The Food Programme BBC Radio 4

From Nobel winners to great innovators, Dan Saladino explores the history of prize-winning food ideas that changed the world, including researchers who uncovered the secrets of our stomachs to the plant breeds transforming the future of wheat.

Nominations are now open for this year's BBC Food and Farming Awards until June 19th, including Best Innovation which was created to celebrate ideas that will make food production better for us and for the planet.

For more than a century, and around the world, ground-breaking ideas linked to food have featured in awards and prizes, from Ivan Pavlov's research on our digestive system through to Norman Borlaug's efforts to increase food production with crop breeding in the 1960s. Both received a Nobel Prize.

In more recent years awards have been created to find solutions to some of the biggest challenges we face in food and farming. The former chef of the Swedish restaurant Faviken, Magnus Nilsson now oversees the Food Planet Prize, the world's biggest environmental prize. He tells Dan about previous winners who have created solutions to plastics in our oceans and the problem of abandoned fishing equipment, so called 'ghost nets' and also a project in Africa providing refrigeration to farmers which is resulting in a dramatic reduction in food waste.

Another award winner in the programme is Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace. This year she was recognised by the US based World Food Prize for decades of work helping to clear mines from regions impacted by conflict and return the land to food production.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

The BBC Food and Farming Awards are back for 2023 and now is the time to get nominating.

This year the judging will be lead by former Masterchef winner, and founder of the Mexican restaurant chain, Thomasina Miers.

In this programme, Jaega Wise meets Thomasina at one of her London restaurants to discuss how she plans to approach judging, and she chats to Sheila Dillon about how the awards came about, and why she believes they are still so vital.

This year the awards will all have a climate first theme, plus listen out for an announcement of a brand new award for 2023.

You can nominate people and businesses you know and love for the BBC Food & Farming Awards, just visit bbc.co.uk/foodawards where you can also find the terms and privacy notice. Nominations close 19 June at 23:59

Presented by Jaega Wise
Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

Leyla Kazim examines the growing influence apps, maps and lists are having on restaurant recommendations, food writing and the way we eat.

Leyla sits down for lunch with Michael O’Shea from the restaurant recommendation app Jacapo, ‘the social network for people who love food,’ to hear why he thinks apps like his have the potential to reshape the way people find new places to eat.

She meets Jonathan Nunn from online magazine Vittles in Green Lanes, North London, where they discuss the rapid trajectory of lists and map-based recommendations, and what these developments mean for the changing landscape of food media in the UK.

We get the thoughts of three restaurant critics on the subject: The Telegraph’s William Sitwell, The Evening Standard’s Jimi Famurewa and Elite Traveler magazine’s Andy Hayler.

In Glasgow producer Robbie Armstrong meets Julie Lin at her restaurant Ga Ga, where she talks about the way apps and tech now give restaurateurs instant feedback, and why she welcomes the social media reviewer as much as the classic critic.

In Edinburgh, Robbie sits down for lunch with The Times Scotland Restaurant critic Chitra Ramaswamy to hear why she welcomes the democratisation of food reviewing. She outlines why critics continue to play a crucial role, and explains the ethics behind her approach to criticism.

Social media influencers mvlondonreviews discuss the blurred lines that can emerge between restaurants and social media reviewers, and the reasons they set clear boundaries before a review.

Finally, The Palmerston’s James Snowdon recounts the game-changing power a restaurant critic still holds.

Presented by Leyla Kazim.
Produced by Robbie Armstrong.

Can you eat like a hunter-gatherer in 21st Century Britain? Dan Saladino meets a group of people doing exactly that to see how their bodies change during the three-month experiment.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

As people around the country gather to celebrate the coronation of King Charles III, Jaega Wise finds out how food is bringing communities together. Jaega joins a community lunch in Kidlington, run by the Cherwell Collective, to talk to its founder, Emily Connally, about their coronation lunch. She also asks Lucy Scott of the pay-as-you-can bakery Lil’s Parlour in Birmingham, all about why she wanted to bring her community together around food to celebrate the big day.

Also in the programme, food historian, Polly Russell, discusses how food has been used to mark coronations from the 1500s to today, and chef Ken Hom talks us through the inspiration for his coronation lamb dish.

Presented by Jaega Wise and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol

Traditional cafes, greasy spoon cafes - have been a fixture of our highstreets for at least a century, providing sustenance for those looking for something cheap and cheerful.

But for a long time, they have been in decline for a number of reasons, tough competition from chains, our changing tastes and work patterns. From the early 2000s people have been calling curtains for the cafe, but, with inflation, the cost of energy and a crisis in hospitality staffing, things are looking as bad as ever.

In three meals in three different locations across the country Leyla Kazim celebrates the greasy spoon.

She start with breakfast with Guardian columnist, author and fry up expert Felicity Cloake in Bournville Cafe, Birmingham. In her book "Red Sauce Brown Sauce" Felicity explores why the fry up is so important to the British psyche by traveling the country.

For lunch, she chats to her dad who owned caffs when she was growing up in Kaz's Kitchen in Woowhich. They talk about how owning a cafe has changed over time.

She’s in Liverpool for dinner meeting Isaac Rangaswami who runs the caffs_not_cafes instagram page in Chinese caff San's Cafe. Isaac celebrates classic cafes and inexpensive restaurants, mostly in London.

There is also thoughts on the possible decline of tradespeople eating in cafes from Nick Knowles and some familiar voices tell us their all time favourite places to get a fry up:

Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Angela Hui, William Sitwell, Paula Mcintyre and Henry Jeffreys

Presenter: Leyla Kazim
Producer: Sam Grist