Communal Dining

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2025

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sheila Dillon joins diners eating together in Manchester and Copenhagen, and hears why some think we should be making more time in the UK for eating communally.

During World War II, British Restaurants provided nutritious, affordable meals across the UK. Endorsed by Winston Churchill, they ensured good food was accessible to all. Now, some believe this model should return.

Professor Bryce Evans from Liverpool Hope University explains why reviving communal dining could help tackle today’s cost-of-living crisis. In Manchester, we hear from "The Manc Kitchen" - a pilot inspired by MP Ian Byrne’s "Scouse Kitchen" and his "Right to Food" campaign. Similar initiatives are emerging across the UK.

Sheila Dillon travels to Copenhagen, "the capital of communal dining," to see how the Danes have embraced eating together. She visits Absalon, a repurposed church where 200 people dine each night, and Grønne Eng (Green Meadows), a co-housing community where 190 residents cook and share meals communally four times a week. Even in workplaces, communal dining is the norm—Sheila eats with a team of architects at a long table.

Food writer Heidi Svømmekjær explains how Denmark’s long, dark winters have shaped this culture, making shared meals a way to foster warmth and connection.

With food insecurity and loneliness on the rise, Sheila asks if communal restaurants be a solution?

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced in Bristol for BBC Audio by Natalie Donovan

Transcript

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0:00.0	He tells her that she will be sent to France as a secret agent, and if she's caught, she's going to be shot.
0:09.3	I'm Helen Obalam Carter, and this is history's secret heroes, where I shine a light on extraordinary stories from World War II.
0:17.6	What they wanted was someone to get themselves arrested and sent to Auschwitz.
0:22.0	Tales of deception, an incredible acts of resistance and courage. She was a born soldier.
0:27.4	She's a freedom fighter in its widest sense. The brand new series of history's secret heroes.
0:32.8	Listen first on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:39.8	You're about to listen to another episode of the Food Programme.
0:43.5	Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts.
0:47.1	But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes a whole week earlier than anywhere else.
0:53.4	First on BBC Sounds.
0:55.9	Hello, welcome to the food programme. Do you fancy eating together with strangers, maybe,
1:02.9	at a price that won't break the bank? Well, listen up then. Producer Natalie Donovan and I
1:09.7	have been doing a lot of eating around in a country
1:12.4	that's surprisingly keen on that concept, eating with strangers.
1:22.9	I'm sitting in an enormous Danish church, well, what was once a church built in the 1930s, with 200 other people.
1:34.9	Singing, happy birthday, the Danish version, to three strangers dotted around the room.
1:40.9	All of us seated at four very long tables.
1:51.3	Picture the dining hall at Hogwarts, but with a lot more colour renovated in that simple, modern, Nordic design.
1:56.8	Group number one, how two somebody's table, the two from before, go get your food from the bar.
2:01.7	But before we eat, let's dial back a bit to how and why I'm here.
2:04.2	It begins with this man.
2:05.7	My name is Bryce Evans.
	...

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