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The Food Programme

Sheffield: A story of a city through its food

The Food Programme

BBC

Food, Arts

4.4977 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Leyla Kazim finds the independent spirit of Sheffield’s self-employed ‘little mesters’, who once combined to power the city’s steel industry, is now being channelled into new models for how food and drink can shape the future of cities. To guide her through the city’s story, artist Pete McKee and musician Richard Hawley tell Leyla what food was like in Sheffield when they were growing up, what’s changed and how a bottle of table sauce called Henderson’s Relish has become iconic. She has pie, chips and peas and a few drops of ‘the black stuff’ with Kane Yeardley who runs pubs and bars in the city, roasts coffee and brews beer with his company True North. Jules Gray from Hop Hideout bottle shop talks about striking out to move to run a bar, Matt Bigland who owns the city’s Cutlery Works food hall talks about the regeneration happening north of the city centre and Professor Vanessa Toulmin and Tim Nye sit down for a coffee at Marmadukes café near the famous Crucible Theatre to explain why the future of Sheffield’s independents could be opening up in the heart of the city.

Presenter: Leyla Kazim Producer: Tom Bonnett Picture: Meat 'N' Tater Pie by Pete McKee

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about the

0:03.8

podcast I work on. I'm Dan Clark and I commissioned factual podcasts at the BBC.

0:08.6

It's a massive area but I'd sum it up as stories to help us make sense of the forces shaping the world.

0:15.3

What podcasting does is give us the space and the time to take brilliant BBC journalism

0:19.8

and tell amazing compelling stories that really get behind the headlines.

0:23.7

And what I get really excited about is when we find a way of drawing you into a subject

0:28.4

you might not even have thought you were interested in.

0:30.2

Whether it's investigations, science, tech, politics, culture, true crime, the environment,

0:36.1

you can always discover more with a podcast on BBC Sounds.

0:39.7

BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.

0:45.0

Hi, I'm Leila Kuzim and thank you for downloading this podcast from the food program.

0:54.0

Today's episode was recorded in Sheffield before the lockdown.

0:58.0

It's a city with an independent spirit,

1:00.0

and while its city centre has struggled in recent years, the suburbs and outskirts have seen independent

1:06.4

businesses bubbling up and the locals really passionately supporting them.

1:11.3

I went there to understand where that independent spirit comes from and to see what

1:16.0

ideas the city's pioneers might have for what the future of the High Street could

1:20.7

look like.

1:34.7

Welcome to Sheffield, a city you can learn a surprising amount about through a table source. At the end of the day, it's a bottle of salt,

1:37.3

but it's actually...

1:38.9

It's assholes.

1:39.9

I mean, I personally, I'm going to get embalmed in it, you know.

...

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