Catch up TV

Series 47: 16. A History of Food

In this special episode, the Antiques Roadshow delves into the history of food with a selection of objects that reveal four hundred years of cooking and eating, from farmhouse fare to royal banquets. \n\nFrom ancient recipe books and an early guide to royal cookery to quirky kitchen gadgets and Georgian cookware, this episode looks at the way Britain’s food culture has changed over the centuries.\n\nSpecial guest Dame Mary Berry joins Fiona Bruce to reminisce about her life in cooking, with the aid of three cherished old kitchen items – a potato ricer, a pestle and mortar and a fearsome mandoline slicer.\n\nFood historian Ivan Day reveals some of the treasures in his remarkable collection, including a ravioli cutter dating back to the time of Michelangelo, while author and broadcaster Dr Annie Gray explores the history of afternoon tea, recreating a selection of dishes from the recipe books of late 19th-century cook Avis Crocombe, who worked at Audley End House in Essex.\n\nRonnie Archer Morgan calls into one of the longest running Indian restaurants in Britain, Veeraswamy, which opened in 1926, and visits the Museum of London to explore the links between sugar and slavery – powerfully evoked in an early 19th-century sugar bowl with an anti-slavery message.\n\nMark Smith looks at the huge dangers facing the Atlantic convoys that kept Britain supplied with food during the Second World War, while Fuchsia Voremberg celebrates one of the earliest celebrity chefs, Philip Harben, who rose to fame with his rationing recipes and TV appearances in Tudor costume. \n\nAt the Ulster Folk Museum in Belfast, Lisa Lloyd learns about the history of soda bread and sees butter churned by hand using a turn of the century farmhouse gadget.

Source: BBC 2