Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be writing about it on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

This month: London Feeds Itself, edited by Jonathan Nunn. This episode features Kurdish chef and writer, Melek Erdal, one of the contributors to the book, reflecting on the essay she wrote, The Warehouse, and on London and Kurdish food in general.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

The second edition of London Feeds Itself is out now, published by Open City and Fitzcarraldo. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

A meandering exploration of what surrounds our food: its packaging, history and meaning for our world.

Featuring Hugo Lynch, Sustainability Lead at Abel and Cole, Alice Kain, curator at Museum of Brands, Renée and Anshu, founders of Dabba Drop and Sohini Banerjee, chef and founder of Smoke and Lime supper clubs.

Dabba Drop are offering 50% off the first order for Lecker listeners in London zones 1-3! Enter LECKER50 to use this excellent offer.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

This episode features excerpts from longer conversations published for paid subscribers on Substack and Patreon. Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

You can buy zines on BigCartel. You can also order print-on-demand merch at Teemill.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be writing about it on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

Conversations around food often - rightly - touch on attribution, ownership and identity, especially when it comes to certain dishes. But the subject is so, so complicated and many dishes we consider to be deeply entrenched within a country’s culinary history and culture are no more than PR exercises dreamed up a few decades ago. 

In National Dish :Around the World in Search of Food, History and the Meaning of Home, Anya von Bremzen explores whether we can find nationhood on a plate - and what it says about us that we’re so obsessed with looking for it there.

I loved this book. It’s fascinating and surprising but also Anya is such a great, dynamic writer that you feel like you’re on the road with her: party hopping at the Semana Santa in Seville, in the boardroom of an instant ramen company in Tokyo, learning to roll out the perfect pizza dough in Naples, drinking midday mezcal in Oaxaca. 

Anya and I spoke via video call a couple of weeks back, coincidentally on the day the book came out in the UK.

National Dish is out now, published by ONE, an imprint of Pushkin Press. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Stories of moving house, and moving kitchen.

Episode contributors:

Ruby Mason
Ruby is an editor at SAND, a Berlin-based journal of contemporary writing and art (www.sandjournal.com)

Margaux Vialleron
Margaux writes the newsletter The Onion Papers: https://theonionpapers.substack.com/

Maria Agiomyrgiannaki
Maria is originally from Crete, now living in London. You can find her on instagram.

Stephen Rötzsch Thomas
Stephen writes the newsletter Ideas With Legs: https://ideaswithlegs.substack.com/

Matthew Curtis
Matthew is a co-founder and Editor-in-Chief at Pellicle. 

Eli Davies
Like her doctorate, much of Eli's work is focused around women and home building; you can read some of it on Tribune here. She is currently writing a book about single women and cooking.

You can listen to Kitchens if you haven't already! And buy the print zine too.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be cooking from the book and writing about that on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

On this edition of the Lecker Book Club: Fliss Freeborn's Do Yourself A Flavour. Did you go to university? If you did, there’s a chance someone bought you - or you bought yourself - one of the many student cookbooks available. But did you actually find it useful? I definitely owned a couple of these myself, and I can’t say that I distinctly remember cooking anything from them - certainly nothing memorable, and definitely nothing that I continued cooking once I left student life. Fliss Freeborn feels very strongly that these books are more often than not a waste of your time and money and with Do Yourself A Flavour she’s written a different kind of cookbook - for students, yes, but also for anyone who wants to get themselves out of a pesto pasta rut, as she puts it, and more importantly have a good time doing it.

Fliss started university with a few years of cooking already under her belt, and so she wsas in the ideal position to start cooking for her friends, and eventually she wasn’t just providing delicious home cooked meals for them, but also recipes too. She started a food blog while studying, mostly so she’d have an easy way to send instructions to friends, and  this - a few years in - led to an unusual lucky break for her.


Do Yourself A Flavour is out now, published by Ebury Press. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Welcome to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be cooking from the book and writing about that on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

On the first edition of the Lecker Book Club: Maria Bradford’s Sweet Salone. Maria grew up in Sierra Leone and moved to Kent, UK in her late teens. Sweet Salone is the first English-language book of Sierra Leonean recipes published internationally, and in it Maria wanted to share the unique nature of the food of her home country, but also celebrate the country’s people, including her own family. But it wasn’t necessarily a smooth process writing the book, as you’ll hear her talk about.

We spoke about the culture shock she experienced on arriving in the UK; what it was like encountering strawberries and apples for the first time. But it was Maria’s deep-rooted curiosity about all kinds of food that eventually led her on a path to training at Leiths and setting up her fine-dining catering business, Shwen Shwen - a Krio phrase meaning ‘fancy’. It’s this outlook and experience that closely informs the recipes in the book: from traditional dishes learned from her mother and grandmother, to her very own brand of Afrofusion.

Sweet Salone is out now, published by Quadrille. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

An audio exploration of the most enigmatic meal of the day.

Thanks so much to the guests on this episode:
Bre Graham
Bettina Makalintal
Gurdeep Loyal
Dan Hancox and Dr Kasia Tee
Thea Everett
Lara Lee

You can listen to the full versions of all the Breakfast Season conversations by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Kevin McLeod at Incompetech

This is a preview of an episode of the excellent Cursed Objects podcast, featuring me, Lucy, talking to Dan Hancox and Dr Kasia Tee about the great British institution of Meal Deals.

Listen to the full version on Cursed Objects.

I’m delighted to bring you a very short sweet taste of a conversation I had recently with the food writer Gurdeep Loyal. I’ve followed Gurdeep’s work for a few years now, and have always been in great admiration of what he does; not only in his own writing, and not even just in his platforming of other people’s work on his site and instgram page Mother Tongue, but also just in his general enthusiasm, charm and fostering of connections and community within food. 

His debut cookbook, also called Mother Tongue, is published this week and celebrates his heritage as -as Gurdeep himself puts it: "a descendant of Punjabi farmers and Leicester market traders.”

This is part of a much longer interview over breakfast of crab crumpets - recipe in Mother tongue - which you can hear over on the Lecker Patreon or via Apple Podcasts subscription.

Reminder that merch is available via the Lecker Teemill site or BigCartel

Music is by Kevin McCleod at Incompetech.

Ginger and apple bircher, toast toppings, Australian pancakes; writer Bre Graham talks about being a breakfast person. Her debut cookbook, Table for Two, is out now!

This is the first episode in a new interview series all about BREAKFAST! Future episodes will be available exclusively on the Lecker Patreon. For £3 a month you can get access to all episodes. Subscribe here.

Merch is available via the Lecker website. Or you can go directly to Teemill for T-shirts and tote bags, and to bigcartel for zines and patches.

Follow Lecker on Twitter and Instagram.

Music:
"In Your Arms" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Pleasant Porridge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

A mythical-looking beast to be found on the hills of the Isle of Man; the loaghtan is a fascinating heritage breed sheep whose story is intertwined with Manx culture and history.

Katie and Lucy meet farmer Jenny Shepherd from Ballacosnahan, who have one of the biggest loaghtan flocks on the island, make loaghtan croish cuirns with artist Rosie Wood and find out how to work with loaghtan’s unique flavour with chef and spice importer Kumar Menon of Leela’s Kitchen. Plus Annie Kissack is on hand with some folktales about the sheep.


Blasstal is a podcast series by Lecker about food and folklore on the Isle of Man, supported by Culture Vannin.

Hosted and produced by Lucy Dearlove and Katie Callin
Podcast theme music by Mera Royle
Podcast artwork by Vicky Webb
With thanks to all contributors and others who made the series possible!

Music credits:

Manx Folk Dance Music - Car ny Ferrishyn
Manx Folk Dance Music - Fathaby Jig
Caarjyn Cooidjagh - Ballakilpheric - 07 Irree Shiu
Caarjyn Cooidjagh - Ballakilpheric - 11 Berree Dhone
Manx Folk Dance Music - 08 Thobm y Thallear (Tom the Tailor)
Caarjyn Cooidjagh - Ballakilpheric - 02 Ny Kirree fo Niaghtey
Manx Folk Dance Music - 15 Car Juan Nan

With thanks to Annie Kissack

Enjoying Blasstal? You might like Lecker’s brand new merch selection, including a very Manx bonnag T-shirt!

Follow Lecker on Twitter and Instagram. Read more about Blasstal and see some behind the scenes photos at leckerpodcast.com

Katie and Lucy take a deep dive to the heart of the Manx fishing industry to meet a true Isle of Man legend: the herring (skeddan in Manx).

Blasstal is a podcast series by Lecker about food and folklore on the Isle of Man, supported by Culture Vannin.

Hosted and produced by Lucy Dearlove and Katie Callin
Podcast theme music by Mera Royle
Podcast artwork by Vicky Webb
With thanks to all contributors and others who made the series possible!

Music credits:

Manx Folk Dance Music - Yn Guilley Hesheree (The Ploughboy)
Manx Folk Dance Music - Reeaghyn dy Vannin (Dirk Dance)
Manx Folk Dance Music - Peter O'Tavy
Manx Folk Dance Music - Eunyssagh Vona
Manx Folk Dance Music - Car Juan Nan

https://culturevannin.bandcamp.com/album/daunseyn-theayagh-vannin-manx-folk-dance-music
‘Daunseyn Theayagh Vannin: Manx Folk Dance Music’
Manx trad.
Manx Folk Dance Society, 1976.

Caarjyn Cooidjagh - Arrane Y Skeddan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob9eSB5KkFA&ab_channel=CultureVannin
‘The King of the Sea’
Lyrics: J.F. Gill, Traditional melody: Yn Colbagh Breck er Sthrap, from ‘Manx National Songs’, ed. W.H. Gill (1896)
Performed by Lowenna
At the Manx Folk Awards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuKvytxDIc8&ab_channel=CultureVannin 
‘King of the Sea’
Lyrics: J.F. Gill, Traditional melody: Yn Colbagh Breck er Sthrap, from ‘Manx National Songs’, ed. W.H. Gill (1896)
Performed by Ballacottier School
At the Manx Folk Awards
Conducted by Katie Lawrence


With thanks to Annie Kissack

Follow Lecker on Twitter and Instagram. Read more about Blasstal and see some behind the scenes photos at leckerpodcast.com

Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it.

This month: Namesake: Reflections on a Warrior Woman by N.S. Nuseibeh.

Namesake is a collection of essays exploring what it means to be a young, secular Muslim woman today, told through the lens of stories of the author's ancestor, Nusaybah, the only woman warrior to have fought alongside the Prophet.

N. S. Nuseibeh is a British Palestinian writer and researcher, born and raised in East Jerusalem. In Namesake, she weaves her own experiences of anxiety, of racism, of joy, of illness, of cooking in shared houses, of aubergines, with the myths and legends told of her ancestor. All of this makes this a book that I think should be required reading for everyone.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Namesake is out now, published by Canongate. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

This month, all the revenue I would normally get from  Patreon, Apple Podcasts and Substack will be donated to mutual aid requests from Gazan people on Operation Olive Branch. If you would like to make your own donation, send me a screenshot and I'll comp you a subscription.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

In episode 1 of Blasstal, Katie introduces Lucy to the vegetable at the heart of Hop-tu-Naa traditions of the Isle of Man.

They explore the island's folklore with poet and folklore expert Annie Kissack, attend a Hop-tu-Naa celebration at Cregneash, carve their own moots, and finally head out Hop-tu-Naa-ing around Peel.

Blasstal is a podcast series by Lecker about food and folklore on the Isle of Man, supported by Culture Vannin.

Hosted and produced by Lucy Dearlove and Katie Callin
Podcast theme music by Mera Royle
Podcast artwork by Vicky Webb
With thanks to all contributors and others who made the series possible!

Music credits:

Manx Folk Dance Music - Guilley Hesheree (The Ploughboy)
Manx Folk Dance Music - Eunyssagh Vona
Manx Folk Dance Music - Hop-tu-Naa

https://culturevannin.bandcamp.com/album/daunseyn-theayagh-vannin-manx-folk-dance-music 
‘Daunseyn Theayagh Vannin: Manx Folk Dance Music’
Manx trad.
Manx Folk Dance Society, 1976.

Caarjyn Cooidjagh - Manannan Beg Ballad
Caarjyn Cooidjagh - Mannin veg veen

With thanks to Annie Kissack

Follow Lecker on Twitter and Instagram. Read more about Blasstal and see some behind the scenes photos at leckerpodcast.com

Welcome to Blasstal! A podcast series by Lecker about food and folklore on the Isle of Man, supported by Culture Vannin.

Launching 31st October.

Hosted and produced by Lucy Dearlove and Katie Callin
Podcast theme music by Mera Royle
Podcast artwork by Vicky Webb

The writer and cook Melissa Thompson talks about her book Motherland; a very personal history of Jamaica.

Melissa weaves the history of the country so elegantly with her own story in a way that makes it impossible to ignore that the violent history of colonialism in Jamaica is to do with all of us in Britain. As you’ll hear us talk about, she uses the physical walls of the Drax Estate in Dorset, where she grew up, to demonstrate how ingrained Britain’s colonial legacy is in the very fabric of our life here - and it’s mostly been buried.

I also asked Melissa how she approaches translating recipes which are very personal to her into a format which can be comprehensible and replicable by anyone who buys her book. Is anything lost or compromised in this process of translation?



Motherland is out now, published by Bloomsbury.

This is the third of three episodes this month about contemporary personal food writing and memoir. The first can be found here and the second here.

Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast. This month's exclusive episode will include more from this conversation with Melissa!

You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Full transcript on the Lecker website.

The writer and editor Thea Lenarduzzi talks about her book Dandelions; a family history of migration, cooking, living.

So much of personal writing in food focuses on heritage and family - and rightly so! But - down, no doubt to the very white, middle class status quo - there can be a tendency towards simplification - of dishes, or even a narrative, a family’s history. What Dandelions does so well is capture how much of people’s lives rests in the spaces between, resisting categorisation and definition, and even slipping between fact and fiction, but in a way that remains always true and always significant, even in the so-called mundanity of everyday life.

Dandelions is out now, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

This is the second of three episodes this month about contemporary personal food writing and memoir. The first can be found here.

Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast. This month's exclusive episode will include more from this conversation with Thea!

You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Full transcript on the Lecker website.

A conversation between Angela Hui and Rebecca May Johnson, recorded just after their respective debut non-fiction books had been published. An exploration of the importance of valuing and demonstrating labour within cooking, of novelty versus repetition, and of the idea of rejecting food writing as a category.

You can find Takeaway by Angela Hui and Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson at all good bookshops now.

Mentions:
Cathy Park Hong's part poetry part memoir (Angela)
Audre Lorde - Zami (Rebecca)
Luce Giard and Michel de Certeau -The Practice of Everyday Life (Rebecca)
Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Angela)
Nuar Alsadir on how to be your own freaky clown (Rebecca)

You can listen back to Rebecca on a very early episode of Lecker here...

This is the first of three episodes this month about contemporary personal food writing and memoir - stay tuned for more!


Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast. This month's exclusive episode will include more from this conversation between Angela and Rebecca!

You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Full transcript on the Lecker website.

What's the secret of a successful cooking school? Jeremy Pang, founder of School of Wok, lets us in on it.

This episode was hosted by Adrienne Katz Kennedy and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

You can find out more about Jeremy Pang at jeremypang.co.uk and his new book, Jeremy Pang’s School of Wok is out now, wok clock illustrations and all.

Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.

You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Full transcript on the Lecker website.

A love letter to the beating heart of Ugandan food, Matooke. With Katasi E. Kironde and Nakigudde Elizabeth Kibalama.

Katasi is the founder of Elevate 256, an organisation that creates and curates inspiration content and events centred around Uganda. She was also a co-host on Unsavoury Ethnic Types podcast, who did a great episode about Ugandan food. She also guest-curated a recent issue of Fare magazine all about Kampala. We talked a bit more about a couple of pieces in the magazine, and those bits of the interview are going to be available on the Patreon bonus podcast episode. You can get access to those by signing up for £3 at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for Lecker - find them on the Lecker Twitter and Instagram.
If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.
You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Full transcript on the Lecker website.

Helen Graves talks about illegal rooftop barbecues, the joy of cooking and eating together outdoors, and why tenderstem broccoli is the thing everyone needs to grill.

Helen's new book Live Fire is published by Hardie Grant.

Helen Graves is a food and recipe writer and editor and she used to write a much loved blog called Food Stories.

The Guardian podcast I mentioned in this episode is called Let's Eat!


Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Lecker is on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.
You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

You can access the transcript for this episode via Audioboom, or at leckerpodcast.com.

An audio exploration of our love of citrus, with chef Selin Kiazim and writer Nina Mingya Powles.

Three: Acid, Texture, Contrast by Selim Kiazim and Small Bodies of Water by Nina Mingya Powles are both out now!

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

You can find a full bibliography for this episode on the Lecker website.

Ben McDonald creates original illustrations for every episode of Lecker.

Lecker is on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.
You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

You can access the transcript for this episode via Audioboom, or at leckerpodcast.com. 

There's one detail that everyone's picked up on in Claire Kohda's debut novel: the fact that the main character, Lydia, is a vampire. But it's actually much more about food than it is about vampires.

Claire explores how the book relates to ethnic identity and colonialism, and the othering of Asian cultures which happens so frequently, and explains how food came to be such a central part of a story whose main character physically can't eat it.

Woman, Eating is published by Virago.

Claire Kohda is a writer and musician; she reviews books for the TLS and her writing was also recently included in the anthology East Side Voices.


Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Ben MacDonald creates original illustrations for every episode of Lecker.

Lecker is on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.
You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

You can access the transcript for this episode via Audioboom, or at leckerpodcast.com.

A reflection on learning – and teaching – the fermented arts at the School of Artisan Food.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

You can buy zines on BigCartel. You can also order print-on-demand merch at Teemill.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

This ep isn't sponsored but I was invited to attend the school for free at the press day Thanks to the School of Artisan Food for hosting us. Special thanks to Martha Brown, Sally Ann Hunt and Kevan Roberts for the mini workshops (and the lunch) and to Alison Swan Parente for being part of this episode. Thanks to Emily Leary for all her work in getting us all there.

You’ve eaten hot pot at a restaurant, or at the very least seen it offered at restaurants near you. But did you know that thanks to the minimal prep required, it’s actually the perfect dinner party meal to have with friends at home? 

Melanie Xu, a lifelong fan and staunch advocate of Chongqing Ma La hot pot, makes the case.

Thank you to Mel and Andrew for their hot pot hospitality!

Lecker is on Twitter, Instagram and now TikTok.

If you’re in a position to, please considering supporting Lecker. Buy merch here and become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast.
You can find out more about how to support Lecker (including one-off donations) at leckerpodcast.com/support.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

A look back at the 2017 episode recorded at Granville Community Kitchen with Leslie Barson and Dee Woods. While Leslie and Dee prepared a community meal of Peruvian inspired pork stew, beans, rice and salad they shared how their work addresses fundamental and system issues of oppression, poverty, land use, farmers' rights and the environment. And there's an update from Leslie on the Granville's plans for 2022 and beyond.

Read more about The Granville and get involved at granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk

Follow Lecker on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok

Become a Patron at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

See more photos from this episode and view full transcript at leckerpodcast.com/episodes/granvillerevisited

How can the practice of eating together secure a sustainable future for our kitchens?

In the final episode of the series, Joanne MacInnes and Betul Piyade from the community centre West London Welcome describe what it's like for refugees and asylum seekers to live indefinitely in hotel rooms without kitchens. And academic and "food crisis responder" Marsha Smith explains why social eating is so important for us as a society, and explains how it's the key to future proofing our eating habits.


Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Thanks to my contributors on this episode Betul Piyade and Joanne MacInnes at West London Welcome, and Marsha Smith.
West London Welcome is an amazing place. This interview was recorded a few months ago, before the crisis in Afghanistan, and the centre is now working to support newly arrived Afghan refugees, as well as their existing members. You can donate to support their work via LocalGiving here.

The transcript of the episode is here.
Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Editorial feedback by Rory Dearlove
Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman


If you’ve enjoyed what you heard on this episode, or generally on Lecker, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening, and telling a friend about it!

The next thing on the Lecker schedule is a three part series about food and folklore on the Isle of Man, which is being generously funded by Culture Vannin! I’m making that with the brilliant Manx audio producer Katie Callin and it’ll be out before the end of the year. If you liked the episode Bonnag then you’ll love this!

Find Lecker on twitter and instagram.

Does it matter what fuels our fire in the kitchen? Javon Bennett explains how his family adapted their cooking when they moved from Jamaica to England, and Carwyn Graves explores open fire cooking and other Welsh kitchen traditions.

A full transcript is available on the Lecker website.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Javon Bennett and Carwyn Graves. 

And also thanks to Naomi Oppenheim who put me in touch with Javon via the British Library Caribbean Foodways project and also to my friend and previous Lecker guest Sian Stacey for telling me about Carwyn’s work.

Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions


Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Extractor fan recording by Victoria Ferran

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

If you’ve enjoyed what you heard on this episode, or generally on Lecker, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening, and telling a friend about it!

A big thank you go out to my new Patreon patrons: Anna, Naomi, Sonya, Gloria, Sian, Harriet, Jane, Kirsten, Sian and Hannah! And if you’ve really enjoyed listening to this episode, or are a big fan of the podcast in general already, please consider becoming a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

Prefabs – built to help counter the post war housing shortage - were actually some of the earliest examples of fitted kitchens in the UK, and came with built in fridges at time when this technology was unaffordable to most people. Jennie Thomas reflects on growing up in a post war prefab in Hackney, and Alice Wilson, whose academic work examines tiny houses, reflects on the movement as a reaction to the housing situation in contemporary Britain.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Jennie Thomas and Alice Wilson. Find out more about the OpHouse project.

A full transcript is available on the Lecker website.
Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Additional guest research by Sarah Woolley.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

If you’ve enjoyed what you heard on this episode, or generally on Lecker, please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening, and telling a friend about it!

And if you’ve really enjoyed listening to this episode, or are a big fan of the podcast in general already, please consider becoming a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

Why are so many of our kitchens so unsociable? Lucy meets Johnny Grey, a kitchen designer who’s been fighting for decades to make kitchens a place for leisure not work, and Katie Pennick, a disability campaigner whose work has changed the face of London transport – but who still can’t cook in her own kitchen. Plus Sean Warmington-Wan reflects on the unsociable kitchen in his shared London house.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to the contributors on this episode: Sean Warmington-Wan, Katie Pennick and Johnny Grey.

You can find a full transcript for this episode on the Lecker website.

Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

If you’ve enjoyed what you heard on this episode, or generally on Lecker,  please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening, and telling a friend about it!
And if you’ve really enjoyed listening to this episode, or are a big fan of the podcast in general already, please consider becoming a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

Kitchens are inextricably linked with the woman of the house. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the fitted kitchen was literally designed as a workspace to fit around a woman’s body. But what does this mean for women - and men - now? How are traditional gender roles built up and broken down by the kitchen itself? Michael Etheridge reflects on the distribution of domestic labour in his own home, and food writer Gemma Croffie talks about the narrow definition of accepted womanhood when it comes to domestic work.

A full transcript for this episode is available on the Lecker website.

The title Meal Machine comes from the companion guide to the 2011 MoMA exhibition Counter Space: Design + The Modern Kitchen: “Meal machine, experimental laboratory, status symbol, domestic prison, or the creative and spiritual heart of the home?”

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to my contributors on this episode: Michael Etheridge and Gemma Croffie. 

You can read Gemma’s piece Kitchens on the Path, which inspired this episode, in the print zine released alongside this audio series. Buy a copy now at leckerpodcast.com/kitchens.

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions.
Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman.

If you’ve enjoyed what you heard, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend!

And if you enjoy listening to Lecker in general, and have enjoyed this series so far, please consider becoming a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

Aspirational kitchens are an integral part of our food media, but where did they come from? And what does it mean for those who can never attain a beautiful, cookbook-worthy kitchen? Design historian Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan explores what came before the fitted kitchen, and how the room itself has shape-shifted drastically over the 20th century. And food writer and author Ruby Tandoh considers the aspirational kitchen in food writing.

Episode 1 of Kitchens, a podcast series by Lecker about the most important room in the home.

You can find a full transcript for this episode on the Lecker website.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan and Ruby Tandoh.

There’s also a print zine featuring original essays and illustrations about kitchens released alongside this audio series. Buy a copy now at leckerpodcast.com
Original theme music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions
Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Additional guest research by Sarah Woolley.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

If you’ve enjoyed what you heard on this episode, or generally on Lecker,  please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening, and telling a friend about it!
And if you’ve really enjoyed listening to this episode, or are a big fan of the podcast in general already, please consider becoming a patron of the podcast at patreon.com/leckerpodcast

Wall-mounted cabinets, continuous work surfaces, oven, hob, sink, fridge. Maybe a table, often not. Could this be describing your kitchen? The fitted kitchen is ubiquitous in British homes. But we all have different lives, tastes, needs; we cook different foods. How did we all end up with the same kitchen?
Rooted in the memories and personal stories embedded in people's kitchens, Kitchens is a six part podcast series combining the history of design and food to understand the current context of how and where we cook. Lucy Dearlove meets contemporary academicians such as design historian Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan and legendary kitchen designer Johnny Grey, along with contributors like disability campaigner Katie Pennick and food writer Ruby Tandoh to explore the past, present and potential future of the British kitchen.

The series starts 16th August.

Original theme music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley.
The collage for the series cover art was designed by Stephanie Hartman.

Many people have celebrated special occasions differently this year, finding ways to recreate communal food traditions for themselves. Our feasts may have shrunk, but we're still joined together through the kitchen and through the plate. 

In this episode, hear four stories of personal food rituals reimagined and recreated in 2020: Jane's bread sauce, Emma and Ingrid's Venezuelan ham bread, Adi's Bacalhau com natas and Pratyusha's pongal.

Music
Quiet Sill by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Solemn Application by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
The Big Ten by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
A Catalog of Seasons by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Gusty Hollow by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Mogul by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)
Silent Flock by Blue Dot Sessions (www.sessions.blue)

Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be writing about it on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

This month: Piglet by Lottie Hazell.

I first came across Lottie’s writing when she contributed to the first Lecker zine I curated and published in 2019: Plum Jam, a piece of short fiction about a funeral, an underset blancmange and a broken tooth. I still remember how the piece unsettled me, placing complicated family relationships alongside difficult or reluctant pleasure derived from feeding others; or being fed by others. Her debut novel, Piglet, came out earlier this year and its writing is deeply rooted in what food can mean to us: physically, emotionally and socially.

I loved talking to Lottie about Piglet so much! As you’ll hear me tell her in the episode, it was such an interesting experience to encounter such luscious, detailed writing about food in a fictional setting, particularly set alongside scenes of such discomfort. The book made me squirm, in a really intriguing way and I loved how the dishes and tablescapes Piglet makes and consumes dressed the set of her home and work lives.

Heads up that if you haven’t read the book, we do talk about specific plot points in it so if you’d prefer to be spoiler free, go and read it first! And the book does touch on themes of body image, weight and some implied references to disordered eating, so if those topics are sensitive to you please take care.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Piglet is out now, published by Doubleday. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Buy a copy of either/both of the Lecker zines on BigCartel. You can also order print-on-demand merch at Teemill.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

I'm speaking at Interesting24 on 15th May at Conway Hall in London! Buy a ticket to come and watch me talk about kitchens.

Anne Willan has more than 60 years experience as a teacher, author, and culinary historian, and over 30 books to her name. Speaking to me around the release of her new book, Women In The Kitchen: Twelve Essential Cookbook Writers Who Defined The Way We Eat from 1661 to Today (Simon & Schuster), she shared some stories from her amazing life in food.

I would be really grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes to fill out the Lecker Listener Survey!

TV chef and cookbook author Rachel Khoo talks about privilege, being mixed race in the UK food industry and her new show Simple Pleasures.

You can buy the Simple Pleasures eBook for £5 here, with all proceeds going to the Film and TV Charity UK.

Although she’s originally from the Isle of Man, Katie Callin has never made the most traditionally Manx of all foods: the bonnag - a soda raised baked good with links to the nation’s pre-industrial past, and to its folklore too.

She returns to her family home in St Johns on the west coast of the island to enter the World Bonnag Championships and, under the guidance of her mum Vanessa, she uncovers the secrets of great bonnag making.

Music:
Blue Dot Sessions - Chapel Bottom (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - Home Home At Last (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - Stale Case (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - Petaluma (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - Plaid Shapes (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - Cicle Veroni (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - The Spills (https://www.sessions.blue/)
Blue Dot Sessions - Flagger (https://www.sessions.blue/)

Sean Blake is (in his own words) a part time food and drink photographer, music producer, low skilled worker and full time dad. He’s a big advocate for making food and drink more approachable and less wanky, and he makes the best cocktails of anyone I've ever met. Having managed the bar and designed menus for the likes of the Polpo group, Brunswick House, Pitt Cue Co, run Sean's Bar pop ups all over London, been a YBF finalist, and co-founded Corals in Peckham with Lerryn Whitfield, I thought he would be a great person to talk to about making the most interesting drinks possible with the dregs of your cupboards. But it turns out there's a much bigger conversation to be had about the future of drinking once this is all over.

You can find Sean on instagram @eatseanblake; I'm sharing some of his incredible photography on the Lecker instagram too @leckerpodcast.

Support your local bar/pub/distillery/brewery at this time. Sean recommends Sweet Dram, a distillery founded in Peckham, now based in Edinburgh. They normally make Escubac but have switched to producing hand sanitiser. He's getting beer from Gypsy Hill Brewery (my local is Brick Brewery and their fruit sours are the best.)

A lot of bars are also doing pre-pay drinks schemes: so you buy now and drink once they re-open. Check out your local bars to see if they're doing something similar.

Any struggling hospitality workers should look into Speciality drinks/Suntory bartender packages available online for struggling hospitality workers.

The newsletter I mentioned at the end of the episode is Vittles: Jonathan Nunn is commissioning so many interesting people to write about food and some incredibly important topics are being covered. Subscribe and support if you can afford to.

Music:
Blue Dot Sessions - Low Light Switch

When our food supply is threatened, or feels like it is, preserving fresh produce is a natural response. Jelena Belgrave, whose fermentation class I took part in over Zoom last week, grew up with communal preservation traditions in her native Serbia; she explores via voicenotes how the instinct to store food for herself and her family is rooted in her own history.

You can read more about Jelena and her work on her website oblutak.co.uk and find her on Instagram @potsandfoodtoshare.

Music:
Blue Dot Sessions - Lakal

In these strange times I’ve been thinking about food almost constantly. Unable to go out to eat (or go out much at all), food dominates my waking life even more than normal. Like many people on the internet, I’ve started using the solid blocks of time I have at home to start learning to bake sourdough, and I’ve been thinking a lot about why I’m so drawn to this and why I find it so absorbing. 

Via the medium of voicenotes, I asked my friend Rebecca Spaven, a professional baker, to consider where the domestic sourdough boom fits into a global pandemic.

You can find Rebecca on Instagram @bunhead_

Music:
Blue Dot Sessions - Coronea

Catherine Ross and her daughter Lynda-Louise Burrell are the founders of Museumand, a Nottingham-based a social history and community 'museum without walls' dedicated to preserving Caribbean history, heritage and culture in original and unusual ways.

I joined them for a Friday afternoon sweet tea to talk about the influence - and ingenuity - of slavery within Caribbean food, the hurdles they've overcome in setting up the museum, and their favourite coconut-based sweet treats.

You can find out about Museumand's work here and follow them on twitter here and Instagram here.

Tokyo: a symphony for the ears. Of Pachinko, cicadas and Taro's tea ceremony.

With thanks to Taro and Tomoko (and Rory).

Follow @leckerpodcast on Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to the Lecker tinyletter

The Italian author Livia Franchini reflects on edible themes in her debut novel Shelf Life, and considers the prescriptiveness of Italian cooking.

Read more about this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Sign up to the Lecker tinyletter for an extra bite, this time about tomatoes.

You can find Livia's recipe for Orecchiette ai Cimini di Rapa here.
Livia can be found on Twitter, and on Instagram.

Shelf Life came out in paperback on Doubleday in January 2020 and is available from all good booksellers (I like Hive).

Music: 
Blue Dot Sessions - Pedalrider
Blue Dot Sessions - Charcoal Line

The food blogger and Burmese cookbook author MiMi Aye remembers the UK online food writing movement of the mid 2000s and shares the sour delights of Burmese food.

Read more about this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Sign up to the Lecker tinyletter for an extra bite, this time about the secrets of Burmese tofu.

You can find the recipe for Coconut Chicken Noodles here, taken from Mandalay with kind permission from MiMi Aye.
MiMi can be found on her website, on Twitter, and on Instagram.

You can buy a copy of Mandalay from Amazon or of course from your own preferred online or IRL bookseller (I like Hive).

Music: Blue Dot Sessions - Swapping Tubes

Welcome back to the Lecker Book Club. Every month I’ll pick a newly released food related book and talk to the author about the process of writing it. I’ll also be writing about it on Substack and Patreon. Join me there as well!

This month: Ramen Forever by Tim Anderson.

Ramen has ended up as a cornerstone of Tim Anderson’s life. As he writes in the book, it was originally his love of ramen - as well as Japanese food more broadly - that took him to live in Japan, which steered the course of his future in many ways, including meeting his wife. Avid food TV watchers in the UK may also remember that ramen was at the heart of his Masterchef story; when he won the series in 20211, ramen was his winning main course in the final. He previously ran a ramen restaurant in Brixton, Nanban, which opened in 2015 and closed in 2021. But although he’s got five cookbooks already to his name, he’s never written a book entirely about ramen….until now.

Ramen Forever is out now, published by Hardie Grant. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

This is a mini audio version of the recent print zine I released! Featuring readings from Octavia Bright, Jennifer Obidike, Rhiannon Schabernack, Ruby Dhalay and Kelly Shearer, recorded at the zine launch party at Middle Lane Market in North London in November 2019.

Thanks to Kelly and Andrew Shearer of Middle Lane Market for hosting the event.

The first run of the zine has now sold out, but follow @leckerpodcast on Twitter and Instagram to be the first to hear the launch date for the second run.

Subscribe to the Lecker tinyletter

Music: Blue Dot Sessions - A Simple Blue; Filing Away

Hosted and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Claire Roberson is an excellent person to know if you want to know what to eat in Sicily. She introduces me to pesto alla Trapanese, prepared in the kitchen of her Palermo apartment.

Claire is on instagram @everythingbut and can also be found/contacted via her website everythingbut.me

Lecker is on instagram @leckerpodcast. Sign up to the newsletter tinyletter.com/lecker

Music: 
Blue Dot Sessions - Chromium Blush

Isabelle O'Carroll spent much of her adolescence and young adulthood being made to feel like an underachiever – until an ADHD diagnosis in her mid 30s made everything fall into place. She explains how the kitchen has always been a playground for her - and also a place of solace over the years.

Isabelle's pieces: How Cooking Made Me See My ADHD as a Talent Instead of a Shame 3 Refugees Living In The UK Cook Their Favourite Meals From Home
Find Isabelle on instagram: @isabelle_oc and on twitter @isabelleoc. Check out her recent Lecker instagram takeover under the hashtag #leckeriso

Transcription for this episode here.

Music:
Blue Dot Sessions - Smooth Stone

Lecker is in Paris! Eating the perfect tomato salad with Ellen Quinn Banville. Talking tuck, salt and explaining pulled pork to a Parisian butcher.

Thanks to Ellen and Finola for permission to use tracks from Pembroke's album At Sea - in this episode you can hear Dizzy, Thump Thump and The Fear.
https://www.pembroke-music.com/

Find Ellen on Instagram @ellenquinnbanville

Follow Lecker on Instagram @leckerpodcast