The Food Programme - Fresh Grounds: The Search for the World's Rarest Coffee

Fresh Grounds: The Search for the World's Rarest Coffee

02/20/22 • 28 min

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Dan Saladino meets the plant hunters searching for the world's lost and forgotten coffee varieties and Michael Pollan, author of This is Your Mind on Plants, explains how caffeine helped usher in the modern world.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

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Ainsley Harriott: A Life Through Food

Ainsley Harriott joins Jaega Wise to share his 'Life Through Food' from his kitchen in South London. Ainsley is one of the UK's most recognisable TV chefs; after training at Westminster College he worked at a number of London's hotels and restaurants - including The Long Room at Lords Cricket Ground where he became head chef. In the early 90s he got his first broadcasting gigs - on BBC Radio 5, and shortly afterwards "tv came knocking".

Over the past 25 years he has hosted countless programmes - including Can't Cook Won't Cook and Ready Steady Cook for a decade. He has presented series for US and South African television, been a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, and was awarded an MBE in 2020. His latest TV series, 'Ainsley's Good Mood Food' is all about cooking food to boost your mood.

In this interview, Ainsley takes us back to the early days of family dinner parties, a summer in France, and his journey to TV stardom. He also discusses what it's like to be the subject of many many memes and where he finds his seemingly perpetual energy. Jaega also speaks to school friend and the other half of Ainsley's 90s pop group The Calypso Twins, Paul Boross, and hears from Ainsley superfan, Radio 1 Breakfast DJ Greg James, who's obsession with Ainsley turned him into a viral sensation.

Presented by Jaega Wise Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan

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Scotland, a Good Food Nation?

Can Scotland become a nation where people from every walk of life ‘take pride and pleasure in the food they produce, buy, cook, serve, and eat each day’?

Sheila Dillon and her Scottish producer Robbie Armstrong assess the country’s health and food system, and find out what opportunities and hurdles lie ahead as the Good Food Nation Bill is introduced to the Scottish Parliament.

Sheila speaks to Scotland’s national chef Gary Maclean about the past, present and future of Scottish cuisine, while Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands Mairi Gougeon sets out what she hopes to achieve with the bill.

She meets Pete Ritchie from the food policy NGO Nourish to hear why he believes the bill does not go far enough and should include a ‘right to food’. She visits social enterprise food business Locavore to speak to its founder Reuben Chesters, before exploring the complexities of food poverty with author of Feed Your Family for £20 a Week, Lorna Cooper.

Robbie heads to his home town in the Scottish Borders to speak to Bosco Santimano from a social enterprise teaching basic cooking skills, and visits Food Punks, a project run by young chefs in the town of Peebles.

Produced by Robbie Armstrong in Glasgow.