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The Food Programme

Lancashire: My Food Roots

The Food Programme

BBC

Food, Arts

4.4977 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2017

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sheila Dillon returns to her food roots in Lancashire, meeting people doing and creating extraordinary things - from food producers, to cooks to campaigners. As nominations come in for the 2017 BBC Food and Farming Awards, celebrating people and businesses from all over the UK - Sheila is taking the opportunity to celebrate the county she grew up in, and is going on a road trip through the county of the Red Rose.

Graham Kirkham makes an unpasteurised Lancashire cheese near Goosnargh that's now celebrated far and wide - but things were nearly a very different story. Ian and Sue Steel made an audacious offer to a coffee merchants that was founded in Lancaster in 1837. They're now running a business with their two sons, that's growing and thriving, and are guiding that deep history into a new caffeinated future. Every region needs a storyteller for its food, and for Lancashire that person is Nigel Haworth, respected chef based at the Michelin-starred Northcote - who opened a pub in the Ribble Valley in 2004 specifically highlighting local produce and local producers, which was truly groundbreaking at that time.

Kay Johnson is a food campaigner who grew up in Lancashire, worked abroad, and came back to the county six years ago. Noticing a deep disconnect around food, she's working to reconnect people, food producers, and the fresh local produce of the region. Kay draws direct inspiration from a social reform movement that was involved with setting up the Sailor's and Soldier's Free Buffet that operated at Preston station during World War One. Sheila meets James Arnold, history curator at The Harris in Preston, on the platform to find out the remarkable story of what took place.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon Producer: Rich Ward.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is the BBC.

0:04.4

Hello, you've downloaded a podcast of BBC Radio 4's The Food Program.

0:09.5

Welcome to our world, from cooking to culture, politics to pleasure. We hope you enjoy it.

0:16.5

Last week we launched 2017's BBC Food and Farming Awards and the nominations have started

0:22.4

to flow in.

0:24.1

We've asked you to share your food gems to show off a bit about what's great in your

0:28.3

corner of Britain because without that local pride and knowledge the awards wouldn't exist.

0:34.0

Well in today's program I'm getting in on the game myself going on a road trip back to the

0:38.3

county where I grew up where I have deep roots where my own food tastes and interests were formed.

0:44.6

Lancashire.

0:45.9

It has, alongside its industrial history, a rich food tradition, the one that's not as widely

0:52.1

known as it deserves.

0:54.0

I remember the Glasgow taxi driver a few years ago who asked me where it was from.

0:58.0

Lancashire, I said, just a bit proudly.

1:00.0

I wouldn't boast too much about that hen if I were you he replied but I've been on a road

1:05.8

trip and I have to say that I found a lot to boast about stories about food producers

1:11.6

cooks campaigners working with Lancashire's traditions

1:15.8

to create extraordinary things.

1:21.0

I've headed first to Beasley Farm near Guzner a bit north of Preston, the heart of

1:25.6

dairy country. This farm is where they make one of Britain's greatest cheeses,

1:30.7

and that's a field now where there's stiff competition. It's a cheese that

1:35.2

for me sums up the essence that particular taste of Lancashire food.

...

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