Food and the Elements

The Food Programme

BBC

Arts, Food

4.4 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dan Saladino explores stories of food and 'the elements', the theme of this year's Oxford Food Symposium.

Expect surprising insights on earth, fire, air, water and much more.

For more than forty years the Symposium has celebrated, explored and shared research by scholars, enthusiastic amateurs, writers, and chefs from around the world, all united in the belief that food deserves to be treated as a serious, as well as a joyful, subject.

Hundreds of 'symposiasts' gather at St Catherine's College each year, to submit papers, deliver presentations, discuss ideas and to dine - all based around a theme.

Dan talks to some of the presenters about their interpretation of 'food and the elements'. Some took inspiration from the classical world (earth, air, fire and water), others explored food and the periodic table or climate and weather.

In this 'mix-tape edition', stories range from the use of fire and ashes in food cultures around the world to the Trump administration's plan to remove 'chemical elements' from the diets of Americans.

For more information about the symposium and this year's papers, go to: https://www.oxfordsymposium.org.uk/

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.7	When I say the words, the elements, what comes to mind?
0:13.6	Perhaps it's the ideas that came out of ancient Greece.
0:17.4	Our world seen through earth, air, fire and water.
0:32.4	Or are you thinking chemistry and atoms and the 118 elements in the periodic table,
0:42.2	ranging from naturally occurring hydrogen to synthesized Einsteinium?
0:48.1	And yes, there is such a thing.
0:53.3	Or has climate and weather come to mind, the elements we face in nature?
0:59.0	Well, a few weeks ago, the meaning of the elements was put to some of the world's leading food scholars
1:08.0	who'd gathered at St Catherine's College for the annual Oxford Food
1:12.4	Symposium, an event founded more than 40 years ago.
1:15.9	All cheese classics from walk forward to coming. Hundreds of people attend to present papers,
1:22.9	hear presentations, discuss ideas and share meals. This program is a collection of some of the stories from this year's symposium.
1:32.3	Think of this as one of our special mixtape editions.
1:36.3	We have one theme, the elements, but it will be explored in a mind-boggling diversity of ways,
1:43.3	all of which I believe are captivating.
1:47.2	For example, out of fire comes ash, which turns out to be an ingredient that shaped food
1:53.7	around the world.
1:55.9	Typically people say oils and water never mix, but in Nigeria, when you add a little bit of ash water,
2:02.4	you transform oil and water into this creamy, saucy dressing.
2:08.8	And it's just fascinating.
2:12.7	On the subject of chemistry, we'll hear why the Trump administration,
	...

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