 everybody and a very warm welcome to the British Library food season, which is generously supported by KitchenAid. My name is Angela Clutton. It is my complete joint delight to be the guest director of the food season working with Polly Russell who founded the season four years ago and is its curator. Thank you so much for joining us for tonight's event. It is set to be a fascinating conversation with Babita Sharma, Ruby Tando, Penn Vogler and Dee Woods. Before we get started just a little bit of housekeeping. You should be able to see some tabs on screen where you can give feedback on the event. You can read a little bit more about tonight's speakers and find their books or maybe make a donation to support the work of the British Library. We hope you also might feel like to ask a question on the panel yourself. So under this video you should see a box where you can type your question in and also the social media links so you can join in the conversation on other platforms too. You should also see the details for a competition being run for the food season with KitchenAid where you can win a copy of Count Franklin's Book of the Pie Room, a place on a virtual cooking class and some KitchenAid cordless kit. And so to tonight's event which is exploring a breadth of issues around food and taste and class. We have formidable contributors to this discussion. Ruby Tando, Penn Vogler and Dee Woods. Babita Sharma will be doing the conversation and I'll let her introduce the panel. But first of all, a few words on Babita. Broadcaster, author, familiar face and voice across BBC News with work including BBC Breakfast, BBC World News and Newsday. Also an author, as I say, of the critically-claimed book The Corner Shop. Babita grew up above The Corner Shop in 1980s Britain and so her book gives a fascinating perspective of the political and economic climate during her childhood all through the lens of corner shop life. I think there can be no one better place to steer us through the next hour or so of conversation. And so, Babita, over to you. Yeah, great. Thank you so much for joining us all this evening and I'm thrilled to be chairing this panel session. We have got, as Andrew just said, a great lineup. So without any further delay, I'm going to introduce them to you. We have Ruby Tando, who's a writer and author. And Ruby has an expertise in exploring the places where food merges with popular culture, politics, art and identity. So I'm really fascinated to be talking to Ruby about that. She might be a familiar face to many of you because she was also in the television show Bake Off, reaching the final. Well done Ruby for that. And she's also the author of Eat Up, the audiobook that came out in March, Breaking Eggs, and the upcoming book Cook As You Are, which is coming out in October, October the 7th, I think. And it talks about how we can all create magic from the most mundane of ingredients. Hallelujah. Thank you so much for that Ruby. It's great to have you with us. We also have Penn Vogler, who is a well-known face to many of you, a food historian and author of the critically acclaimed fantastic book, Scoff, A History of Food and Class in Britain. She has written lots, including dinner with Mr. Darcy on Food in Life and the Works of Jane Austen. Dinner with Dickens and guests created the exhibition, Food, Glorious Food at the Charles Dickens Museum. She edited Penguin's Great Food series, has written a lot about food history for the BBC and the media, and we created lots of recipes from the past as well for the media here in the UK. So Penn, welcome to you. And also, we have Dee Woods, who is a food and farming actionist and campaigner who advocates for good food for all. And for more just and equitable food system, challenging these systemic barriers that impact marginalised communities, farmers and food producers. Dee is the co-founder of Granville Community Kitchen in South Kilburn and sits on the GLA London Food Board, the steering group of People Food Power and is co-editor of a People's Food Policy among lots of other things as well, Dee. Welcome to you. Thanks so much for being with us. Ladies, there was so much to chat about, but firstly, from the off, let's have a conversation about what food tells us about who we are. Ruby? Gosh, that's a big one to start with, isn't it? I mean, obviously, what we eat is such an old kind of, it's almost a cliche at this point, to be honest, but what we eat tells us so much about, I don't know, who we are, where we come from, where we want to go, importantly, there's quite a lot of, there's an aspirational element to it as well. I think as well, what we eat isn't just like a code to be deciphered. I think it kind of also says something about the person judging the foods. So if I see someone shopping basket, yeah, maybe it tells me a little bit about who they are, if I'm kind of behind Nantesville, I'm having a look, but it also says something about what I think the associations are of those foods and the baggage that I bring into it. So it's kind of, it's illuminating on all counts and in all directions, I think. Yeah, and you bring up the brilliant example of what's in somebody's shopping basket, because we of course all like to have a bit of a pit, but what is it about that that you think that we have the right to judge or feel that we have the right to judge other people's eating habits? I mean, I think we're famously nosy people, so I think that doesn't help. But more generally, I think that there's so much cultural baggage, emotional, geographic, everything, like everything that comes into a food can tell us so much about time and place and what kind of a person that you are and all this stuff. So I think it's very natural to look at someone's shopping basket and to be curious and to want to try and understand them through the things that you see in that and also through the foods that they cook and whether they're good at cooking or not, whether they dine out a lot or not, whether they buy the pre-rolled puff pastry or not, all of these things come together to form a picture that may or may not be accurate about who we think that person is. How accurate do you think we are, Penn, in our judgment of people's shopping baskets as Ruby puts it, but also just how we view food, how we consume it, how it is very much part of our being in the UK? I think Ruby's absolutely right, is that we use other people's shopping baskets and cupboards and what's on their dining tables and what time they eat and what they call their meals. All these things, we use them to judge each other. And it's crazy because if somebody has an avocado and their shopping baskets and the next person has a tin of mushy peas, they're both green, they both have vitamin C and all the rest of it. But nearly everybody in this country will be absolutely sure that the avocado is the most middle-class thing ever, which is kind of what it's been called in the papers over and over again. Whereas we're all pretty sure now that a tin of mushy peas is not, it has a kind of gnaws and associations for a lot of people, which is good in my book, I come from Yorkshire. But all you can have a look at two other things, a tin of smash or a little packet of instant couscous. And again, although they're both carbohydrates, they're both instant, we know exactly how we would place somebody from that. And I think it goes back for centuries really in Britain, that idea that we have this idea that different people eat different people of different classes, different people of different kind of wrongs on the kind of socioeconomic ladder have the right to eat different food. And that's an idea that's come that we still see can't seem to shake off and I'm sure we'll get around to it later. But there's this sort of this kind of sheet anchor of an idea that kind of holds us back, because we think it's natural for people who wins a certain income or, you know, to be eating foods that other people wouldn't want to. Whereas I think in other countries, there's a different, I mean, my sister grew up in France, for example, and she said that everybody kind of agrees about what is good food, what to aspire to, they all kind of know what it is, and even if you can't afford it, you aspire to it. And I think a lot of that, a lot of that judgment comes from our kind of obsession or centuries long obsession in social class. And that is a very British thing as well, Dee. What is it about us Brits where we have well one an obsession with it, but also the judgment, or we feel that we have the right to pass a judgment on what people eat? I think it's a very British thing, but a particular viewpoint and a view from a place of privilege. So for a lot of British people, you know, they don't even subscribe to that. They just want to eat the foods, you know, from the region, from, you know, their culture. So, you know, Welsh people love their particular foods, and they're not about to change that for something English. And, you know, I think, yes, some people want to move up the rung, but for other people, because food holds up so much in terms of memory and family and connection, you know, food is much, much more than just class. Yeah, for me, food is very much part of my identity. It's part of my history. It's part of my ancestry. It's part of my understanding of who I am. And I, you know, we were talking about this before we went live with this, with this chat, and I was telling you about how I was often embarrassed when we lived above the corner shop about admitting to friends at school in a very white part of Reading where I grew up, that we were having Indian cooking. And I'd always want to be like, no, no, we're having fish fingers and chips. And there was something in me that wanted to kind of fit in, because in 80s Britain, being, having Indian cooking or the smells of Indian cooking wasn't necessarily celebrated like it is today where you have aisles of supermarket shelves with exotic cuisines. So, with that in mind, what do you believe D is the narrative around the conversation with food in class and immigration? Yeah. So, starting with exoticizing the food is part of that. You know, most of these foods are everyday foods, some are celebratory foods. And, you know, Britain has this long history with elsewhere and getting our food from elsewhere. And, you know, there's that legacy of sort of sugar and spices that has been part of people's diets. And I think immigration within the last century just sort of expanded the Britain, British palette. Yeah. Some, though, maybe, right? Maybe for some. I don't know. Does anybody, Ruby, would you? I think maybe for some, because I know at Granville, we still work with people who just want their meat on two veg. And that's perfectly fine. No one's judging them for that. But do you think there is a way now where we're perhaps a bit more open to a different palette or being introduced to different cuisines than perhaps we were 10 or 20 years ago? Ruby, Pen, do you want to jump in? I mean, I guess one thing that strikes me is like, yeah, like, for example, if you just walk around the supermarket, which, as it happens, is one of my favorite things to do in the world. You know, there's so much more selection, there's so much more choice than there was even 10 years ago. I recently went back to my hometown in South End, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Like, there was a Polish shop, and there were West African shops, and there were things that just didn't exist. So there is more selection in terms of food. I also think that there is a little barrier between that food as it is provided by, bought by, eaten by the people who belong to that culture, and then that food, when it enters the mainstream. And I think quite often what needs to happen, you know, this is one of the problems with our food culture at the moment. What needs to happen for it to enter the mainstream in any significant way is it needs to be like decoded by a kind of a trusted figure. And most of the time, that trusted figure will be someone who is, just for example, this is not a criticism of this person in particular, but Rickstein, someone who can go to a different place and make that food accessible to other people, and who can, you know, I guess just give it an acceptable, and quite often this means a white face, and to make it accessible in that way. So there's definitely that issue. Can you give me an example of the food type that you're referring to that you think needs to be under the spotlight a bit more? Well, just for example, like let's just talk about West African food, because that's something that I know a bit about. That's part of my heritage. Like, it has really struggled to kind of become mainstream in the way that some other foods have, for sure. And I think some of that is to do with misconceptions about it being stodgy or oily or whatever, and these really offensive stereotypes for the stereotypes that persist. But I definitely can see the slow infiltration of other ways of branding and packaging and communicating about that food that makes it more acceptable to people. So, you know, a plate of jollof rice might become a rice bowl, which is, you know, kind of taking the language of wellness or something like that. And so repackaging this food and making it just a bit more palatable to people. So there's definitely that kind of translation that goes on. And I don't think it's straightforwardly bad. I think it's very complex, though. And I think it can be a flattening. Both of you, Penn and D, you're nodding away there. Penn, to you first. I mean, those stereotypes tell us a little bit more about where you think they come from and how they've evolved over the many, many years and your extensive research. I'm putting you on the spot now, but if you can. Well, there are some, I mean, British food has always been quite absorptive. So we have, over the centuries, we've taken on, you know, dangerous new foods like potatoes and tomatoes. And it took two or 300 years for people to genuinely think that potatoes were edible and wouldn't poison you. Or to think that eating a raw tomato wasn't going to kind of send you straight into hospital. You know, there was a lot of anxiety and prejudice against things. Whereas interestingly, meat is one of the things which, on the whole, we've kind of prioritized and any, you know, a turkey coming into this country for the first time has no, you know, no difficulty with being accepted. But I think Ruby's absolutely right that often foods are kind of brought into the mainstream by being kind of Britishized or kind of homogenized in a way. And tea is a really interesting example of this because he obviously started off in China when Peeps had his first cup of tea. He called it a China drink I never had before. And we had a lot of problems with kind of trading with China. And it wasn't until it became British, because it was grown in India. And the Indian tea plantations were kind of, you know, overseen by good British men that it started to feel probably take issue with that. But yeah, this is all in inverted commas. If you can't see me, I'm wagging my little fingers like mad. And then it's, and so if you look at the, and this is something Ruby said as well, if you look at the sort of marketing as the way that things like tea, not so much coffee, but tea and cocoa and chocolate particularly, they, all the kind of the origin story gets sort of expunged and it becomes a very, very British thing. So a kind of a bar of dairy milk or Swiss thing bizarrely or Belgian thing, the chocolate, but tea became this ultimate British thing in the way that mashed potatoes became a kind of ultimate British thing, even though there'd be huge prejudice against it, them when they were seen as Irish, for example. So we've managed to kind of overcome lots of prejudices for food. And how I guess the jollof rising is interesting because whether, whether will that become like fish and chips, for example, which started life as Jewish fried fish and probably French or possibly Belgian fried potatoes. And then it begets kind of again kind of absorbed into the mainstream. And we suddenly think it's the most British thing ever, although it's actually only been around together for about 100 years, 120 years. I mean, you're making me think about every single thing that I've consumed today and where it's come from. And if I think that, well, actually, let's put it in a different way. Have you had your evening meal, your supper, your dinner? What did you all manage to eat before we started? No, no, shaking over the heads. Okay, what are you going to eat this evening then, ladies? I am going to slum it and notice my choice of words slum it and have some fast food, which I normally don't have as someone who cooks and believes in good, good food. All right. But I think we're romanticizing how a lot of our foods have become part of British cuisine. There's a lot of co-option and violence and gentrification of foods. You know, a lot of foods don't become mainstream until it's co-opted with a white middle class face front in it. So I can go to someone and probably get an authentic sort of, I wouldn't even say Caribbean because there's so many different cuisines within the Caribbean. You know, it's so vast. There's more to Caribbean food than rice and peas. But yet, you know, that's what we're presented, rice and peas, and often very bad rice and peas. So, yeah. The reason I was asking you all about what you're going to eat or you know, the point, a serious point, which is about our understanding of, you know, how we're going to the table, the conscious decisions that we make about food, and also understanding the history that Pen was pointing out and Deeve just done there as well. Because as you've just said, a lot of it is tied up with trade, money, history, slave trade, a lot of it by colonization, a lot of it by migration as well. And interesting that you pointed it out, your choice of words, Deeve, slumming it, that you're having a takeout. Whereas Ruby would say in your book, you've just said this, Ruby, don't be ashamed of going for the takeout, right? Yeah, I mean, I guess it's, there are different ways to approach this. Like I, I personally, I guess it's so much of it's reactive. Right. So, I mean, I came to food writing kind of by accident in a way. And what I saw there was so much judgment, so much judgment about the kinds of foods that I grew up eating, or even not just eating, but feeling was really special. Like if, if I got a McDonald's for instance, I understand the huge like ethical complications of that. But if I did get it, I thought it was special. It felt really special. It felt expensive. It felt like a luxury. And I kind of entered the world of food writing, encountering so much judgment from people. And it was just completely written off as even recognized as foods. So like when I come to it, I bring that to the table. And I kind of feel like why shouldn't it be a treat? Why shouldn't it be fun? Why shouldn't it be enjoyable? And that doesn't mean that there's nothing to critique in it. Because I think there are lots of things to critique. I think people need access to far more foods than just that. But then there's definitely something that's, that's good. And above all is delicious in it. But that doesn't obviously negate these point of view, because D comes so strongly from this point of advocating for people to have access to more nutritious foods and to have that choice rather than just being pushed into a food desert where you can't have anything but processed foods and fast foods. So yeah, and we're going to explore that now actually in more detail. But before we lay out the stool a little bit, I'm just wondering, Penn, if you can perhaps assess for us how we have got to a situation where food has become a problem, there are food inequalities in the UK. I don't think any of us would dispute that, would we? Just want to check that we're all thinking that. Penn, where have we got to when we're in the Western world and we are, some would describe as a wealthy, rich nation globally? I think on the, if you look at it on a very, very long timeline, you could possibly summarize it with there's a brilliant kind of post Second World War Hungarian comedian and he said on the continent people have good food and in Britain they have good table manners. And I think in Britain historically we've been so obsessed with all the stuff around food, the table manners, the etiquette, the way that the dinner parties, the way that food is aspirational or, you know, makes a kind of statement about your status. We've had far too much, and also not now, but before the, between about 1900 and about, I guess, again the Second World War, sorry 1800 and about the Second World War, there was this massive obsession with French food as well. And so this idea that only good food or kind of high status food was French food and the, the Welsh food or for example that Dean was talking about just wasn't considered to be worth, you know, worthwhile or worthy. So I think on the long, on the long kind of, you know, time span there's that and then on the shorter time span there's a reluctance by governments to get involved in what people eat. There seems to be, I mean the government seems to be very happy to, you know, spend our taxes and tell us, you know, what, you know, be involved in our, our health and all the, and our education and all the rest of it. But there's very little kind of government intervention, I think in, in health and nutrition and messaging and all the rest of it. So that's one reason, I think. Yeah, we don't have a government spokesperson here. Because there probably isn't a government spokesperson. There is a health minister and I know from just, you know, being a journalist in the industry that they would probably turn around and say that they are doing very much to help with, you know, food tokens. There isn't a food minister because in the, in the Second World War, when, which is possibly the last time the government took nutrition really seriously, there was a minister for food. Yeah. And I think that's why we have the national food strategy. Because, you know, our food has become the preserve of sort of the big corporations, big agriculture, and there's very little governance by our governments, yeah, within our food systems. And we do have food systems rather than one big food system. So, you know, for health of people, for health of planet, we have to intervene. Let's just talk about those food systems that you mentioned, D. Can you just explain to us what you mean by that and where we're at and why we're in this situation that we're in today? Right. So we have this big global food system. And the architect is Britain in terms of, you know, going elsewhere to get food. And as a result of that sort of developed systems of oppression, so that merchants could, you know, benefit and make profit. So basically, capitalism, patriarchy, racism, to justify, you know, why people should be enslaved or indentured or go through apprenticeship. And those systems have continued and morphed into different things, but they're still sort of oppression so that we get the cheap foods, so that we get the chocolates and coffee and all these things. But within that, you know, people have their local food systems. I love our sort of cultural suitcase food system where people bring foods, you know, from sort of ancestral places and share with communities and families, just to keep that connection. But what we have is like this intricate sort of food system that no one truly really understands how it works. And for people doing sort of food system analysis, food system change, you know, we're peeling back the layers to try and understand how it works. I mean, it's incredibly, incredibly intricate, very complicated as well. But I mean, if I was to play devil's advocate here, which I'm going to do, the government would turn around and say, there aren't food inequalities in this country, we're doing our very best. We acknowledge that there have been issues that have been raised by Marcus Rashford and we are trying to address that and we champion that. But if he wasn't around, maybe we wouldn't have been championing that, who knows. But I mean, there is an interesting conversation about this, which is deny, deny, deny. Oh, accept, accept, accept. Yeah, we're doing something about it. So I'm just kind of wondering, in that state of play, where we are, having come out of a lockdown in 2021. There is a food inequality in this country. How do you go about addressing it? I mean, D, I'll just give Ruby a chance because I'm just peeking her head like that, well nodding it in fact, when you've been chatting. So I mean, Ruby, where are we at with this conversation about food inequality in the UK? I honestly, I'm not the right person to answer this question. I don't, I don't have any of the answers. I mean, D is someone who's actually working kind of there in the thick of it, kind of trying to do stuff behind the scenes and also doing stuff on the front line as well. So I love your view though, because I don't have the answers either, but I know D has a lot and I really want to give D the opportunity to explore that. But I'd love to just get your thoughts on what she's just said as well. Yeah, I mean, I think so much of it is going to be about moving beyond just, it is a weird mix. I personally would like more, the government to do more to take on more to be more productive about providing foods where it's needed and taking that responsibility on to themselves rather than this kind of doggy dog, every man for himself, every man is his own responsibility kind of mindset. So I would like the government to do more top down. But then also I'd want to resist the kind of almost inevitable flattening of things if the government were to do that, you know, you kind of see it sometimes even in charitable interventions and things like food banks, where the things that are donated or the things, whether that's by individuals or by supermarkets or whatever it is, tend to be a certain kind of foods that we've got to get a lot of tins, we get a lot of pasta, you know, apples and things like that. But what about if someone doesn't need those foods necessarily, what if your staple food is millet, what if your staple food is plantain, or something like that. And so, you know, it kind of leaves people out when you have these massive interventions. So I think there's kind of, I would imagine, and this is, you know, as I said, not coming from any position of expertise, that there's a sweet spot where there's so much more money, so much more funding and attention given to these things, but also the freedom for individual communities to rally around, to use that funding how seems right to them and to provide the food that's culturally important to and relevant to and desired by the people that they serve. It's always going to be better building it from the ground up, right? D, go ahead, because I know you've got a lot that you want to share with us about the work that you've been doing on this. Yeah, so I really agree in with what Ruby has said. I think we need to understand that the food inequalities we have in this country are because of socioeconomic inequalities. We've had sort of 10 years plus of austerity that have undermined people's ability to be able to afford food. We have people in zero-hour contracts, you know, not receiving a real living wage or even a living income to be able to afford things, and food has become, you know, that thing that isn't as important as paying your rent or getting to work. So, which is why we end up with these food inequalities. Alongside that, we have a country where we're dependent on Europe for like 98% of our fruit and veg. So we're not as food secure as we think. We only produce about half of our own food. Yeah, I mean, I suppose it is quite difficult to have that chat post-Brexit. Yeah, sorry, I'll bring it in, but yeah. Yeah, that figure. I don't even know where it is now. I don't even want to even guess. For the farmers and amongst us, we know when they hungry up. So for people important food from Europe, you know, it's like there's hardly anything there because no one really wants to work with us as a country and then throw the pandemic in and all the issues there where farmers literally don't have enough workers, another thing migrant workers, they turned in crops, they weren't able to sow enough things, you know, so so many factors. But the main thing here is about economics and just need a government to address that. Can I add something to what Dia is saying, actually? There was a very good series, bit of work done by Sarah O'Connor in the Financial Times about low paid workers in the food industry. And she said, if we drive down the prices of food constantly, how do these people feed themselves? And she said, actually, if you look at food prices in Britain, they are probably amongst the lowest in Europe. But if you look at the price of accommodation and rent and mortgages and all the rest of it, they're amongst the highest in Europe. And actually, rather than driving down the cost of food all the time, which is the assumption that that's what you've got to do to feed people, you've got to make food cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. And if that means taking out the nutrition and if that means ultra processing it, then so be it. There's an assumption that's the only way to go. Whereas I think what you're saying, Dia, it is just it is part of a much, much bigger system where you have to look at why are people not eating because they've got to pay their rent? Why is their rent so high? So the proportion of money that people used to pay on food would be about 70 or 80 percent of their income 100 or 200 years ago. And I'm not saying that we should be in that situation. But I do think we should question the kind of balance, the amount of if people don't have enough money to spend on food when our food is actually comparatively cheap, then there's something wrong in the whole system, not just the food system. But that's a massive thing. And I, yeah, gosh, if we had more time, maybe hours, years, maybe even we would be able to try and get to the number of this. But like you said, D and Ruby and Pen, there are so many different layers to this. I recently did an interview with somebody from the World Food Programme at the United Nations who talked about how giving a nutritious basic meal to children in developing countries sets them up for life in terms of their mental health, in terms of their opportunity to study in school, in terms of their relationships with other people. Food is at the very basic heart of nourishing soul, mind, heart, all the rest of it. And for some reason, we seem to have lost sight of that in the UK. And she used an example of what was happening here in terms of food inequality. I don't know really what you both all think actually in terms of who gets to define food in Britain today. And I'll let you decide how you want to choose that word of define and who's in control or power or whatever. But Pen, who do you think defines it? Do you mean in terms of who gets to eat what or what we think about or our kind of impressions of what is the fashionable food or something? I'm almost thinking on a level of those in power and how they get to define. Because I think we've all probably set out an understanding that it is those in power that then feeds through into exactly what we're doing and how we're consuming food. So perhaps, yeah, if you can, talk about who defines food in that respect. And then maybe also in terms of how we might have control with what we're eating. If you look at the history of vegetarianism, it's very interesting because actually vegetarianism started in this country probably 400 years ago. It's got a longer history than we probably think about it. And at first, it was all sort of it was supported by working men as a way of kind of improving themselves, becoming maybe more spiritual, but sort of self-improvement. And for centuries, it was sort of addressed to working men that that's what they should do. They should change their diet, stop eating meat and become vegetarian. And actually, in some ways, maybe working agricultural men or men who work in factories or something, and not necessarily the people who define, who make food fashionable. And you can see with vegetarianism, it was when much more influential people and bloggers and celebrities and often women as well, particularly women rather than men who were more influential. And I think on the, so there were kind of two answers to that. There's a kind of domestic level and on the domestic level, housekeepers and cooks and mothers have always been the people who kind of in negotiation with their families. And that's an interesting thing, end up deciding what is not fashionable, what you're going to have to eat. And then you obviously, as we know, historically, it's been chefs and historically chefs have been male, who kind of decide on what's fashionable. And that kind of that sort of filters down. And then there's a, this is your expression, Ruby, there's maybe a sweet spot where the two things kind of meet and people decide that, you know, this kind of food is what we're eating at the moment. But it's quite interesting because going back to what Dee was saying about people liking to eat regional food, people in Wales liking to eat their own food. I think one of the things that has been hopeful in recent years is that if you look at the Ritz's menu, which I've done online, not actually in the Ritz, it's all like a, it's basically a gastropub. It's all British, you know, British beef. They're going to love you for saying that. I think the rest of it. It's all right. I'm not going to, and I just think that's a really interesting move in the last 20 or 30 years where the kind of this concept that everything, you know, those high-end hotels that you, everything used to be in French, for example. And now it's all about English and regional food. And I think that's a very positive move. But what you really want is to make that good, local English, all those words that we recognise as being a desirable, fresh, farmer's market, organic, all those things, you make, you want to make those available to everybody. As a choice. You know, it's all about, as Ruby was saying, it's all about making sure that everybody has a choice. Yeah, well, so with that in mind in Ruby, I mean, I could say that you're defining food in the UK today with your books. But who would you say is defining it for everyone? I mean, what I found really interesting actually, Penn about your book, and it really helped me to understand a few things, is when you were talking about vegetarianism, for instance, the roles that the church had, and Lenten fasts and things like this had in shaping people's diets. And so in the past, maybe we've had the church, and maybe we've had, you know, certain kind of heavy-handed forms of governance that shape what we can eat. But now I think especially with this government, and this links to what Dee was saying about the lack of a food minister and things like this, that it's such a hands-off approach. And when there's nothing coming from above, no choice provided or no guidance given, there's a vacuum to fill. And that vacuum is filled with people like us, kind of people talking on panels about food, but also by celebrity chefs and by influencers and by companies, very importantly. And so you have all of these competing voices, and so much of the kind of conversation that comes out of that becomes about class or it becomes about race, and it all becomes about how do you want to define yourself? It's very little about what might be good for you, what would you like to access, what can actually be to who you really are and all of these things. It becomes very crowded, and it's very noisy in this in between space where we're kind of left to defend for ourselves and to either follow the whims of food fashion or to kind of try and step out alone, whatever that means. So that's a difficult time. And I think that almost the thing that's missing is food. You know, we're so interested in kind of what food says about us and identity and all the rest of it that sometimes we forget to look at. We forget to start with the food, and that's what you do and eat up, isn't it? You start with the food that you like or that suits you. But I also think maybe social media has had its role to play, and I know Ruby you spoke about TV chefs and cooking competitions, but as you well know, but of course that has almost changed as well a reality TV programme about our understanding or relationship with food in a very kind of glitzy glamourised way. Dio, I just want to give you the opportunity to just fill in on your views about the definition of who's in control of the food debate in the UK today. I think the corporations, big businesses, you know, the free market are in control, but at the same time, from the bottom up, we have communities. We have farmers who literally challenge in that and saying, well, these aren't foods we want to eat. These are what we think is good for our health, good for our communities, good for, you know, the environment and trying not to be influenced by social media or celebrity and literally just cooking what honest, good, home-style food, you know, food of your grandmother or your mothers and aunts and I would say even dads and, you know, sort of real, real food. Yeah, and I would celebrate that in the sense that for me, the people that have defined food from when I was that big have to be my parents and their parents and their parents because their relationship with food is incredible and just the preparation and the hours it might take to soak red kidney beans to make rajma and putting it in a pressure cooker with chickpeas to make chollies, like this is breathtaking. It takes overnight, it takes hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and it tastes divine, but it's understanding that even more really than when it just hits you gobbled up and it's gone and actually I had traveled to once and I was in a monastery there and the monks all eat with their eyes shut and they do so because they believe that with every mouthful you appreciate it more if you taste and it's different senses, but also they say that you naturally get full up when you awful. Think of that what you will. We have got so many questions and I'm just conscious of the time here so if it's okay with you I'd love to put some of these to you. I'm going to start with Carol who has sent this question and saying isn't a lot of food choice due to what a person can afford? If we can do just an answer to Carol briefly if we can. Ruby? Yeah I mean obviously so much of it is. I think in a weird way like the some of the some of the disparities between what people can afford have narrowed in some ways but then obviously there's still a huge number of people who can't afford anything so it's really dictated by that it is but then there's also a middle ground where if you have you know 20 quid to go to the supermarket there's an incredible range of stuff far more than ever before that you can choose from so there's a lot of choice for some and near no choice for others who maybe have to use a food bank or rely on handouts in some other way. But also I just add as well and this is something that we've not really touched on yet but so much of our conversations about food and class revolve around what people can afford but then there are so many contexts where we have food where it's not even about our individual spending power so I'm thinking about schools prisons company canteens even just places like this nursing homes places where you get feds and where you don't have to turn up with your wallet but so much to do with class and to do with the budgets and sometimes greed of companies and things like that comes into that as well so it really just does cut across more than just restaurants and supermarkets. Yeah absolutely and I would add to that time as well I mean I'm a new mum my little one's going to be two next month and having time to think about what you're going to be feeding your little one but also then what they're getting in nursery and understanding all of that and how that relationship is born is quite something. I'm going to move on if that's okay with everybody unless you want to jump in with that but Beth has got a question here saying you've made some great points about the many divides that exist with food inequality in modern Britain but is there a food that you would consider unites us one that crosses the barriers of class and culture in terms of enjoyment and importance? Great question Beth. Penn? That's a very nice question. I'm struggling to think to be honest. What unites us? Could it be the breaking of bread? Well I was going to say bread because bread is so universal and yet because bread is so universal we find ways within the bread family to kind of differentiate the sliced white or the sourdough you know the whole meal and all the rest of it and in a way the more important are fooders or the more to you know to us so bread team for example the more differentiation will find it within it so it's a stupid example but the scone with the jam and the cream you know how could that be different? Yes of course it can in Cornwall it's done one way and in Devon it's done the other way you know in a way we do always find ways of kind of distinguishing between us is that I don't know if there's one food that specifically maybe rice I mean except when I cook it because I burn it I don't know I'm rubbish at cooking rice. I think you'd be hard pressed to find one for you. So rice there is you know you have you go to Japan you eat rice there is completely different to how you might be having rice in West Africa for example you might be having rice in the Punjab I mean yeah there are so many differentiations but um see what do you think the food that you know? Because probably it's not food and it might be something like our hands and not to be ableist but you know we all use our hands to prepare food some of us eat food you know with our hands and I think you know that unites us. Yeah I think that's a great one actually and I'm thinking about how you might eat food but then also the making of bread as well. Yeah yeah. Ruby a food that you think? No it's not going to happen everyone because so much I've been on Twitter long enough to know there's no good answer to that. Yeah I want to say one thing actually is that um I used to completely hate I talked about turkey earlier on I'm not obsessed with turkey I used to hate turkey for Christmas dinner I just kind of thought oh god it's so boring can't we have dark or beef or something else you know for this kind of big special meal and since I've been thinking a lot about it and that that question of what actually brings us together and what separates us I do quite now quite like the idea that on one day of the year a lot of families in Britain are having the same meal kind of more or less I mean obviously huge degree of kind of you know of difference. I'm going to take issue with that. No no no I'm not saying every single I'm not saying every family in every community but a lot of people because if you because what I've been doing in my work is looking at the way that food divides us and it does seem to be the historically in Britain it does seem to be one occasion where it kind of brings at least some people together in the same menu. You see I don't know in multicultural Britain today on Christmas day yeah what time people are having their lunch Christmas dinner is it before the Queen's Speech after the Queen's Speech which used to be these kind of benchmarks didn't they and also like are they having turkey or they're having chicken and lamb or are they having no beef? Sure sure sure then they're not of course not everybody's having absolutely the same meal everywhere but it's the most homogeneity we get. I take your point I take your point I think we yeah if we can we've got this question from David who says would you agree that one of the major problems about the choice of diet in the UK is how food is portrayed in mass media in spite of there being good programs about healthy cooking the overwhelming way in which food is represented in TV programs is fundamental problems with images are very powerful so how it's portrayed in mass media that's from David Welsh and Dee what do you think? Yes and no yes because of the influence it has on people to want to you know have that sort of food but no because for a lot of people you know including myself it doesn't really interest me you know it's like faff and a lot of people think you know mass media and advertising is just that faff it's not real food. Although they do go on a lot of reach don't they they're I mean some of these programs huge viewing numbers particularly Ruby the program that you were involved in back in 2013 Bake Off. Yeah yeah you I always get weird when that's brought up but yes that's true um I mean I think it does get weird when it's brought up is it uncomfortable or yeah I don't know you want to shake off? No it's fine it's fine it'll just always it shouldn't come as a surprise anymore but it always does I'll teach myself to be better on that count but I think um in terms of the way that food is portrayed in the media I think that maybe one thing that we lack a lot is it's a bit more about where food comes from and I don't mean really romanticizing like the journey of a single coffee bean from somewhere you know in this really like expensive way I mean in terms of just all foods like what does it mean for a plate to arrive out from the back of a restaurant what label went into that and stuff we never see that we see the beautiful end plate of food and that's all that we see we don't see anything about who grew it or who produced it and I mean I I'm currently working in a kitchen and I have done at various points throughout my adult life and I tell you it is so intense it is a lot of hard work it's exhausting work and we don't tend to see behind the scenes when we're talking about food so whether that's I mean maybe we see it in something like MasterChef sometimes but I think we could do with more of it and more to do with who's making the food and who's producing it and how does it arrive in front of this? Yeah and I think um just to say in a defensive kind that to bring the bake off up with you is because I think understanding the television programs and being part of that and then going on to do what you've done I think it's really it's there are a lot of people that have made a success in terms of food literature and appearances because of that program and have done it for great good as you are doing but it is interesting to understand some people think that the mass media or those kind of TV programs may be not be truly reflective or valuable as they could be. I mean if anything like I would say that bake off makes makes baking and food in general look 10,000 times more stressful and awful than it really is so if anything it's really it's dragging us down I think most of the time you know these these kind of quick competition shows they're like very fun entertainment I have absolutely no issues with them but yeah food doesn't need to be that stressful so if anything let's have a slightly more positive program. Yeah yeah so how do you capture the joy and enthusiasm of people who want to learn to cook and bake and you know just make it easy and I think that's what a lot of food teachers do a lot of community cooks do a lot of women you know people who are generally represented in the media. Neil says what do the panel think about the idea and this goes into ties into what we've been talking about about the idea that there should not be only just a food minister but also a serious program to teach cooking and the health aspects of food in schools so it's exactly D what you've you've just pointed out there and Penn where are we at do you think in terms of social media the media world and in its representation of food in the UK today. Question it's quite diverse and I think you can find your tribe can't you on on the whole you know if you're interested in baking if you're interested in cupcakes if you're interested in butchery you can find it somewhere and I think that's probably I wouldn't want that to be different I think where I would totally agree with both Ruby and Dee is to see and this would be a mainstream kind of media thing maybe to see more emphasis on where food comes from and who who produces it who grows it who you know on farmers because we do have this expression from field to fork and we kind of think as soon as it's got to the fork and us that's where our responsibility kind of ends you know we consume it end of story but actually it goes on it has to go on we have to feed the next generation of people you know it kind of you know as Dee was saying food isn't just about getting food onto a plate it's all about the environment it's about maybe it's being sustainable and I think unless food is such show not just the something that gets to the plate but somehow we have a concept of it in a whole system that has to be sustainable you have to be able to do year in year out and if you use the wrong fertilizers now you won't have food when you won't have soil produced food in 10 years time or whatever the the issue is I think we're only going to see a small part of a very big machine back to that system again. Tommy's got this question I think it's to me so as you mentioned at the start that Indian food was not celebrated until recently what has changed I think what I was trying to say Tommy was that when my parents came into the UK in the 1960s not many people had seen people of their ethnic background in this country before therefore anything that was different about them was seen with skepticism their food and what they wore and what they looked like and I think that because we now live in a multicultural Britain we do by the way live in multicultural Britain but the fact that Indian food and all kinds of different types of food from around the world is very much part of our conversation and rightly so and that is my parents generations legacy and I think as Penny was talking about earlier about immigration and colonialism and all of that it kind of marries into this conversation of how we are as UK citizens today I'm really conscious of time and thank you everybody for your questions but I just want to a couple of questions I want to pick out that some I think will perhaps encapsulate some of the questions that I haven't got around to asking from our guests as well is what would you just say would be your your tip for thinking about food and class in the UK today and what we could really learn from your vision and your research that you've all done and deep um I would say stop thinking as a consumer and become a food citizen so that you're really thinking about all those issues around power and democracy environment and climate and sort of making informed choices yeah I love that being a food citizen absolutely um Pan Ruby Ruby do you want to go ahead next um you can't get better than what Dee said that was brilliant I think I guess I should just say less as the thinking about what food says about you or what the food in someone else's basket says about them and a little bit more about just thinking is there food is there enough food is there enough choice just I guess you know less like cultural analysis of the food in front of us and a little bit more just making sure there is food to start with making sure the material conditions are met so that everyone can eat yeah absolutely and um Pen I think I would say absolutely I couldn't agree more with either Dee or Ruby um and also I'm just going back to that point that good food the food that we should all we should all be aspiring to eat and share good food you know I think that's really important food is obviously the kind of key to our health and our social health and our communities and for those to work well it's got to be good food and we should be we shouldn't be compromising on it because we feel that's you know it should start with good food and is it scalable is it something that we can share with everybody absolutely um soul food is how I'm going to end it there that's great food um Pen Dee Ruby thank you so so very much I've been talking to you for hours um but it's been great to uh be part of this evening session and thanks to everybody joining in and you're going to hand back to you thank you so much for beta and everybody that was completely extraordinary absolutely absolutely fascinating it's one of those things where in an hour somehow you manage to all weave everything together and draw out a lot of perspective and context but also really drill into some of the things which affect so many of us moving forward it was really really brilliant thank you so much and thank you to KitchenAid who support the work of the British Library food season there is plenty more to come from us we're here through until the end of May proving just how eclectic and broad-ranging food season is next up is Raymond Blanc on Saturday we're down at Le Manoir with him I have a conversation with Felicity Cloak you can head to the British Library web page and see all the events there lots lots more to come if you'd like to support the work of the British Library there is a donate button on your screen I'm not going to have some fish fingers um I really hope you've all enjoyed tonight as much as I have but for now thank you and goodbye from the British Library food season