Lecker

How still life reflects - and defines - the food of an era, featuring artist Ben McDonald and author Katie Goh.Find Ben online:Instagram: @ben___mcKo-Fi store: ko-fi.com/benmc/shopFind Katie online:Instagram: @katie_goh_Website: katiegoh.co.ukYou can find a list of books referenced and artworks mentioned at leckerpodcast.comRelated episodes:A Personal History of the Orange with Katie Goh [LINK]Oranges and Lemons [LINK]---Lecker is a podcast about how food shapes our lives. Recorded mostly in kitchens, each episode explores personal stories to examine our relationships with food – and each other.Looking for something to read? Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]Support Lecker:Patreon: patreon.com/leckerpodcastSubstack: leckerpodcast.substack.comApple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lecker/id1158028729Merch: leckerpodcast.com/merchListen everywhere: leckerpodcast.comInstagram: @leckerpodcastFull transcript available at leckerpodcast.comMusic by Blue Dot Sessions

Have you ever thought about what you might put on your gravestone? A quote, a poem....a recipe? Rosie Grant, the world's leading expert on gravestone recipes, explains all.About Rosie Grant:Rosie Grant is a writer, researcher, and archivist whose work explores the intersections of archives, folklore, and family storytelling. She is the creator of @GhostlyArchive, where her exploration of gravestone recipes and the histories behind them has reached hundreds of thousands of followers across social media. TO DIE FOR: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes is her first book.Find her: Instagram: @ghostly.archiveTikTok: @ghostlyarchiveFind all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]Further Listening:Sunday Roast Rites: on death and cookingMoots: on the food related traditions of Hop-tu-Naa, the Manx celebration of Samhain---Lecker is a podcast about how food shapes our lives. Recorded mostly in kitchens, each episode explores personal stories to examine our relationships with food – and each other.Support Lecker:Patreon: patreon.com/leckerpodcastSubstack: leckerpodcast.substack.comApple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lecker/id1158028729Merch: leckerpodcast.com/merchListen everywhere: leckerpodcast.comInstagram: @leckerpodcastFull transcript available at leckerpodcast.comLecker is part of Heritage Radio Network - heritageradionetwork.orgMusic by Blue Dot Sessions

Anna Ansari on Silk Roads: Tracing Food, Migration and Identity Across Asia Iranian-American writer Anna Ansari joins Lecker to discuss her debut cookbook Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey with recipes from Baku to Beijing. Cooking Risotto alla Bukhara in her East London kitchen, we explore how ingredients, people, and culinary traditions have moved along ancient trade routes - and how Anna's own journey from suburban Detroit to China to Scotland connects to these stories of migration and belonging. We cover: The movement of ingredients across the Silk Roads (melons from Uzbekistan, spinach from Iran, apples from Kazakhstan) How Anna's Turkic heritage connects to Central Asian and Chinese cuisines Experiencing Uyghur food in Beijing as a teenager and recognising familiar flavours Adapting traditional recipes like bakhash into dishes recognisable in different contexts The immigrant experience: giving up a legal career to move countries and start over Cooking rice as a constant across homes and continents Authenticity, authority, and whose food stories get told About Anna Ansari: Anna Ansari is an Iranian-American writer with a background in Asian Studies. A former trade attorney, she now writes at the intersection of food, family and history. Her debut book Silk Roads: A Flavour Odyssey is out now. Find her: Substack - Where in the World is Anna Ansari? / Instagram @thisplacetastesdeliciousFind all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]Further Listening: What is a National Dish? with Anya von BremzenGastro-Spirituality with Jenny Lau--- Lecker is a podcast about how food shapes our lives. Recorded mostly in kitchens, each episode explores personal stories to examine our relationships with food – and each other. Support Lecker: Patreon: patreon.com/leckerpodcast Substack: leckerpodcast.substack.com Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lecker/id1158028729 Merch: leckerpodcast.com/merchListen everywhere: leckerpodcast.com Instagram: @leckerpodcast Full transcript available at leckerpodcast.com Lecker is part of Heritage Radio Network - heritageradionetwork.org Music by Blue Dot Sessions

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.How can the practice of eating together secure a sustainable future for our kitchens?In the final episode of the series, Joanne MacInnes and Betul Piyade from the community centre West London Welcome describe what it's like for refugees and asylum seekers to live indefinitely in hotel rooms without kitchens. And academic and "food crisis responder" Marsha Smith explains why social eating is so important for us as a society, and explains how it's the key to future proofing our eating habits.Lecker is written and produced by Lucy DearloveThanks to my contributors on this episode Betul Piyade and Joanne MacInnes at West London Welcome, and Marsha Smith.West London Welcome is an amazing place. You can donate to support their work via LocalGiving here.The transcript of the episode is here.Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music by Blue Dot SessionsResearch and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.Editorial feedback by Rory DearloveCover collage by Stephanie HartmanSupport Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.Find Lecker on instagram.

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.Prefabs – built to help counter the post war housing shortage - were actually some of the earliest examples of fitted kitchens in the UK, and came with built-in fridges at a time when this technology was unaffordable to most people. Jennie Thomas reflects on growing up in a post war prefab in Hackney, and Alice Wilson, whose academic work examines tiny houses, reflects on the movement as a reaction to the housing situation in contemporary Britain.Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Jennie Thomas and Alice Wilson. Find out more about the OpHouse project.A full transcript is available on the Lecker website.Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot SessionsResearch and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.Additional guest research by Sarah Woolley.Cover collage by Stephanie HartmanSupport Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.Kitchens are inextricably linked with the woman of the house. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the fitted kitchen was literally designed as a workspace to fit around a woman’s body. But what does this mean for women - and men - now? How are traditional gender roles built up and broken down by the kitchen itself? Michael Etheridge reflects on the distribution of domestic labour in his own home, and food writer Gemma Croffie talks about the narrow definition of accepted womanhood when it comes to domestic work.A full transcript for this episode is available on the Lecker website.The title Meal Machine comes from the companion guide to the 2011 MoMA exhibition Counter Space: Design + The Modern Kitchen: “Meal machine, experimental laboratory, status symbol, domestic prison, or the creative and spiritual heart of the home?”Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.Thanks to my contributors on this episode: Michael Etheridge and Gemma Croffie. You can read Gemma’s piece Kitchens on the Path, which inspired this episode, in the print zine released alongside this audio series. Buy a copy now at leckerpodcast.com/kitchens.Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions.Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman.Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

On this month's Lecker Book Club, a regular interview series with authors writing in or adjacent to food culture, The Jackfruit Chronicles by Shahnaz Ahsan.The Jackfruit Chronicles is a recipe book and memoir hybrid which integrates food into the text in a very specific way. In the book, Shahnaz tells the story of her family’s migration - three generations across three continents - which begins with the arrival of her grandfather Habib in Manchester from Bangladesh in the 1950s.You can still sign the open letter which Shahnaz was involved in creating and circulating, calling on Keir Starmer to take action over the Israeli government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to use starvation as a weapon of war against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Link here.Lecker is now part of Heritage Radio Network! Find out more about this independent podcast network dedicated to food, beverages and the culinary world and discover their many fantastic shows at heritageradionetwork.org.You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.The Jackfruit Chronicles is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

On Book Club this month: Heather Parry's Carrion Crow, a novel about a woman in the attic which encompasses class consciousness, turtle soup and Mrs Beeton.You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.An A-Z of Chinese Food is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

Down a little alley in the centre of Hastings you can find Crêperie by the Sea serving traditional French buckwheat crêpes and galettes. Owner and chef Penelope Foster explains the fundaments of a good crêperie, and what it takes to spin perfect pancakes.Find Crêperie by the Sea on Instagram.You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

On Book Club this month: Anna Sulan Masing's Chinese and Any Other Asian, an eye-opening and moving book about East and South East Asian identity in Britain.You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.Chinese and Any Other Asian is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

On umami in diaspora, from chicken salt to bay leaves.Dr Johnny Drain explains how garum is the root of many of our umami based sauces. Author and cook Kate Young prepares a classic Australian English mince on toast, with essential MSG. Chef Dara Klein reflects on how she's learned to find home everywhere, via the kitchen. Noby Leong considers adaptation and evolution in his family cooking.Plus chefs SongSoo Kim and Tim Anderson on some of the gastronomic and linguistic nuances of umami.In To Be Delicious, Dr Anna Sulan Masing explores MSG - and more broadly umami - through the lens of East and South East Asian food heritage and diaspora food culture in the UK. From fritters to instant ramen, fermentation to takeaways, these five episodes open out the conversation around MSG and find a breadth of new ways for us to think about its usage within cooking, and its importance within cultural heritage.Credits:Hosted by @annasulanProduced by @dearlovelucy & @annasulanOriginal theme music by @midorijaegerPodcast artwork by @npl_illustrationAdditional music by Blue Dot Sessions.The series is completely editorially independent and was made possible, along with Anna's wider research, by support from the European Committee for Umami and Ajinomoto.Anna's book, Chinese and Any Other Asian: Exploring East and South East Asian Identity in Britain is out now! Order here.

AKA infinite ways with a packet of instant noodles. Georgina Quach, a journalist and archivist, makes her personalised ramen for Anna and Lucy, and considers the importance of comfort in the food she makes, as well as how her Vietnamese heritage informs the savoury flavours she uses in her cooking.Chef and Chinese food creator Chin Taylor reflects on assumptions of how takeaway food is made and how they affect people's perceptions of the work that goes into it – and how MSG fits into this. Chef and author Tim Anderson talks about dashi, and fermentation expert and food scientist Dr Johnny Drain goes deeper on the science behind why umami is so important in a water-based cuisine like Japan's. And SongSoo Kim, head of sourcing and development at the restaurant group Super 8, talks about the complexity of umami. In To Be Delicious, Dr Anna Sulan Masing explores MSG - and more broadly umami - through the lens of East and South East Asian food heritage and diaspora food culture in the UK. From fritters to instant ramen, fermentation to takeaways, these five episodes open out the conversation around MSG and find a breadth of new ways for us to think about its usage within cooking, and its importance within cultural heritage.Credits:Hosted by @annasulanProduced by @dearlovelucy & @annasulanOriginal theme music by @midorijaegerPodcast artwork by @npl_illustrationAdditional music by Blue Dot Sessions.The series is completely editorially independent and was made possible, along with Anna's wider research, by support from the European Committee for Umami and Ajinomoto.Anna's book, Chinese and Any Other Asian: Exploring East and South East Asian Identity in Britain is out now! Order here.

The brand new Lecker mini series launches Friday 31st January.In To Be Delicious, Dr Anna Sulan Masing explores MSG - and more broadly umami - through the lens of East and South East Asian food heritage and diaspora food culture in the UK. From fritters to instant ramen, fermentation to takeaways, these five episodes open out the conversation around MSG and find a breadth of new ways for us to think about its usage within cooking, and its importance within cultural heritage. Credits:Hosted by @annasulanProduced by @dearlovelucy & @annasulanOriginal theme music by @midorijaegerPodcast artwork by @npl_illustrationThe series is completely editorially independent and was made possible, along with Anna's wider research, by support from the European Committee for Umami and Ajinomoto.