Share
The Full English
The invention of 'modern European' food in England
Season 1, Ep. 5
•
How did the English go from eating cans of baked beans to dribbling olive oil over a fresh rocket and sundried tomato salad? In this episode, we’ll look at how a movement of cooks and cookery writers helped to challenge the status of elite, classical French cuisine as the gold standard of food in England with provincial French and Mediterranean cooking. It’s also the story of the rise of a new middle class movement whose European tastes not only assumed a central place at our dinner tables but lent politics and culture in England a repertoire of feelings and sentiments that have been mobilised in debates around the EU and inequality in Britain.
Featuring: Shaun Hill, Fay Maschler, Rowley Leigh, Jonathan Meades, Dan Lepard, Margot Henderson, Anna Tobias, Jeremy Lee, Ben Highmore, Fergus Henderson and Trevor Gulliver.
This show was produced by Lewis Bassett with music from Forest DLG.
More episodes
View all episodes
Season 4 trailer
01:05
1. Delia Smith with Felicity Cloake and Zoe Williams
57:14Delia Smith: friend of the royals, a national treasure who taught us how to boil and egg and an advocate for radical spiritualism. In this episode Lewis Bassett, Felicity Cloak and Zoe Williams unpick who Delia is and what her impact has been on how we eat in Britain.This is the first episode of our new series on cooks who've change the way we eat. Subscribe to hear future episodes on everyone from Madhur Jaffrey to Jamie Oliver.Mixing and sound design from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
8. A pervert's guide to fine dining
36:55Who or what are ultra elite restaurants for? Welcome to a pervert's guide to fine dining.Produced and presented by Lewis Bassett, featuring Andy Hayler, Erin McDonnell and Robin Burrow.Mixing and sound design from Forest DLG.Follow the Full English on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.Clips from:The Bear, FXGrant Achatz on Chef's Table, NetflixDan Barber on Chef's Table, NetflixArtisans of Craft: Thomas Keller, Peter MillarMasterchef The Professionals with Rasmus Munk, BBCThe Menu, Searchlight Pictures'World's best restaurant will close', Euronews Boiling Point, ITVMarco, BBC
7. Why do we eat turkey at Xmas? A Full English festive special!
01:09:11Join us, join us, join us for a Full English Christmas special! Get the turkey in the oven and warm some wine as we answer all your questions on why we eat and drink in the ways we do at Christmas. And hear us rate the best and worse mince pies from high street coffee shops.Lewis Bassett is joined by the man of music Forest DLG, master baker Rebecca Spaven, the talented Jemma Greenwood and the food historian Neil Buttery. Hohoho and sponsor our show: https://www.patreon.com/fullenglishFind more about Neil, including links to his wonderful books and his podcast here.Have a good one!
7. What did the Romans do for us?
01:00:56What 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.
6. Why everyone loves Costa Coffee
01:00:17Costa 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.- 39:53Few 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.
4. Is English wine any good?
48:23Vines 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.
3. On caffs, not cafes
56:38What 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.
