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Honey is the world’s third most-adulterated food. Survey after survey uncovers evidence that manufacturers — not necessarily beekeepers — are adding sugar syrups to bulk up the honey they sell. That may not be a health hazard, but it is defrauding customers, and yet there is very little public outrage, except in the immediate wake of yet another revelation of wrong-doing. Honey adulteration is nothing new, as I heard from historian Matt Phillpott, who has been studying the practice ancient and modern.

Notes

1. Matt Phillpott writes Honeybee Histories on substack.
2. Here’s the transcript.
3. Banner photo by Jennifer C on flickr. Cover photo, robot bee designed by Cat7. Single bee by Brad Smith on flickr.

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Earlier this year, The Atlantic published a long article looking into what it called “Nutrition Science’s Most Preposterous Result,” the very robust finding that people who ate a modicum of ice cream each week were less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes. But while nutritionists were happy to recommend (low-fat) yoghurt, which seemed to offer similar protection, nowhere was ice-cream mentioned. David Johns wrote that article, and had previously looked into guidelines on cutting salt and the Big Sugar anti-fat conspiracy that never was. An interesting person to talk to about the intersection between nutrition science and public policy.

Notes

1. Could ice cream possibly be good for you?.
2. Was there ever really a “sugar conspiracy”? is behind a paywall, but you should be able to find a copy if you look. Or ask.
3. Likewise Controversial Salt Report Peppered with Uncertainty.
4. Transcript for your reading pleasure.

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Today is the 80^th anniversary of the roundup and deportation to Auschwitz of the Jews of Rome. That much I knew as I was planning this episode. More recent events took me and everyone else completely by surprise. I am sticking to my plan.

Rome’s former ghetto has become a tourist attraction, with an interesting museum under the Great Synagogue and plenty of other sites to see. And where there are tourists, there is food. The foodification of the ghetto, however, goes well beyond overpriced snacks. Both sides of the main street, the via del Portico Ottavia, are almost completely lined with restaurants. What I find most mysterious about this is that one of the most popular Roman foods, carciofi alla giudia, is freely available all over Rome and beyond. What makes this deep-fried delight Jewish? And how has food in the ghetto changed?

To help me understand the transformation of Rome’s Jewish foodscape I enlisted the help of Micaela Pavoncello, a member of the Jewish Community, and Sean Wyer, who has been studying the changes in the former ghetto.

Notes

1. Micaela Pavoncello runs Jewish Roma Walking Tours and offers a wide range of tours and other activities.
2. Sean Wyer’s paper Gourmet and the Ghetto: The “Foodification” of Rome’s Historic Jewish Quarter is available from his website.
3. Finally, the transcript
4. Cover photograph by seventyoneplace, used with permission. Other pictures by me.

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Every aspect of large, industrial food creates a niche for people who want a less standardised alternative, and if the stars align you may have producers nearby who are willing to fill that niche. So it is with Big Milk. There are small dairies who offer fresh milk produced to the same exacting standards of hygeine without being further processed. Not raw milk (which also has its adherents and suppliers), but whole milk that has been pasteurised and nothing more. Almost as soon as I had published the episode on milk early last month, I was excited to come across an article about one such place, Saltrock Dairy in the southeast of Ireland. Saltrock operates a mobile vending machine from which customers can buy whole milk in recyclable bottles. I immediately made plans to talk to Cath Kinsella, whose brainchild it is.

Notes

1. Saltrock’s main online presence seems to be on Instagram.
2. Caroline Hennessy’s article first alerted me to Saltrock.
3. Here is the transcript.
4. Thanks to Saltrock Dairy for the photographs.

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In her latest book English Food: A People’s History, Diane Purkiss offers just that, an entrancing survey of what and how the English ate, with due recognition that “‘the English’ are not a single entity” and that the past necessarily illuminates the present. Impossible to cover all that in a single episode, or even several, we set out to explore what happens when the vast bulk of the English do not have enough to eat. Food riots are a recurring feature of rural life in England, often the result of bad weather and always exacerbated by the action — or inaction — of the ruling classes. As Diane told me at the outset, “it might be faster to talk about what rebellions don’t have a food element”.

Notes

1. You can buy English Food: A People’s History online from an independent bookseller. It has just won the Guild of Food Writers award for Best Food Book of 2023.
2. Those uprisings:
• Jack Cade’s Rebellion
• Pilgrimage of Grace
• Oxfordshire Rising
3. An episode from the vaults dealt with Food prices and social unrest in the context of the Arab Spring and more recent manifestations.
4. Swing letters from the British National Archive.
5. Here is the transcript.

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