systems of Norfolk (all of which feature in the series) are all archaeological remnants of food-producing industries that have come to define these places and the people that occupy them.

What's more, before the Industrial Revolution the overwhelming majority of people in this country worked in a rural setting where their lives were intimately bound up with the production of one thing - food. So as an archaeologist you're never far from studying that which we have eaten and its centrality to our island's history.

In episode two, I got the opportunity to explore sheep farming in the mountains and valleys of Wales.

It's a way of life that really appeals to me. My host Gwyn was a true inspiration and I can honestly say that after a day striding around the valley I didn't want to leave.

Carving out a living in this harsh environment is all about working with the conditions - not against them - and the idea that sheep can be 'hefted' to the hills fascinates me.

A 'hefted' flock is a flock that knows their patch of the hillside and knows where to be and when. So much so that when the farmer comes to round them up all he needs is a dog and a whistle and the ancient knowledge passed down from generation to generation of sheep kicks in.

The flock slowly make their way, without the encouragement of a quad bike or the constraints of barbed wire, to a convenient place on the mountainside where they can be counted and checked - magic and timeless.

Alex visits Norfolk in episode two to examine the impact of the turnip

You'll see in episode one that I've always struggled to enthuse people about the turnip and just how important it has been to British farming.

So when I was asked to travel to Norfolk and explore the history of this humble vegetable and the role it still plays in agriculture, I was delighted.

This was a chance, once and for all, to spell out just how key it was to arable and livestock farming.

Turnips were introduced into crop rotations in the 18th Century to improve fertility in the soil, break the cycle of pests and disease and to support greater numbers of livestock.

The results of its introduction can hardly be understated and there's little doubt that without this simple root vegetable farming would never have been able to support the huge population growth of the 19th Century.

It was in Norfolk that it was really brought home to me just how important food is.

Its production and consumption permeate almost every aspect of our lives and its story can tell us so very much more than we think about Britain's colourful and extraordinary history.

Alex Langlands is one of the presenters of Our Food.

Our Food begins on Wednesday, 4 April at 8pm on BBC Two and BBC HD (except for analogue viewers in Northern Ireland and Wales). The series will be available to watch in iPlayer until Wednesday, 2 May. For more information about analogue television and the digital switchover please visit Help Receiving TV and Radio.

For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets

2011-02-21T14:38:17+00:00

There's a kitchen in a manor house on the edge of a village called Great Milton that has been my home for much of the last two years.

If you saw the last series of Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets, it's the little bit of heaven where we film most of the show and where we've been lucky enough to film a second series for BBC Two.

Now, I know what you're thinking: How great must that be... all that lovely food, nice and cosy?

And for the most part it really is wonderful.

But I need you to picture a scene: two huge camerablokes, an equally ginormous soundy, moderate sized director, delightful home economist and me, all standing against two giant chillers on a piece of floor the length of two baguettes and as wide as a pie dish.

You see, Raymond's kitchen is real. Not a set built in a studio.

And that reality brings with it the enormous fun of working in one of the best kitchens in the world as well as a few tiny issues. One of them is there isn't much space.

This year we've had the added joy of the weather, which has reduced the ambient temperature of the kitchen to one in which my morning cuppa resembles a frothy sorbet in five minutes flat.

We filmed Heston's Perfect Christmas Dinner in Siberia with Heston Blumenthal and I swear the crew needed fewer clothes.

But it does have one advantage and that is my key job as series producer is cuddling Raymond Blanc to keep him warm.

It isn't in my contract but sometimes a producer just has to do these things to keep the team happy.

I told him he could cook wearing his salopettes and ski jacket but he insisted on wearing in his whites.

That's the kind of sacrifice Raymond will make for you viewers. The man is fearless in the face of adversity.

But you'll notice the camera never sees Raymond's feet.

That is because while cooking he is standing in a heated foot muff.

No sock warmers for the rest of the location team, which I like to think of it as small but perfectly formed.

In addition to Raymond's assistants (the gorgeous Adam Johnson and new boy Kush), our crew consists of the guys I mentioned before and one more without whom we would be lost.

He's the chap who comes in first and leaves last and that is our runner Rob.

As Raymond's kitchen is a working environment, most evenings when we leave at around 7pm, the kitchen is used to service the private dining room of Raymond's restaurant.

This means that all those bits of set decoration you see on the show - the copper pans, bottles of oil, posters etc - are all taken away and stored overnight.

We all help out to get it done as fast as possible, but it is Rob who is there in the mornings putting it all back out again exactly where it was the night before.

It's his hard work that means that I don't have to answer letters telling me that the poster of mushrooms in the background at the beginning of the tarte tatin recipe has morphed into Great Fish Of The World by the time the tarte comes out of the oven.

My gratitude to Rob knows no bounds.

And, as if he isn't treasure enough, he does the washing up, which deserves some kind of recognition, possibly from the Queen or, failing that, the people who own Fairy Liquid.

Particularly as being from Cheshire, he refuses to wear rubber gloves. They are for soft southern runners apparently.

Unsurprisingly we do generate terrific amounts of washing up.

That's partly because Raymond, being a man, has a need to use every utensil and bowl in the kitchen once before requiring it to be washed.

(I have to qualify that by saying that Raymond himself washes up beautifully and did so after Sunday lunch at my house despite my protestations.)

And as we usually film two recipes in a day you can imagine it piles up pretty quickly.

We try to shoot one recipe in the morning and another in the afternoon.

It may interest you to know that my rule of thumb is the simpler the recipe appears to be, the longer it will take to film.

Don't ask me why. I truly have no idea. It's a space, time, ingredient dimensional shift the answer to which may be uncovered in a kitchen far, far away.

Watercress soup took the record last year. Several basic ingredients, not including water - five hours and a nervous breakdown. Mine, not Raymond's.

Oh how we laughed. Not.

We film everything just once on two cameras so what you see is what we filmed at the time with a few extra shots that we charmlessly call 'dumps' or 'throw ins'.

Those are the close up shots of things going into pans or blenders that help us knit the programme together.

Making a cooking show is a lot like cooking itself. It requires lots of attention to detail, good ingredients, patience and most importantly, a whole lot of love.

And that, let me tell you, is what you get when you work with the kind of team I am blessed to have had on this show. I'm the luckiest producer in the world.

I really hope you enjoy watching it as much as I have enjoyed making it.

It means a lot to get feedback from people who watch the show and I'll do my best to respond to as many of your queries as possible.

Melanie Jappy is the series producer for Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets.

Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets is on BBC Two and BBC HD at 8.30pm on Monday, 21 February.

For further programme times, please see the upcoming episodes page.

Read more from Melanie at the BBC Food blog about Raymond Blanc's trip to Fife for the first episode of Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Foods That Make Billions

2010-11-23T12:23:17+00:00

The Foods That Make Billions is a fascinating three-part series, which grabbed my attention as it goes directly to the core issues which affect the development of markets for branded products from a very practical viewpoint.

I'm a senior lecturer in retail management and this new series is valuable to me from a teaching perspective because it brings alive a whole range of marketing concepts. The series encapsulates in moments many ideas, making theoretical principles easy to understand.

I'm also one of the academic consultants on the series, so have attended concept and production meetings, offered advice on the focus of the series, read transcripts and fact-checked the content.

The really exciting part was watching the rushes as this is when the programme really started to take shape. Each episode focuses on a different foodstuff - bottled water, yoghurt and cereal.

In the UK, we have clean water available on tap and yet we spend our hard-earned cash buying two billion litres of bottled water every year. The food industry has become very adept at repackaging basic commodities and selling them to us to make significant profits.

Episode one, Liquid Gold, looks at many core branding concepts and draws us into the unfolding story of the development of the multi-billion dollar market of bottled water.

In the programme, Professor Richard Wilk, who teaches anthropology at Indiana University, makes the point that in the past, water was blessed by holy people and given power. Now he says the power is bestowed on water by corporations, governments, celebrities and brands.

The question of whether water has mystical connotations is interesting. Water is an essential commodity - without it you die. So there are perhaps rational arguments for raising water up to a holy status.

Liquid Gold shows how entrepreneurs and multinational corporations like Nestle, Evian and Coca Cola have turned this naturally occurring and life-saving drink into successful brands, and arguably encourage us to worship the brand by drinking bottled water - as if part of a new religion - daily during work, exercise and relaxation.

Is it immoral to build mega brands of bottled water while parts of the world are dying of thirst? Not having access to water is wrong in a world of excess, but so is not having food to eat, a place to work and earn a living, and a safe place to live.

Successful use of marketing and branding techniques has helped global corporations to create seemingly insatiable demand for bottled water in parts of the world. But bottled water is only part of a much bigger picture of social injustice between those individuals who 'have' and who 'have not'.

Most likely, there are suitable answers to many of the world's problems but while solutions are contingent on business success that is measured in financial terms we are unlikely to find answers which will give everyone access to a drink of water and a plate of food.

So water is no different to the commercialisation of many other commodities. It's just that in the UK, many of us are prepared to buy into bottled water brands to satisfy our daily needs rather than drinking from the tap, without much consideration of the sacrifices and wider impact of this act of consumption. The Foods That Make Billions gets into many of these issues and raises questions for us all to think about.

Dr Fiona Ellis-Chadwick is a senior lecturer in retail management at The Open University and an academic consultant on The Foods That Make Billions.

The Foods That Make Billions is on BBC Two at 9pm on Tuesday, 23 November.

For further programme times, please visit the upcoming episodes page.

Comments made by writers on the TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Jimmy's Food Factory: Taking apart supermarket food

2010-11-09T12:03:43+00:00

Jimmy's Food Factory opened for business on BBC One last week, and I wonder if you found it hard to believe some of the surprising things I discovered about the food in our shopping trolleys.

Whether you love or loathe the supermarkets they feed the nation. There's a tremendous amount of science that goes into stuff on the supermarket shelves. It's science you wouldn't know anything about just by looking around the aisles.

To understand and unpick all this science, I tried to make the foods myself. I had tonnes of fun doing that during the series.

I loved this bit of kit - the spud cannon had to be my favourite gizmo of the whole series. I used it to slice up potatoes into oven chips. Watch the clip below to see just how well, and fast, it manages to make a spud into a chip - it's the most fun you can have with potatoes.

That experiment is fun but it's also based on what they really do in the chip factories - except they propel their potatoes using high pressure water jets through a lattice of super-sharp blades.

To be honest I wasn't sure it would work. I couldn't imagine that my spud gun would have enough power to force a potato through a slicer and turn it into chips.

But as soon as I fired it for the first time I knew I was onto a winner. I hadn't realised quite how powerful it would be. It had a real kickback and the potato shot out so fast it blasted a hole in the side of the wooden barn wall.

Another favourite of mine was my pedal-powered peanut shelling bike that I used to make peanut butter. Although it looks crazy, it's based on a bit of a real life kit.

In the developing world they use a version of it to shell up to 50 kilos of nuts an hour. It's changed people's lives. Often it's a hand operated machine but using pedal power is much easier.

Everything I do in the barn is based on what the factories do, and finding out their secrets but, as you'll have seen, things are a little bit more cobbled together.

Another great design was my squirty cream canister. I used a fire extinguisher for my cream can. It looked the right shape and could withstand loads of pressure - perfect. And it was almost too good.

We don't do any rehearsals with the machines on Food Factory, so we never quite know what's going to happen, and that was exactly the case with squirty cream.

I'd got so much gas into the fire extinguisher that when I pulled the trigger it exploded all over the place and I completely covered the film crew in squirty cream.

Being the pros they are, the camera crew just kept filming even though they were getting covered from top to toe in cream. I thought it was hilarious - I'm not so sure what they thought.

The other great thing about making Food Factory is getting inside the real food factories. It's unbelievable seeing the things we take for granted being made on such a massive scale - and seeing the tricks of the trade for myself.

Factories aren't just about machines, they're also about the people, and I love meeting people with such expertise and passion for their work.

In particular, I really liked going to the tea factory. I love drinking tea (think 15 cups a day is excessive? For me it's normal) and my grandad used to be a tea taster.

It's the tea taster's job to make sure every brew you make tastes the same - that's because your cuppa is made out of loads of different tea leaves.

The way the leaves taste keeps changing depending on where they're grown, the weather, and the soil. The tea taster has to make sure he blends together all those different leaves to get the same taste every time.

What really amazed me was that, even with all the technology we have nowadays, it was all down to one human being and his taste buds to work out what we like in our tea. Amazing.

But I guess the highlight of Food Factory has to making my own Jimmy Mart products that actually work.

The thing is, until I taste them I don't really know what they'll be like, as looks can be deceptive. And because my equipment is so rough and ready it can be difficult to refine the taste. So things can end up being either totally overwhelming, or a bit 'so what'?

You might think that sometimes it looks like I don't really want to taste my products - and sometimes you'd be right. All the cameras are up and ready to film the taste test and I'm thinking, 'I don't think I want to eat this after the things I've done to it.'

One of the worst ones this series was chicken Kiev (because I'd pulverised chicken carcasses on a car tyre). It was pretty awful - all the garlicky bit had totally dried out leaving me with a dry chewy wodge.

Chewing gum was a bit dodgy too (the weirdest set of ingredients you can imagine - completely unfood-like). But do you know what? Although I might have lost a filling or two chewing on my gum, it did work - it tasted like chewing gum.

And what made it even better was that the chewing gum experts told us we'd never manage to make it - but we did.

Jimmy Doherty is the presenter of Jimmy's Food Factory.

Jimmy's Food Factory is on BBC One and BBC One HD on Wednesdays at 8pm.

For further programme times please visit the upcoming episodes page.

Mary Berry: Judging The Great British Bake Off

2010-08-31T14:30:54+00:00

The Great British Bake Off, presented by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins, sees 10 homebakers testing their skills in the kitchen to be named top amateur baker at the end of the series.

Expert baker and author Mary Berry spoke to the BBC TV blog about her role as one of the two series judges.

How did you come to work on the Great British Bake Off?

Quite simply - I was asked. I've written about cakes for years, and was thrilled to be asked to be given the opportunity to use my expertise to judge others.

Making a TV programme seems very different to how I imagine writing a cookery book must be - what are the differences that you enjoy?

The processes are very different, when writing a cookery book. With writing a cookery book, you have to research the recipes, then test them, and finally find a way to translate only the best recipes into language that everyone can understand.

By contrast, being a judge was about applying my knowledge, using everything I've learned to deconstruct the perfect bake, which is almost the other way round.

Some of the contestants would come in with recipes that I'd never tried myself, so I had to refer to the basics - texture, taste, appearance - to judge their attempts, but to explain what they could have done better.

Mel says she comes from a tradition of strong baking women - like an army - where did your love for baking come from?

My love of baking came from cooking at school - I wasn't very good at Latin and maths, so cooking was one of the first things that I did that I was any good at.

Baking has been important to my family for generations, both my mother and my grandmother baked. Families are a great resource for passing on baking expertise, and fostering a love of good cake.

Did you do home economics at school? What did your teacher think of your cooking?

It was my teacher, Miss Date, who encouraged me to cook. She gave me every possible encouragement, at a time that I wasn't much cop at school. The first thing that I ever took home was a treacle sponge - my father gave me great praise which I rarely got for any schoolwork, and I've loved to cook ever since.

Are you a messy cook?

No, because it's me that has to clear up later.

Do you ever use ready meals or other shortcuts when you're in private?

Not really - I'll usually muster up something from the fridge and the store cupboard. But I do sometimes take shortcuts, I use puff pastry, stock cubes and I use my freezer as a long term store cupboard.

What's your favourite thing to bake?

Traybakes - they're quick to bake, wonderful to eat and good for every occasion.

The contestants are baking competitively and Sue talks about baking being about "solitude, peace and calm". What feeling does baking give you?

Sue is perfectly right - it's a wonderfully solitary activity. The only company I usually have are my recipes and my dogs, but I love cooking with my grandchildren. It gives me great satisfaction, especially knowing that you're making something that other people can enjoy. It's never work, always a pleasure.

What were Mel and Sue like to work with?

They were just wonderful, and both are quite keen on baking which was a wonderful surprise. But most importantly, they approached every situation with good humour, which made everyone relax, and particularly made the whole experience much more fun for the contestants.

Mary Berry is one of two judges on The Great British Bake Off.

Update 2015: Series six begins on Wednesday, 5 August at 8pm on BBC One.

Series one of The Great British Bake Off began on BBC Two on Tuesday, 17 August 2010.

You can see Mary's Victoria Sandwich recipe from The Great British Bake Off, and other recipes from the show, on the BBC Food website.

If you're inspired to organise a bake sale, you can download tips, bunting and more recipes from the Get Baking For Children In Need page.

Fiona Wickham is the editor of the BBC TV blog.

Out Of The Frying Pan and into Sandhurst

2010-05-04T16:52:29+00:00

We were only there to watch. It's standard procedure in an observational series, but a little less easy to pull off when your lens is trained on two rookie caterers who've just been told they must deliver a three-course banquet to nearly 300 newly commissioned officers.

Every producer's instinct is to make it happen. As the series producer dealing with both James and Ali and the clients they'll be cooking for, my instinct was no different. But in this case 'it', the event, will be solely, wholly, utterly in the hands of James and Ali.

James Knight Pacheco and Alasdair Hooper took part in the second series of The Restaurant, competing to win the backing of Michelin-starred chef Raymond Blanc to open their own restaurant. They made it all the way to the final, gaining a huge and affectionate following, only to be pipped at the post.

Despite coming second, it was clear they had both talent and great TV presence. They were fun and funny together, and passionate about offering a fine dining experience, although, as The Restaurant judges constantly told them, they were rather inclined to overlook basic details in delivering it.

Raymond Blanc offered James training in his own kitchen at the double Michelin-starred Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons and Ali was given a position in front of house. Nine months later the BBC returned with a new challenge: test your new skills in the real world once more - this time as event caterers.

They'd learned huge amounts training under Raymond and were eager to prove it. But however tough the Manoir kitchen, it had Monsieur Blanc's exquisitely honed menu, an elite kitchen team, and fully functioning equipment.

What James and Ali are embarking on now is guerrilla gastronomy - rolling out their brand of fine dining wherever and for whoever was asking. And we tracked down some pretty demanding clients to test their mettle.

Duncan Bannatyne's dinner party in Mougins in the south of France took bags of ingenuity in episode one. But they managed to steer their way through French food markets and unfamiliar local ingredients.

Then, in episode two, in the New Forest they'd overcome antiquated ovens and served up nearly 18 hours of continuous service culminating in a five course game banquet.

With happy clients under their belts, I knew the boys were riding high. I also knew the Sandhurst dinner, with the biggest number of diners they'd ever served, was going to stretch them further still.

But only as James and Ali themselves stood in front of the chief of staff and head of functions for their briefing did I realise fully how hard we were pushing their buttons.

In keeping with the ceremony of the evening, Sandhurst wanted silver service. It was a shock enough for front of house Ali, who'd never overseen a silver service team in five years in the restaurant trade, but a quick look at James revealed he may as well have been asked to plate up on the moon while wearing a spacesuit backwards.

I'd thought it was all about numbers, but the challenge for James was something else altogether. I think even he'd agree he likes to be in control - he's a perfectionist, certainly, used to overseeing every item he sends out from the kitchen.

But the Sandhurst request meant handing over his creations to be served up by strangers. In a cruel culinary twist on Chinese whispers, James would need to demonstrate his dishes first to Ali, who would, in turn, have to communicate his presentation to an as yet unknown team of 30 waiting staff.

It was a terrifying turn of events for James. And one we hadn't even spotted coming.

The giveaway with James is his silence, and a tiny ticking muscle in his face. But even if we had been able to take him to one side, resuscitate and reassure it would all be OK, he wouldn't have listened. He needed to work out a menu strategy for himself, and within 24 hours he had.

James is one clever and creative chef, and the menu he created to waiter-proof his dishes without compromising on design or taste was inspired. It even looked as though they might be in for a smooth service on the night - well right up until the afternoon of the event....

As for the night itself - well it's probably not giving anything away to say it's another white knuckle ride - both in the kitchen and front of house. Make sure you watch to see if anyone gets fed!

Rachael Barnes is the series producer of Out Of The Frying Pan. The third episode will be on BBC Two on Wednesday, 5 May at 7pm