Cooking for Poldark
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 977 Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2016
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the much-anticipated new series of Poldark returns to our screens, most eyes will be on Aidan Turner but behind the scenes a raft of experts has worked to ensure each setting is as accurate to the time as possible - including the food. The Food Programme was given special access on set to see the effort that goes into recreating the fantastic feasts that marked so many social functions in the Georgian era and were a marker of class and wealth.
Food Stylist Genevieve Taylor is used to creating wonderful images of food for cookery books and adverts but in her first period drama she faced a new set of challenges - researching the typical foods available at the time and how they were served, how to recreate them, which 'cheats' to use all before transporting the food to set intact, dressing the scene and preventing the crew from stealing the goodies.
She invites us into her kitchen and to the secret set locations for an insight into the detailed effort made - but it's not easy. From sourcing obscure fruits, to whipping up dishes under a gazebo, balancing tiered cakes on wobbly dishes to turning out jellies in front of a whole crew - can she impress Ross Poldark, the Directors and the audience?
Presented by Genevieve Taylor and Sheila Dillon Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello you've downloaded a podcast of BBC Radio 4's The Food Program. |
| 0:06.0 | Welcome to our world, from cooking to culture, politics to pleasure. |
| 0:10.8 | We hope you enjoy it. We're good at period dramas in the UK, particularly on the Tele, from the Forsyte Saga in the |
| 0:31.8 | 1960s through all those Dickens and Austin adaptations. |
| 0:36.0 | Then the international phenomenon that was Downton and now the much anticipated return of Poldark. |
| 0:43.6 | The series based on the Winston Graham novels set in the 18th century following Ross Poldark, |
| 0:50.2 | a Cornish mine owner who struggles against injustice in business and in the brutal class system. |
| 0:57.0 | While Aidan Turner's torso seemed to hypnotise the headline writers in last year's series. |
| 1:03.0 | Memorable Absorbing Period Drama is obviously about great acting and scripting. |
| 1:10.0 | But that all rests on the unseen work of a large crew whose job it is to get the details right. |
| 1:17.0 | And an overlooked detail for most viewers is the food. |
| 1:21.0 | I seem to have interrupted a party. Is this in honor of the peace or the next war? |
| 1:25.2 | Pay attention and you'll see it's there in a lot of scenes, from simple daily meals to the |
| 1:31.2 | grand feasts used to mark the seasons. |
| 1:35.0 | We were just passing Francis so we'd come and offer the compliments of the season. |
| 1:39.0 | Now if we're intruding we can easily depart. |
| 1:42.0 | Damn the nostrils though. |
| 1:44.0 | What do I sense? |
| 1:45.0 | Swan? |
| 1:46.0 | Partridge? |
| 1:47.0 | Interestingly for us, the Pollard |
| 1:49.0 | production team this year |
... |
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