The Full English

What did the ancient Romans do for us? Well, according to Thom Ntinas from The Delicious Legacy podcast, they were the first to give Britain the burger.Find out more about the lasting culinary legacies of ancient Roman Britain in this special cross over episode.Presented by Thom Ntinas and Lewis Bassett. Produced and edited by Thom Ntinas. Music from Pavlos Kapralos.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Costa is the nation's most popular coffee shop. There are 1000 more Costa than Starbucks and 500 more than Greggs. And that's before we take into account Costa's express machines and retail products.How did Costa get so big and why do we love it?Lewis Bassett is joined by co-host Jemma Greenwood, comments from the coffee historian Jonathan Morris and a Costa taste testing with three time UK barista champion Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood. Forest DLG provides the music and sound design.Find Jonathan's excellent podcast on the history of coffee here.Maxwell has written three books on coffee and you can find his boutique coffee shops in Bath and London. Find more info on him here.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Few people are aware that in the first half of the 20th century the British government helped establish a huge number of popular canteens, serving food to everyone who wanted it during war time and afterwards. These British Restaurants, as they became known during World War II, were, at their hight, more numerous than today's McDonalds and Wetherspoons combined.Lewis Bassett speaks to Bryce Evans, a Professor of History at Liverpool Hope University, about British restaurants and their relevance for food bank Britain today.Bryce's book is called Feeding the People in Wartime Britain. A cheaper paperback edition will be available in November. He has written widely on the subject, including here.Mixing and sound design from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

Vines in a Cold Climate is a new book by Henry Jeffreys charting the sparkling rise of English wine and the people behind it. Lewis Bassett and Jemma Greenwood speak to Henry over a couple of bottles of vins anglais about Henry's book, the story of English wine and attitudes towards wine drinking in England.Mixing and sound design is as ever from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

What is a caff when it's not a cafe? Where did the caff come from and who will mourn the greasy spoon if, as we hear, they're disappearing? Joining Lewis Bassett is the author and Guardian columnist Felicity Cloake and Isaac Rangaswami, writer and the man behind the Instagram page Caffs Not Cafes.Felicity's book is Red Sauce Brown Sauce. Her writing for the Guardian can be found here. Isaac has written about caffs for the Guardian and Vittles. Mixing and sound design is from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

There exists a distinctly middle class culture in Britain that has taught us to love our meat, especially if we feel guilty about eating it. But what if rather than caring for the animals we eat, we thought about animals as an exploited class who deserve justice, not a cuddle before they are slaughtered? So argues Amber Husain in Meat Love, a powerful little book that is out now.Lewis Bassett speaks to Amber Husain about the book, whether capitalism really is a barrier to changing our food system and whether it's wrong to love your meat.Mixing and sound design is from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

By creating a network of pubs that are accessible to anyone with 89p for a coffee, JD Wetherspoon has become something of a public service. But should Britain's most popular pub chain really be owned by Tim Martin and a small group of shareholders? Is it time to nationalise Wetherspoons?In this episode, Lewis Bassett is joined by Jemma Greenwood to discuss the origins and meanings of Spoons, and by James Meadway to discuss pubs and public ownership.Mixing and sound design is from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.

British people are fatter and sicker than people in most other rich nations. That's down to our food system, argues Henry Dimbleby in his new book Ravenous, co-authored with Jemima Lewis. In this episode, Lewis Bassett speaks to Henry about his book, covering everything from why exercise won't help you lose weight to how what we eat is a leading cause of climate change to why food companies are helpless to create the kind of food system we all need to stay alive. Henry Dimbleby is the co-founder of the restaurant chain LEON and author of the government initiated National Food Strategy. He is also a co-founder of Chefs in Schools. Mixing and sound design is from Forest DLG. Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.