Image of fields and farmhouses in Devon

When we moved to Exeter full time, there was a stall in Exeter farmers market selling delicious, organic vegetables and fruit from their farm. Some four or five years later, we were horrified to learn that they were giving up completely and selling the farm. A couple of years passed and a group of young farmers set up their stall there to sell the organic vegetables they were growing at Down Farm.

Cartoon image of an angry wasp

“Cultural appropriation” seems to have dropped below the richter scale of crimes, at least within the food-world. It seems that as long as you say your mish-mash is “inspired by” it’s OK, but what about that other buzz word associated with food… “authentic”?

A Rainbow Palate by Carolyn Cobbold, cover image

If you opened a can of baked beans to discover a brown gloopy sauce containing brown haricot beans, rather than the orange-red sauce and beans you were expecting, what thoughts would run through your head?

Dr Carolyn Cobbold’s research interests are science and food in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. She has recorded two extracts from her book A Rainbow Palate: How Chemical Dyes Changed the West’s Relationship with Food for Talking of Food