Christmas: The Gift of Food

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Christmas is a time for giving, and for many charities, that often means food. Jaega Wise explores the tradition and looks into the planning that goes into festive food donations.

Food historian Carwyn Graves explains how the custom of giving food at Christmas has evolved over the centuries, and why the season inspires so many to give back to their communities.

In Aberdare, we meet the team behind Company at Christmas, who host a festive feast for anyone who doesn’t want to spend Christmas Day alone. The new CEO of Fareshare discusses how the charity manages the extra surplus food during the festive season, while Tim O’Malley from Nationwide Produce Ltd explains how his company has been working to ensure as little fresh food goes to waste as possible.

In Glasgow, Social Bite founder Josh Littlejohn discusses why Christmas has become a cornerstone of his social enterprise and charity, alongside one of the volunteers who will be there to greet guests. Meanwhile, Lesley Gates in Bridgwater—known locally as Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo—shows how she’s helping people make the most of their Christmas dinner ingredients through practical demonstrations on saving money and reducing waste.

And in Cumbria, Rahina Borthwick, founder of the Grange-Over-Sands Community Foodshare, reflects on the importance of giving within her seaside town. She shares how their community space has become an important gathering point, including for Ukrainian refugees to celebrate Christmas together.

Presented by Jaega Wise Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.5	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all
0:28.1	put together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your
0:34.1	life, check out BBC Sounds.
0:41.3	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello, this is the first episode of our season of Goodwill Podcasts,
0:45.3	looking at how food can be a way of helping people in poverty or those who are lonely.
0:50.3	In this episode, I'm finding out why people at Christmas want to offer their time and their energy for food charities.
0:56.7	What drives the tradition and how it works logistically? I hope you enjoy.
1:03.4	I think people more than ever post-COVID want to be part of something. They don't want to be isolated.
1:10.0	We spent too many years in our own four walls
1:13.1	and people now want to come out and mix and coming together to this community event where we, very
1:19.0	traditional in what we do, very traditional in what we serve, people want that back again.
1:24.6	Christmas is a time where we're all with our families. There's often a sense of
1:28.7	abundance. So I think it really brings into sharp contrast. People that don't have those things
1:33.5	and they might be on the streets, they might be lonely, they might have nowhere else to go on Christmas
1:37.2	Day. So yeah, we're always absolutely blown away by the public's sense of generosity.
1:41.0	The message I'm trying to get across to people is don't panic about Christmas.
1:47.9	It's just Christmas dinner. I say to people think more about presents than presents.
1:55.2	Hello and welcome to the food programme. I'm Jagoise and those are the voices of just some of the huge numbers of
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