13 April

Nose Dive with Harold McGee

What is smell? How does it work? And why is it a key component in taste? Harold McGee, the leading expert on the science of food and cooking, has spent a decade exploring these questions for his new book, Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells. Join him on an adventure across four billion years, from the sulphurous early Earth to the fruit-filled Tian Shan mountain range north of the Himalayas and back.
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In this special event to launch the 2021 Food Season, Harold talks about our most overlooked sense to food-writer Tara Wigley, whose work as collaborator on several Ottolenghi cookbooks celebrates her appreciation of all our senses when it comes to enjoying food. Introduced with a tribute by chef Heston Blumenthal, who has credited McGee’s first book, On Food and Cooking, as a crucial influence on his own unconventional approach in the kitchen.

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Harold McGee studied at Caltech and Yale, and since 1980 has been writing about the science of food and cooking. He’s the author of the award-winning book On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, a visiting lecturer in Harvard University’s course “From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science” and a former columnist for The New York Times. He’s been named food writer of the year by Bon Appétit magazine and to the TIME 100, an annual list of the world’s most influential people. McGee’s new book, Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells, began as a project about the flavours of food and drink, but expanded over the course of a decade to encompass the smells of the material world at large, which flavours often echo. Smells are triggered by molecular bits of that world, and Nose Dive explores their presence in interstellar space and the early Earth, in forests and meadows, sea coasts and cities, in and on our own bodies, and finally their contribution to incense and perfumes, food and wine and spirits.

Tara Wigley worked in publishing for the best part of a decade before switching to food and writing in 2010. She trained at the Ballymaloe cookery school in Ireland, began to work with Yotam Ottolenghi in 2011, and for the first year tested recipes with Yotam in his West London flat before taking on the role of writing collaborator. Tara was very involved with the creation of Plenty More and is credited on the title page with the writing of Nopi: The Cookbook, Sweet, and the re-launched edition of Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. She is the co-author with Yotam Ottolenghi of Simple and with Sami Tamimi of Falastin, which has been shortlisted at the André Simon Awards.

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16 April

Men and Food, Dudes and Diets

Emily Contois’ recent book Diners, Dudes and Diets explores how food, gender and power collide, so who better to discuss this with than someone who is no stranger to the politics and passions of the professional kitchen, Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge?
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Emily J.H. Contois is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tulsa and the author of Diners, Dudes and Diets: How Gender and Power Collide in Food Media and Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2020). She holds a PhD in American Studies from Brown University and three master’s degrees: an MA in American Studies from Brown University, an MLA in Gastronomy from Boston University, and an MPH focused in Public Health Nutrition from University of California, Berkeley. Her research explores the connections between food, the body, health and identities in US popular culture and media, and has been published in numerous academic journals and books. She has also written for NBC News, Jezebel and Nursing Clio, and appeared on CBS This Morning, BBC Ideas, and Ugly Delicious on Netflix. She blogs at emilycontois.com and can be found on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @emilycontois.

Tom Kerridge worked as a chef in restaurants across Britain before deciding to set out on his own and take over a rundown pub in the quiet Buckinghamshire town of Marlow. He opened The Hand & Flowers with his wife, Beth, in 2005, and it went on to become the first (and only) pub in the world to be awarded two Michelin stars. The success of the team led to the opening of its sister pub The Coach of Marlow, which achieved its first Michelin star in 2018. You can also find Tom and his crew of culinary pirates behind the scenes of The Bull & Bear of Manchester, Kerridge’s Bar and Grill of London and The Butcher’s Tap of Marlow. His television series include, most recently, Saving Britain's Pubs, and Tom has been at the helm of the BBC’s Bake Off: Crème de la Crème and Food & Drink, Saturday Kitchen and Top of the Shop. His has written several bestselling books; next up is Tom Kerridge’s Outdoor Cooking, published summer 2021.

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17 April

Homecooked

If lockdown has achieved one thing, it’s got people cooking. We want to hear about your family-favourite recipes, your culinary triumphs and your catering catastrophes. Whether they’re written down or ingrained in memory, come along and tell us how you’ve cooked through the past 12 months.
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This will be an interactive event where we’ll share thoughts on home cooking, discuss the cookery books we love and the recipes we could not live without. Hosted by award-winning food-writers Lindsey Bareham and Georgina Hayden with Food Season Guest Director Angela Clutton.

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Lindsey Bareham is best known for her daily after-work recipes – first in the London Evening Standard for eight years, more recently for 12 years in The Times, and now writing the cookery column for The Idler. Along the way she has brought up two sons and written 15 cookbooks including One Pot Wonders, The Fish Store, The Big Red Book of Tomatoes and Just One Pot, plus two cookbooks with Simon Hopkinson: The Prawn Cocktail Years and Roast Chicken and Other Stories. Lockdown has meant even more cooking, lunch and dinner. My Week in Food, a diary of food shopping, cooking, eating, favourite websites, shops and restaurants with tips and advice, can be found at www.lindseybareham.com.

Georgina Hayden is a food writer and stylist from North London. Having grown up above her grandparents' Greek Cypriot restaurant in North London, she has a keen interest in family recipes and nostalgia around food. She spent 12 years developing and styling recipes for Jamie Oliver, before going solo and writing her own books. Both of her books, Stirring Slowly and Taverna, revolve around family and the shared joy around food. Georgina also writes columns for publications including the Telegraph, Waitrose Magazine and The Wine Society magazine, and regularly appears on TV – including a regular slot on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch – on radio and at many food festivals.

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21 April

Cyanide and Marmalade

Whether comforting and reassuring or menacing and ominous, food plays a key role in creating mood, character and plot in crime fiction. Discover the murderous, devious and cunning world of writing about food and crime with the author of The Little Library books, Kate Young.
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Kate Young is a food writer, cook, and bookworm. She is the author of three cookbooks filled with recipes inspired by her favourite novels: The Little Library Cookbook, The Little Library Year, and The Little Library Christmas. Her writing has been recognised with awards from The Guild of Food Writers and the World Gourmand awards. She is based in the English countryside, where she is writing her next book and working behind the counter in her local bookshop.

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In the Kitchen with Bill Buford and Jonathan Meades

Acclaimed writers Bill Buford and Jonathan Meades talk to Masterchef judge and restaurant critic Tracey MacLeod about their shared passion for food, honed through residence in France
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Bill Buford is the author of Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany and Among the Thugs. He is the editor of The Granta Book of Travel, The Granta Book of Reportage and The Granta Book of the Family. He has received a Marshall Scholarship, a James Beard Award, and the Comune di Roma’s Premio Sandro Onofri for narrative reportage. For 18 years, Buford lived in England, and was the founding editor of the literary magazine Granta and the founding publisher of Granta Books. He moved to the United States in 1995 to join The New Yorker, where he has been the fiction editor, a staff writer, and a regular contributor. He was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, educated at University of California, Berkeley, and King’s College, Cambridge, and now lives in New York City with his wife, the wine educator and writer Jessica Green, and their twin sons.

Jonathan Meades is a writer, journalist, essayist and film-maker. He was restaurant critic at The Times from 1986 to 2001 and was named Best Food Journalist of the year four times. His books include three works of fiction – Filthy English, Pompey and The Fowler Family Business – and several collections including Museum Without Walls, which received 13 nominations as a book of the year in 2012, and his latest, Pedro and Ricky Come Again. An Encyclopaedia of Myself was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2014 and shortlisted for the 2015 PEN Ackerley Prize. His first and only cookbook, The Plagiarist in the Kitchen, was published by Unbound in 2017. Meades has written and performed in more than 60 highly acclaimed television films on predominantly topographical subjects such as shacks, garden cities, megastructures, buildings associated with vertigo, beer, pigs, and the architecture of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and Franco. He also creates artknacks and treyfs. Treyf means impure, not kosher: it sums up his approach to all writing, film and art.

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24 April

The Art and History of Pies

Famed for his intricate pastry designs and innovative fillings, Chef Calum Franklin has revived the art of the pie in the UK. For this live session you are invited into the heart of Franklin’s bespoke pie room in London’s Holborn Dining Room to watch him create one of his pastry showstoppers while reflecting on the historical cooks, techniques and traditions that have inspired him.
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Calum Franklin began his career at Michelin-star restaurant Chapter One in Kent, where he developed his culinary knowledge and skills before later moving on to roles at The Ivy, Aurora at the Andaz Hotel, Indigo at One Aldwych Hotel and Roast in Borough Market. Currently Executive Head Chef at Rosewood London’s Holborn Dining Room, he is renowned for taking old-school pastry classics and updating them with quality British ingredients. Passionate about craftsmanship, which is demonstrated through his intricate and elaborate pastry work, he is perhaps best known for having spearheaded the development and launch of the restaurant’s ‘Pie Room’, a treasure trove of savoury delicacies for food lovers.

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27 April

From Fish Knives to Fish 'n' Chips

Do you have avocado or beans on toast? Put the milk in your tea first or last? And is your evening meal tea, dinner or supper? Come and explore how our eating habits are, and always have been, loaded with centuries of class prejudice.
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With Pen Vogler, whose recent book Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain reveals how food and eating have long reflected and have been used to enforce social difference, joined by writer Ruby Tandoh and campaigner Dee Woods to discuss eating, culture and identity in modern Britain. Chaired by Babita Sharma, BBC journalist and author of The Corner Shop.

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Babita Sharma is a BBC news presenter, documentarian and an award-winning author. She presents across BBC News including BBC Breakfast and BBC World News, where she is the lead news anchor for Newsday. Her landmark series Dangerous Borders: A Journey Across India & Pakistan on BBC Two took her to the India/Pakistan border 70 years after Partition, where she followed in the footsteps of her family who were directly affected. Babita is the author of the critically acclaimed book The Corner Shop, charting the social history of this unsung hero of British life. Growing up above a corner shop in 1980s Britain, Babita gives a fascinating perspective of the political and economic climate during her childhood through the lens of corner shop life.

Ruby Tandoh is a writer who explores the places where food intersects with popular culture, politics, art and identity. She started as a Bake Off contestant in 2013, reaching the final. Soon after she began a baking column for The Guardian, followed by cookbooks Crumb and Flavour. With her 2018 book Eat Up!, she explored everything from the magic of fries on a night bus home to the impact of food on mental health. March 2021 brought the publication of Breaking Eggs, an audiobook that guides listeners through the foundations of baking in real-time. This will be followed in October by Cook as You Are, which will show all cooks, regardless of circumstance, how they can create magic from the most mundane of ingredients.

Pen Vogler is a food historian and author of Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain, described by the Sunday Times as 'sharp, rich and superbly readable' and by the Observer as 'utterly delicious'. She has written Dinner with Mr Darcy on food in the life and works of Jane Austen; Dinner with Dickens; and guest-curated the exhibition Food Glorious Food at the Charles Dickens Museum. She edited Penguin’s Great Food series, has written on food history for the press, and recreated recipes from the past for BBC television. She also works (not quite full time) at Penguin Books.

Dee Woods is a food and farming action-ist and campaigner, who advocates for good food for all and a more just and equitable food system, challenging the systemic barriers that impact marginalised communities, farmers and food producers. Her work resides at the nexus of poverty and hunger, human rights, food sovereignty, community development, policy, research, climate and social justice. Dee is co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen in South Kilburn. A previous BBC Food and Farming Awards winner, Dee sits on the GLA London Food Board, the steering group of People Food Power and is a co-editor of A People's Food Policy. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at CAWR, Coventry University, member of the Food Ethics Council and the coordinating group of the Landworkers' Alliance, co-chair of the Independent Food Aid Network, (IFAN) and a trustee of Sustain.

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1 May

Simply Raymond

Join legendary chef Raymond Blanc and award-winning food-writer Felicity Cloake as Raymond shares a lifetime of stories about food, his love affair with British produce, and talks about his latest cookbook, Simply Raymond: a collection of his favourite home-cooked recipes inspired by his beloved mother, Maman Blanc.
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Raymond Blanc OBE is acknowledged as one of the finest chefs in the world. Completely self-taught, his influence on gastronomy is so great that he is the only chef to have been honoured with both an OBE from Britain and the Légion d'honneur from France. His beautiful hotel restaurant, Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, has retained two Michelin stars for 35 years and was voted Best Hotel and Best Food Hotel of the Year by The Caterer's Hotelier Top 100 Awards. Raymond has written more than 10 books and presented many television shows. He is honorary President of The Sustainable Restaurant Association and Vice President of Garden Organic.

Felicity Cloake is a freelance journalist and the award-winning author of the Guardian’s long-running 'How to Make the Perfect…' column, the New Statesman’s food column, and six books. The most recent is the Fortnum & Mason award-shortlisted One More Croissant for the Road, a culinary odyssey around France on two wheels, picking up recipes en route. She lives in London with a very greedy cairn terrier, but cannot wait to be back in her beloved France eating croissants and couscous.

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5 May

The Rise of New Food Media

Four leading food writers, podcasters and editors at the forefront of the rise of contemporary food media discuss how different voices, agendas, and publishing tools are disrupting and revitalising the conversation about food.
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Food writer Melissa Thompson leads the discussion between three exciting voices in new food media and debates: founder and editor of Vittles online magazine Jonathan Nunn; Stephen Satterfield of US-based Whetstone magazine and podcast; and writer, academic and commentator Anna Sulan Masing.

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Jonathan Nunn is a food and city writer based in London. His writing mainly focuses on restaurants, and their intersection with immigration, class, and gentrification. He also edits the food newsletter Vittles, which aims to platform food writing that does not currently have a space within mainstream British food media.

Stephen Satterfield is a print publisher, food writer, multimedia producer and founder of Whetstone magazine and Whetstone Media. Before his career in media, he was a sommelier and social entrepreneur, advocating for wine as a catalyst for economic development for Black wine workers in South Africa's Western Cape.

Dr Anna Sulan Masing is a writer, editor and academic focusing on food and drink, and has a PhD exploring identity and storytelling. Anna Sulan founded the public research project Sourced, which investigates global food and drinks pathways, and is one half of acclaimed podcast Voices at the Table. In 2020 she co-founded the platform Black Book, which looks to lead discussions and support Black and non-white people within the food and drinks industry. This year she will launch her first magazine, Cheese: the magazine of culture.

Melissa Thompson runs food and recipe project Fowl Mouths. In 2014, she started a supper club serving Japanese comfort food that grew into a successful pop-up. She’s been a vocal advocate for the promotion of Black and minority ethnic people in food, and now provides advice on all aspects of the industry. Her writing work includes regular features for BBC Good Food magazine. Instagram: @fowlmouthsfood

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7 May

Exhibiting Excess: Food through Art and History

Last year the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge staged the brilliant Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe (1500-1800), a multi-sensory exhibition showcasing multiple treasures and four spectacular historical reconstructions with food at their centre, including a Jacobean sugar banquet, a European feasting table and a Georgian confectioner’s workshop.
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This year the Louvre-Lens is presenting The Tables of Power: A History of Prestigious Meals, spanning 5,000 years of the culinary arts. Archaeological objects, paintings, sculptures, tableware, metalwork and fabulous objets d’art recount the history of the meal and rich exchanges between civilisations. Meet the lead curators for both exhibitions as they talk to consultant food historian Ivan Day about the journeys they took to bring these incredible food exhibitions to life.

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Dr Victoria Avery has been Keeper of the Applied Arts Department at the Fitzwilliam Museum since 2010, prior to which she was Associate Professor in the History of Art Department, University of Warwick. Vicky has researched, lectured, and published widely on all aspects of the applied arts, especially on European sculpture, most recently editing a monograph on Michelangelo: Sculptor in Bronze. She has also co-curated several ambitious, interdisciplinary, research-led collaborative exhibitions at the Fitzwilliam, most recently Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe (1500-1800), which was described as 'remarkable and imaginative' by The Spectator, 'highly entertaining' by the Telegraph, and as 'delight: erudite and joyful, sparking endless reflection' by the TLS.

Ivan Day is an independent food historian who has more than 40 years' experience of accurately recreating period food using original historic equipment and methods. He is particularly interested in the evolution of table display and his work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in Britain, Europe, Canada and the US, including the Rothschild collection, the Bowes Museum, the Metropolitan, The Getty Research Institute and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Ivan has worked with many curators of decorative arts in the interpretation of material culture linked to gastronomy. In 2012, he was the guest curator with Eike Schmidt of Supper with Shakespeare at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. In 2019 he worked with the Cambridge historians Victoria Avery and Melissa Calaresu on the groundbreaking exhibition Feast and Fast at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

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11 May

Food Scribes, Food Lives

Join three expert manuscript curators from across the British Library as they select their favourite historical food manuscripts from the collections. From medieval recipes written on vellum, to the cookery memoranda of 17th-century aristocratic women, to the varied food ingredients described within our Turkic collections, this session will examine what these items can tell us about cooking, diet, attitudes to food and how manuscripts offer wholly unique insights into food histories across time and place.
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Followed at 19.30 by The British Cheese Playlist (separate booking required).

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Dr Michael Erdman is Curator of Turkish and Turkic collections at the British Library. He was awarded the title of Doctor of Philosophy by SOAS in 2018. His doctoral research focuses on the interaction of ideology, politics, and scholarship in written historical narratives about Central Asia in both the Soviet Union and the Republic of Turkey. He is also interested in art and design in early Soviet Central Asia, the history of Turkic linguistics, and issues of identity and language among the Arabic-speaking Christian communities of Lebanon and Syria.

Jessica Gregory is Curatorial Support Officer for Modern Archives and Manuscripts at the British Library. She has recently researched our holdings of domestic cookery manuscripts in English, as well as archives relating to histories of food production, distribution and consumption in Britain from 1600 to today. She has summarised these collections online in four British Library collection guides. Her writing and reflections on British archives and manuscripts can be found on the British Library’s Untold Lives and English and Drama blogs.

Dr Eleanor Jackson is Curator of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern section of the British Library. She received her PhD in History of Art from the University of York, where her thesis focused on Insular pocket Gospel-books. Her research interests include medieval reading practices, book design and illumination. She co-devised the Great Medieval Bake Off series of blogposts on the Medieval Manuscripts blog.

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The British Cheese Playlist

According to Ned Palmer, author of the acclaimed A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles, the story of cheese tells the history of this land. And in the view of Harry West, professor of anthropology at Exeter University and expert on artisan food, cheese production tells us much about our relationship to memory, tradition and change.
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Chaired by Patrick McGuigan, author of the British Library publication The Philosophy of Cheese, this event includes a virtual British cheese tasting session, alongside discussion of their history, culture and production Ahead of the event the audience will be provided with a list of cheeses being featured. Preceded at 17.30 by Food Scribes, Food Lives - Uncovering Food in British Library Manuscripts (separate booking required).

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Patrick McGuigan is a freelance food journalist and cheese writer, who contributes to The Telegraph, The Financial Times, delicious and BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme. His first book, The Philosophy of Cheese, was published by the British Library in 2020. He hosts regular cheese talks and tastings, and is a senior judge at the World Cheese Awards. He also teaches Academy of Cheese courses at the School of Fine Food and virtually via the Online Cheese School. Patrick co-founded the British Cheese Weekender in 2020 - an online festival to support small cheesemakers during the coronavirus crisis, which was backed by HRH The Prince of Wales. He is partial to a slice of Kirkham's Lancashire.

Ned Palmer’s life as a cheesemonger began at Borough Market in the winter of 2000 when he ate a piece of cheese. Until that point Ned’s convoluted career path included degrees in philosophy, theatre, and psychology as well as librarianship, sound design, builder’s labouring and hospital portering. Since that moment, it’s been nothing but cheese. The inciting cheese was Trethowan’s Gorwydd Caerphilly whose maker Todd Trethowan, startled by Ned’s enthusiasm, got him a job at Neal’s Yard Dairy. Ned stayed there for seven years, working at the retail counter and in the cellars, washing, rubbing, patting and sometimes singing to the cheeses. In 2014 he set up the Cheese Tasting Company to bring proper cheese to the people, and when he is not eating or talking about cheese, Ned travels around Britain and the rest of Europe visiting cheesemakers and hearing their stories. Ned published his first book, A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles in October 2019, which was shortlisted for the André Simon, Fortnum and Mason’s and Guild of Food Writers prizes, and was a Sunday Times bestseller in 2020.

Harry West was born in the USA and has held research and teaching posts at Sweet Briar College in central Virginia, at the London School of Economics, the New School for Social Research in New York and the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He is currently Professor of Anthropology at the lectures at the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of Exeter where, among other things, he convenes the MA Food Studies. Harry’s research focuses on artisan foods and their place within the cultural economy, exploring how cheesemakers have preserved or transformed cheesemaking techniques while navigating a changing marketplace. Between 2005 and 2011 he conducted research with artisan cheese makers and cheese mongers in 13 countries including Turkey, Canada and the United States. He is particularly interested in how engagement with food—from making food, to sharing it and eating it—affords opportunities for people to remember, including the acquisition of memories of things they have not themselves directly experienced.

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12 May

Food in Service. In the Service of Food

In her recently published book, Victory in the Kitchen, historian and broadcaster Dr Annie Grey introduced the world to the woman who cooked for Winston Churchill, Georgina Landmere. Unexpected, funny and revealing, Annie’s book reveals Churchill’s domestic set up, including during the war years, and tells the story of an ordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances.
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While Landmere was cooking for Churchill, one-time governess and shopkeeper Florence White started the English Folk Cookery Association and embarked on a life-long mission to champion, discover and revive traditional English recipes. Although revered by cookery writers like Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson, relatively little is known about White. Historian Sue Quinn is planning to change this with the biography she is currently writing. Join Annie and Sue in a conversation chaired by Polly Russell about these two remarkable women and what their lives tell us about food, cooking and eating in the times they lived.

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Dr Annie Gray is a historian specialising in the history of British food and dining from c.1650-1950. She works as an author, broadcaster and consultant. Her books include Victory in the Kitchen: the life of Churchill's Cook; The Greedy Queen: Eating with Victoria; The Official Downton Abbey Cookbook and How to Cook the Victorian Way with Mrs Crocombe. Annie is the resident food historian on BBC4's award-winning culinary panel show, The Kitchen Cabinet, and has also worked as a consultant and presenter on such programmes as Victoria and Albert: The Royal Wedding; A Merry Tudor Christmas with Lucy Worsley; The Sweetmakers and Victorian Bakers (all BBC2). She works as a consultant to museums and heritage sites, advising on the presentation of food and dining-related spaces as well as the use of live interpretation, having run the costumed team at Audley End House (English Heritage) for many years. She's also a popular speaker. Annie is a research associate at the University of York.

Sue Quinn is an award-winning food writer, journalist and cookbook author. Her articles and recipes regularly appear in leading national newspapers and magazines, including the Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, delicious, The Washington Post and BBC Good Food magazine. In 2018 Sue won a Guild of Food Writer’s Award, and in 2016 received the Fortnum & Mason Online Food Writer Award. She has written fourteen cookbooks on a range of topics, and her latest, Cocoa: An Exploration of Chocolate, with recipes, was published by Quadrille in 2019 to wide acclaim. In 2019 she was awarded a bursary from the Guild of Food Writers to research the life of British Food Writer Florence White.

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18 May

On Restaurant Writing

Restaurant critics have the power to make or break a business, shape chef trends and influence food fashions. But who are their reviews written for, and what makes good restaurant writing? What is the responsibility of the food critic and how can the traditional forms of restaurant writing evolve for the times ahead? Led by Lisa Markwell, food editor of the Sunday Times, with Nicholas Lander restaurant critic for FT, and Jimi Famurewa restaurant critic for the Evening Standard.
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Jimi Famurewa is a writer, editor and broadcaster who contributes to publications including The Guardian, Time Out and Wired UK and, since autumn 2018, has been the restaurant critic for ES Magazine. Previously, he was Features Editor at ShortList Magazine for five years and Features Executive at The Evening Standard, where he edited the paper’s weekly food section. During his tenure at ES Magazine, Jimi has covered everything from blockbuster hotel openings to underpraised West African institutions, read some 'brisket erotica' (his words) at the hit food culture celebration Voices At The Table, and also established himself as a regular guest critic on BBC One’s MasterChef. He is the author of Family London (Frances Lincoln) – a guide to the capital's parent-friendly attractions, activities and restaurants – and, in 2017, he was shortlisted for The Guardian/4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize. He lives in south east London with his wife and two sons.

Lisa Markwell has been a journalist for 30 years, winning awards as editor of The Independent on Sunday and spending eight years as restaurant critic at the same paper. More recently she took a ‘gap year’ to undertake the chef’s diploma course at Leith’s School of Food and Wine, documenting her progress in a newspaper column and graduating with a distinction. Lisa is currently the food editor at The Sunday Times, working with many top chefs and food writers, and is editor at CODE Hospitality, writing a digital bulletin and print magazine for the restaurant community. She still cooks for occasional pop-ups. Her culinary adventures appear on Instagram as @holdsknifelikepen.

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19 May

Stories from Inside the Coffee Cup

Coffee sales have soared during the recent lockdowns, and one of the first things many of us are looking forward to when things reopen is getting back to our local coffee shop. But what do we really know about how our daily caffeine fix is produced, and the farming communities that may be behind it? This collaboration with Anna Sulan Masing’s Sourced project explores coffee farming and indigenous communities, primarily through the lens of Sarawak, Malaysia.
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The rediscovery of a forgotten coffee plantation has inspired re-thinking of what coffee means in and to Sarawak, as well as the creation of a coffee blend using coffee grown from small independent farms throughout Sarawak. With Raine Melissa Riman, whose research in Sarawak has been part of reviving a growing tradition that centres local communities; Thomas Haigh founder of Heaped coffee company developing products with small indigenous communities; and coffee-roaster Kenny Lee, the co-founder of Earthlings Coffee Workshop in Sarawak which is instrumental in promoting local coffee and localised coffee culture. They will be discussing with Anna how we can tell new stories of coffee which include indigenous communities in their place of origin, re-think colonial structures, and decolonise our ideas of taste.

Food Season supported by KitchenAid


Thomas Haigh is a coffee Q grader and consultant. He has 10 years experience in specialty coffee and was Head of Coffee at Tate from 2016-2020 where he set up the gallery’s Gender Equality Project. His work sourcing coffee and developing equitable supply chains has taken him across South and Central America and Africa. He is the co-founder of Heaped, paying fair prices for the coffees they source to support the growers they work with. 50% of profits are donated to organisations working to support people and protect the environment. Their coffee bags are 100% compostable and the packaging is 100% recyclable.

Kenny Lee is a Sarawakian coffee lover who has been travelling the world to learn about coffee since 2012. He co-founded Earthlings Coffee Workshop in 2014 with a simple purpose: bringing people together with seriously good coffee. Their aim is to encourage curiosity and respect to the origin of coffee, providing an authentic, unique, and down-to-earth coffee experience.

Dr Anna Sulan Masing is a writer, editor and academic focusing on food and drink, and has a PhD exploring identity and storytelling. Anna Sulan founded the public research project Sourced which investigates global food and drinks pathways, and is one half of acclaimed podcast Voices At The Table. In 2020 she co-founded the platform Black Book which looks to lead discussions and support Black and non-white people with the food and drinks industry. This year she will launch her first magazine, Cheese: the magazine of culture.

Raine Melissa Riman is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Swinburne University of Technology with experience in indigenous community livelihood and mobility research. In 2019 Earthlings Coffee Workshop invited her and her PhD Supervisor, Dr. Bertha Chin to co-organise the first Borneo Coffee Symposium - allowing Melissa the opportunity to start coffee culture research back in her own backyard of Sarawak and build on her deep interest in indigenous coffee production and the role of women in the coffee industry.

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20 May

Madhur Jaffrey: A Life In Food

For over 45 years Madhur Jaffrey has been revered around the world as the queen of Indian cooking. She arrived in London to study at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and her career would continue to span huge success across both food and acting. Her first book, An Invitation to Indian Cookery, was published in 1973 and her series for BBC television Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery made her a household name.
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She has appeared in over 20 films and written over 15 cookery books. Madhur is joining us live from her home in New York, and talking to Ravinder Bhogal - one of the most exciting modern food-writers and the chef-restaurateur of London’s Jikoni.

Food Season supported by KitchenAid


Ravinder Bhogal’s food is inspired by her mixed heritage, born in Kenya to Indian parents, and the UK’s diverse immigrant culture. Ravinder is a journalist, chef and restaurateur. She has penned two books, Cook in Boots and Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen, which was released in July 2020 and has been shortlisted for the André Simon Award. She has twice been named in Evening Standard Progress 1000 as one of London’s leading influencers of progress and diversity in the capital. Her debut restaurant Jikoni launched in 2020 a sustainable vegetarian home delivery brand Comfort and Joy. She is a monthly food columnist for FT Weekend Magazine and a contributing editor at Harper’s Bazaar.

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26 May

The People and Places of Caribbean Cooking

From family recipes to community cooking in the lockdown, this event explores Caribbean food in the home and beyond. Part of a wider oral history project, which is recording and archiving food memories and stories, this event will tap into stories of migration, belonging and community organising.
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Panel members include food writer Riaz Phillips, independent scholar researching the African presence in Yorkshire Joe Williams, cookery writer, former restaurateur and community cook Rosamund Grant, and project-lead on Caribbean Foodways at the British Library Naomi Oppenheim.

Food Season supported by KitchenAid


Naomi Oppenheim is a Collaborative Doctoral student at the British Library and the Institute of the Americas, UCL. Her doctoral research examines Caribbean diaspora publishing as part of the Caribbean/Black radical tradition. She currently teaches undergraduate and widening participant students at UCL. In 2017/18, Naomi assisted the curatorial team of the British Library’s Windrush: Songs in a Strange Land exhibition. Bringing together her personal and academic knowledge of migration, she contributed to Mother Country: Real Stories of the Windrush Generation (2018). Alongside her academic work, Naomi has been leading a community engagement and oral history project about Caribbean food, with the Eccles Centre, that connects participants' food memories to British Library collection items. She contributes regular blogs to the British Library Americas blogs about a range of Caribbean-centred topics.

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