Off Air... with Jane and Fi - I'll keep her seat warm but I won't be licking it

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Fi is off with illness so we bring you good old Jane² as Jane Mulkerrins fills in. The Janes discuss Nigel Farages' buttocks, bed-airing and Jane G's influencer status. Plus, Jane G speaks to food historian Pen Vogler about her new book 'Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Welcome to Off Air. It's like, well, it's like the good old days.

I've got Jane Mulkerrin's back. No, I'm really happy to see you. But Fi has got a tummy bug. I know. Well, no, I'm not laughing because see you, but Fi has got a tummy bug. I know. Well, no, I'm not laughing because I feel immense sympathy. There's nothing I enjoy less than a tummy bug. And somebody, one of our other colleagues, had one the day before, Jane.

Have they been licking the same desk surfaces? No, I don't think so. Fi says she's feeling a little bit better, so we're very hopeful that she'll be back tomorrow. I think it might be one of those short sharp shock things yeah yes all the shush words but they're not pleasant they're very unpleasant well i'm very happy to keep her seat warm but i won't be licking it no i i absolutely guard against that i really i really wouldn't it was it wasn't remotely funny but she messaged me first thing this morning and said she was feeling really ropey and wouldn't be coming in.

But then, of course, immediately I think, oh, my goodness, do I feel queasy? I think I might feel a bit queasy. And I didn't really at all, but I just thought I'm bound to, and I haven't got it. Do you think it's sympathy queasiness because you are morphing into one and the same being? It might be that. So you've got sort of, if she feels something, you feel something too?

I think we have got to that stage. It's wonderful, isn't it? Anyway, get well soon, Fi. I'm almost certain she won't be listening, but I'm just saying it anyway. And actually, it was a good job today she was not there, because our big guest was this food historian, lovely woman called Penn Vogler, but obviously the focus was on food.

And if you're in that kind of post-yucky, you don't want to sit and listen to people talking about turnips or broad beans, do you? Definitely not broad beans in my case. Well, you don't understand the social significance of the broad bean, Jane. Not yet, but when I listen, I will. It will all be revealed to you.

I'll change my mind. So when you were last on, we were talking about shifting sexuality. We were. We've moved on to encounters with celebrities in toilets. Seamlessly. Yes. And what's this one titled?

Jesus' foreskin and euphemisms for periods. We haven't moved very far, to be honest. Not really. No. But let's just deal with this first one, which is kind of housekeeping, really. But Jennifer says, the location of I'm a Celebrity, which I did reference, I think, yesterday, because I caught sight of Nigel Farage's buttocks. Same.

I can't ever unsee that now, Jane. I literally put it on at that moment. Yeah. I mean, the only thing... I mean, to be honest, they absolutely were what I expected. Yeah, they really... Do you know what? I'd never given it much forethought,

but clearly you had. The thing that I'm enjoying is how much fun Ant and Dec are having with it. Yeah, Fee and I were talking about this the other day, and I know they're talented. I'm wondering, and she was wondering the same, whether they're perhaps, they've got to slightly reinvent themselves. Can they keep on getting away with the cheeky lad thing? They've been doing it for 407 years.

And I think their combined age is now 973. But still behaving like teenage boys. Yeah, is that OK? Well, I mean, they've played about seven million quid a year each for it, aren't they? So I wouldn't change if I were them. OK, they win. Anyway, Jennifer says,

the location of I'm a Celebrity is an hour inland from the New South Wales coast. And if the cameras just panned around, you'd see Australia's sixth biggest city. It's not the jungle. It's a rainforest on the edge of 21st century civilisation. Which city is it near then? Am I being thick?

The Gold Coast. Oh, it's a city. The Gold Coast is a city. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's a sort of stretch of high rises. Right. But it's called the Gold Coast.

I know it's grammatically problematic, isn't it? Right, OK. It certainly is and I don't like it. Jennifer, thank you. She says, I loved your correspondent the other day who used the word minging. I knew straight away she was a fellow Northern Islander. Jennifer, thank you for that

and I'm very glad we're keeping you company. Over there in the Gold Coast. I've been listening. I do listen when I'm not on the show. I'm not on the podcast. I'm basically better than Fi. Do you want one of our books? I think I might have one of those as well.

You might have given me one of those before. Can I just tell you a small aside? When I lived in New York, I interviewed Diane von Furstenberg many times. She's just such a staple of New York. Every time I interviewed her, she'd say, have you got my book? And she'd come out with another four copies of it, all signed. I've got about 17 copies of Diane von Furstenberg's book. But who actually was she? She was a leading socialite.

She's a dress designer. Is she? Very famous for the wrap dress. I should have known that. But she was married to Prince von Furstenberg and she kept his name. Even after he

changed his sexuality quite a lot. Even during their marriage. He was a flexible friend. He was a flexible friend. But she decided to keep his name because it sounded better for the dresses. I've got to be honest. Had I been married to a prince, and I haven't yet been married to a prince, I would have kept the name. Von Furstenberg

is great, isn't it? Absolutely, I really would. But anyway, I've got a lot of her books. Maybe I can give you one of hers and send her one of yours. So, I do listen to the podcast when I'm not here, and I've been very amused by the can of worms you've opened about bed making. Oh God, yes. It's really, and this morning, I

got up and i i actually pulled my duvet back and thought how long did jane say i had to air it for see you just feel like an earworm i'm an influencer in my own small way bed influencer duvet influencer um so this is from leanne who says um she loves the show she often starts to listen to other podcasts and then just thinks no i'll just put jane and fn. Can I just say, very wise. Don't take any chances. But I also like her metaphor. She says it's a bit like when you think you'll put on some trousers

and then just end up with your favourite jeans anyway. Yeah. So that's nice. You're my favourite trousers. I sometimes think on the weekend I won't wear tracksuit bottoms. I'll put on some structured clothing. I really don't. No.

Anyway, she says she lets her bed air all day, shuts the bedroom door, forgets about it until she goes up later, usually in the middle of something else, and it's left. And so all of a sudden it's nearly midnight and the bed is still airing. So she says it only gets made when the sheets are changed. And that's probably every 10 days or so. Oh, I think 10 days is perfectly acceptable. I prefer a week, but I do think ten days is alright. Yeah, we'll take ten days. I've reached the stage in my life where just getting into clean sheets is about as erotic as it gets.

And that I like to listen to an audio book. It's only 99.9% true. Fleur, thank you for this, Fleur's is the email that is headlined Jesus is foreskin and euphemisms for periods, which is an award-winning title.

I listened with particular joy to Monday's episode with the historian Philippa Gregory because it tapped into two of my niche interests, medieval women mystics and euphemistic phrases for periods. In the late 90s, I spent two years writing two dissertations about Marjorie Kemp and Julian of Norwich, and representations of women's private spaces in late medieval literature between 1250 and 1550. I became slightly obsessed with anchoresses, essentially hermits who

voluntarily locked themselves into a cell on the north side of a church and dedicated themselves to a life of religious contemplation. This reached its peak in and around 1997 when I forced my long-suffering mum, dad and sister to walk around the streets of Siena in 35-degree heat to find the shrine of Catherine of Siena. I've been there too. Have you? Yeah.

Catherine reputedly wore Jesus's foreskin on her wedding finger, thank you Jane, to symbolise her marriage to God. Alas, her shrine was closed. So you've been there? Yes. I grew up in a reasonably

Catholic household and have been dragged around most Catholic churches and have been dragged around most Catholic churches and, you know, eminent bits of old saints in Western Europe. Yeah, Catherine of Siena is a cracker. Anyway, says Fleur, I always like to think that this sort of behaviour, being an anchoress, along with entering a convent or even wearing the foreskin of Christ, was an act of agency on the part of some medieval women to avoid a life of marriage, childbearing, and early death. And your conversation with Philippa reminded me of this.

And actually, she's quite right, that was the point I made to Philippa, which was, who wouldn't want to have gone to a convent? Because frankly, fun and games, lady friends, if that was your cup of tea, and also, no pregnancy pregnancy with all the additional hassle and probably early death. Having signed up for marriage, childbirth, and the life of a teacher myself, in my darker moments, I too have fantasised,

oh, Lord Fleur, about being bricked up on the north side of a church and being left to quiet contemplation. It's just a shame I don't believe in God. I should add, if you fancy a very different book for next month's book club, I heartily recommend Matrix by Lauren Groff. Think 11th century nuns who don't necessarily believe in God

and enjoy many sapphic pleasures along the way. I suspect it's a bit Marmite, but it was my favourite of 2021. I love Lauren Groff. Fates and Furies is one of my favourite books. She's brilliant, yeah. I haven't read Matrix, but it's on my list, so I'll crack on with that. Yeah, OK, yes, you should. Just to briefly refer to euphemisms for periods,

in Germany they say the Red Army has arrived. God! And in Denmark, the communists are in the funhouse. I might start saying that. That's good. The communists are in the funhouse. The communists are in the funhouse. That's wonderful.

Yeah, Catherine of Siena, if anyone... I do think that that makes complete sense. If you think, I'd just like to put off these blokes and I'm just going to wear Jesus's foreskin on my finger and hopefully that'll keep them at bay. I'm not being funny, but how did she... Who had convinced her that what

she was wearing... Are you saying that the Shroud of Turin isn't real as well? I am saying that I don't know and this is the most sacrilegious thing to say. I've no idea how long foreskin would last. It was probably in a glass case for a while, so that would help.

She had quite a chunky bit of jewellery on her wedding finger then, didn't she? Yeah, at least one digit, I'd say. Onwards. What have you got? So you've been talking a lot about bras as usual as ever. We are a support network. Garment. We are an audio support. This is from Judith she said I hate bras

any bras. I even want to donate my breasts now that I'm through with breastfeeding is that even a thing that's possible? She said anyway after working from home for over a year I knew I needed a better bra because I have a face to face work thing this week. So on Sunday, I came across post-surgery bras at M&S

and they're very comfortable while giving me the breast support I need. But at the counter, I was asked to provide my name and address because these special bras are VAT-free. Since I haven't had surgery, my mind went all over the place imagining HMRC querying my purchase

with no proof of surgery can one of your mns or hmrc listeners explain why they need names and addresses of people buying these bras and if she leads on to talk about the comment on vat free period pants reminded me to write in i'm bad they have lifted vat on yeah why aren't all women only vat items free like bras we all have to carry these heavy boobs on top of that, pay an extra 20% VAT, while men just throw on a shirt and they're done. Was any of this in the autumn statement today?

Did Jeremy say much? I was very busy this afternoon. Couldn't listen to Jeremy. Oh, darling, I know it's busy at the Times magazine. You've got all those lovely things coming in. Yeah, I had to do some shop pages. Free gifts that you have to look... No, sorry. Absolutely, that's appalling. You have asked me before, what had to do some shop pages. Free gifts that you have to look. No, sorry.

Absolutely, that's all. You have asked me before, what do you do down there? What do you do? Do you just sit around chatting? Says a woman on a podcast with her mate. God, it's like a knife through the heart. Listen.

Oh, V, come back. What was I saying? I was on to something there. Oh, yeah, what do we do at the Times? Well, I mean, I don't mean to be rude. I thoroughly enjoy that magazine, as you know. It's true, because men don't have to wear Y-fronts, do they? No.

Who was it I noticed the other day? Somebody was on that show, that Channel 4 prison show, Banged Up. Oh, yeah. And they went in to be searched. You know, it was all pretend. They were entering a fake prison. And I think it was the EastEnders actually who said, oh, I don't wear pants.

I thought, ooh, I'm sorry, but I would prefer a layer of material between my outerwear and my... Yeah, especially if you're wearing your favourite jeans. Ooh. How often do you wash your jeans? Oh, no, I am am pretty clean but you shouldn't wash jeans too often no i know i know i shouldn't but i there's something about the smell of washed

jeans that i find i find lovely and i'm just i just love sticking a load on i've got to be honest to me i like to pop a wash on as well yeah exactly very soothing um can i read dolly and ken from jason so funny because that's the one i had honestly we're alike there we go yeah um jane's sharing a brain dear jane and fee i wanted to share that between myself and my best friend katherine it's become a bit of an ongoing competition slash joke to see who can find a ken follett either a the fastest in a second-hand bookshop or B. in the weirdest location, e.g. Airbnb. I was shopping the other day and noticed these two friends of the podcast side by side.

I'd like to think they'd have a great time together. And she sent a little picture there of Ken Follett beside Dolly Alderton. Well. Having a fine old time. Can I just say they would have a good time because I'm in the unusual position, possibly, of having had lunch with both Dolly Alderton and Ken Follett. You are so showbiz. I'm such a swinger in that sense and I think that a lunch with the pair of them would be jolly to die for. Yeah yeah you could

arrange that. Well no I think you should arrange that as a special gift for a time subscriber. Oh is that another one of my jobs now? Yeah, you can move over and do that as well if you like. Okay, I'll run Times Plus events. On a more serious note, says Josie, your conversations have kept me company for years. Through my PhD, the pandemic, and my first grown-up job commuting from Cambridge to London

every day to work in drug discovery. She really does have a grown-up job. Josie, I'm honestly very impressed by that. It's amazing. I am a woman working in STEM, which means I'm often the only woman in the room. Whilst many of my male colleagues are the best allies you could ask for, I lack female role models. And the one thing that concerns me is that I don't have a blueprint for what growing into middle age looks like in my field of science. Because to be honest, there aren't any menopausal or middle aged women for me to look up to. Your role in my life has science because to be honest there aren't any menopausal or middle-aged women

for me to look up to your role in my life has been partly to remind me that many types of womanhood are valid i think that's that's a lovely thing for josie to write thank you and also i'm very very sorry to hear that there aren't any older women to look up to in her field of science and i hope josie well i i'm sure that you will be that for people coming after you which is an amazing thing to be yes but Josie in a way though it's it's another responsibility for Josie isn't it and there will be her male contemporaries won't have to think about being an example no for anyone but I'm sure that's not to say that some of them won't be a wonderful example to all of us I'm sure yeah Josie thank you for that that's not to say that some of them won't be a wonderful example to all of us, I'm sure. Josie, thank you for that.

That's very, very sweet. And I really wish you continued success in your career. I mean, you're doing something properly important and I'm very, very impressed. And young Eve is now in a rather aggressive way, tapping her watch. So I am about to. I know. I have to go back downstairs and do some more chatting. She's got some scented candles to try downstairs.

Our big guest, but it was my big guest because Fee wasn't here, was Britain's leading food historian, Penn Vogler. Now, I have interviewed Penn before and I wanted her back because I just think she unearths these nuggets of social history that I genuinely find fascinating. And food and food history, they're hugely significant things. So she's written a really good book called Scoff, which I read a couple of years ago, but her new one is called Stuffed, a history of good food and hard times in Britain. Here

she is pointing out that she does enjoy a good title. Well, thank you. I'm trying to stuff as much meaning into each title as I can. Because you can take what you like from a title like Stuffed, can't you? I think anyone who dismisses the history of food is daft because there's so much in here. There's so much social history in this book. We're all made of food and our whole history would grind to a halt if we didn't eat and we didn't eat well. And so what I've tried to figure out in Stuffed is who takes responsibility for all that food? Is it, you know, is it in the domestic sphere? Is it always just the mum?

And, you know, what's her responsibility look like? And in a kind of on a grander stage, how do we kind of arrange those responsibilities around us between the government, between businesses, between the individual? Yeah. And there are some very troubling recent questions about all that, aren't there? Witness the Marcus Rashford campaign to give free school dinners during the summer holidays. That was an extraordinary thing because I felt after 2000 years of kind of fighting over this idea about, you know, is it a good idea to feed kids? And in the pandemic, we were still asking ourselves that question, is it a good idea for the government to feed kids when they're very hungry? And that seemed extraordinary to me,

that we hadn't all just decided that actually we should. Yes, it's probably on the whole a good idea. A good thing. Can we just go right back to, and even as I ask this question, I know people will be turning off thinking, it just takes right back to and even as I ask this question I know people will be turning off thinking I can't it just takes me back to a boring history lesson I don't want to hear about it but actually this is so important enclosures. What does that mean and what impact did the enclosures have on what the poor were able to eat in this country? Well the

enclosures were the heart of my book and if any of us have been for a walk in the countryside we'll be really familiar with all those fields with hedges and fences and all the rest of it and it was a starting place for me because I realised that that was fairly recent before the enclosures those fields would be an open most of them and they would have meant that poor people or villagers would have all had access to what was called the commons and we're commoners there we have a house of commons because of those common rights that people had and that meant that they could graze their cows or their geese or their sheep or they could let their pigs root around in the woodland and it was a fairly organised system but what happened with the enclosures was that... So what year are we? Oh, well, the very

first Enclosure Act is about 1604. And they've been happening informally before then. But they really came up to a sort of a height in the 1770s, 1780s, 1790s. But they carried on until the early 20th century. And this is the beginning of land owners saying, this is mine, you're not allowed on here. This is mine, you're not allowed. And there was a sort of ideological background to it and a pragmatic one as well, because the population was growing, we had to feed people. And so land owners would say, look, I can't share this land with you, I need to put a fence around it and graze cattle often or sheep, because I will make more money, and that will be better for the whole country if I'm allowed to kind of make more money doing that.

And I'm really sorry it just means that you don't have access to your money. Yeah, and isn't it interesting that we simply accept it, that those of us in the 21st century, we don't question fences and walls. No. Because they've always been there, as far as we're aware. They look like they've always been there. But we're used to places like commons in our towns,

and it's quite interesting that commons have sort of survived, often because they've been fought for by local residents who might be slightly wealthier or have the time or the resources to kind of fight for them. Whereas in the countryside, a lot of those commons and that kind of fight for them whereas in the countryside a lot of those commons and that kind of common land disappeared so after the enclosures then poorer people started eating more well what did they eat well they started eating more industrial food because the enclosures

i mean it's a very long period you know it's 300 years or so but it means people can't live off the land they go to the cities and then this is at the beginning of industrialisation and they get snapped up by, you know, people are building mills and industries. And so they start eating more, excuse me, sort of food that has kind of been industrial produced and sort of shipped in, pickled, preserved. And their food probably gets less good probably kind of you know less fresh right less natural but even as i say that take a drink if you need to actually um as i say that i'm wondering what i mean by natural but um i mean we're still obsessed by that now aren't we we're talking a couple of minutes about ultra processed food and whatever

that means but um you've based every single chapter around a key ingredient and turnips. I'm a bit sorry for the old poor old turnips. Yeah, poor turnips. But they did relatively recently a moment in the sun when Therese Coffey, I think, was trying to big them up. But they were hugely significant, weren't they? Well, it was quite ironic

because everybody's laying into Therese Coffey for telling us to cherish turnips. And actually, she was sort of going against history because turnips were cherished, but because they were food for animals, food for livestock. And what I try and tell in that kind of story of the turnip is they used to be seen as something that was good for you health wise, particularly if you're male, particularly good if you're a kind of virile male. They were supposed to be good for the seed of man in the 16th century and um and they gradually get seen as being something that's really just for you know cows sheep it's interesting i went to my local farmer's market and asked a very good fruit and veg person there does she have turnips

she said oh she said you're the first person that's ever asked for them she said i see them in the fields around me in linkercher yeah but we never sell them that's so peculiar because food does change its status changes through time doesn't it uh tell me about the geese or a goose because that's gone all over the place as a food thing yeah coming up to christmas it's really a really relevant story actually because the goose was again it came back to the commons it was very easy to kind of let your geese wander around the commons that you would you wouldn't need much wealth to be able to afford a few and then you could have your goose at christmas or you could sell them you know sell the quills or sell them for goose fat and buy something else

and again when the commons disappeared that people's ability to eat goose disappears and what's interesting is it sort of migrates to the city and you get goose clubs. So people like Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol is probably a member of a goose club because he's very poor, but he manages to put a goose on his family's table at Christmas until Scrooge ruins it all by bringing them all a big fat turkey on Christmas Day that Mrs Cratchit's got to cook.

Yeah, well, he's long dead, unfortunately, but my paternal grandfather was a member of a World War II pig club. Maternal grandfather, I need to get that right. Pig clubs were quite a big thing, I think, in the Second World War. Yes, exactly. It's really interesting that in the Second World War that people kind of found those kind of fairly old ways of clubbing together, using common resources, you know, to kind of found those kind of fairly old ways of clubbing together using common resources you know uh to kind of feed ourselves voiceover describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening books calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day.

Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. We're talking to, I'm talking, because if he isn't here, I need to make that clear. I used the royal we there. Terribly posh of me. He will be back tomorrow. He's not here today. But I am talking to Penn Vogler, author of Stuffed,

A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain, to promise you some chat about broad beans. And now they were, at one point, the staple diet of England's poor or the poor of the whole British Isles. What was it? Everybody. Really? Because it relied on the broad bean.

And we're talking about the fava bean, if you have an American background, or the broad bean and we're talking about the fava bean if you have an American background or the broad bean because until what's called the Colombian exchange and people went to America and brought things back that was the only bean we had and it's quite extraordinary I went to a health food shop the other day and they had every single other type of bean but not broad but not broad beans and they were the kind of food of uh everybody that you could dry them and they would keep you going over the whole winter beans and peas yeah i mean lots of place names are named after beans by beans yeah so if your if your village or your street has got bin or bean or bin field or something or barton in the beans yes yes yes

which is very obvious about it then you probably you know it means that local fields would have been dedicated to the beans because that's what people ate to kind of keep them going i mean what did they do because i find the broad bean a somewhat unforgiving treat uh how was it was it stewed what do they do with them do you know the earliest cookbook we have in Britain, England probably really, starts from about the 1390s. King Richard II's cook, so we're talking quite posh here, their first recipe in that book is for E Friday Beansy.

And they did what we do to them now. They put them with some spices, maybe some cumin, some coriander and other things, and some onion or garlic, fry them up and there you go. You can make a sort of bean burger or you can make, you know, just fried beans with them. Yeah. So in some ways, everything has changed. In other ways, nothing has changed at all. Bean burgers, I mean, you can buy very processed bean burgers in every supermarket in the land now. Are we eating worse than ever or are things better on the whole? I think there's sort of two answers.

So we're eating worse than our predecessors because we do not eat whole foods. So we have more choice. You know, we have a lot more imported foods than somebody, say, two or three hundred years ago. But we don't eat the whole of everything. foods than somebody say two or three hundred years ago but we don't eat the whole of everything and so we're a kind of if our predecessors were you know agricultural laborers or something they wouldn't have had much choice they'd have had you know bread bacon cheese some vegetables and things but they would have eaten all of it and i think one of the things that we're not doing uh we're not getting our kind of micronutrients and all the rest of it because our food is processed a lot to take some of those out and I think that's obviously becoming a problem

for a lot of people what about things like dairy alternatives I think you take quite a hard line on oat milk in particular don't you well I it amused me a lot actually because I was writing this whole chapter about gruel and anybody who's read all of the twists what was well gruel is kind of thin porridge basically I saw one recipe that said if porridge is five ounces of porridge oats and a pint of milk or water then gruel is two you know two ounces whatever so it's basically thin gruel and it could have been quite posh uh often not but it's I I just looked at these oat milks in the supermarket and actually in my fridge I have to confess and thought that's kind of like a very thin rule it's just oats and water doing the same thing oats and water is that is that enough to sustain you to the point so you don't

starve but you're and you won't be hungry necessarily hunger was such a problem for people throughout history and i think one of the problems of having a kind of big population uh growing very fast growing population is that a lot of the focus is on just stopping people from being hungry filling them up with whatever is available and i think that's been the tendency in britain to do that because hungry people are dangerous people if they're rioting. They're very sad. You know, it's tragic for kids who are hungry.

It's bad for a nation to have hungry kids because they're the nation's future. And so I think we've slightly overlooked quality in order, you know, in favour of quantity. We've been so obsessed with packing the supermarket shelves full to make sure there's loads and loads of food around. And we've kind of overlooked the fact that actually it's got to be good food. It's got to have everything you need in it.

Well, you do write in the book about the Irish potato famine, for example. There is a real danger around food, and particularly around economies and around cultures that depend on one crop. And was that essentially the problem in Ireland? It's quite multi-layered, the Great Famine in Ireland. And it was an environmental problem. It was, again, a population growth problem. I think a lot of the problem was in making people be semi-self-sustaining but only a bit and so giving them enough land just to

you know sustain them their families just just sufficiently and so they had to grow potatoes because potatoes was the thing that's going to give them the most calories um whereas you know it was not exactly a full and balanced diet um and a lot of the problems, I think, were in... It was a difficult decade. It was the 1840s. There was a lot of hunger in British cities as well. So the Westminster government just said to Ireland, you fix it, you can sort it out.

I mean, I suppose the appalling behaviour of many people in power in Britain around that time is a different conversation. But we certainly need to acknowledge that it was pretty dreadful. But it did, I think it halved the Irish population, didn't it? Yes, around. I mean, the population, it took, I think, over a century to recover. And that was almost the problem that the kind of Westminster had, because some people in Westminster saw it as a sort of gift from God

that would sort of sort out the overpopulation of Ireland. I mean, the kind of political will at the time was pretty terrible. And yes, it took Ireland a long time to recover. But I think fundamentally it did something else. It changed that kind of sense that a population should feed itself. It changed the idea that you can have, it's normal to kind of grow your own fruit and vegetables, grow your own food, you know, and it becomes much more,

as we have in England, Scotland and wales a much more kind of industrial idea of food you know food comes from somewhere else it doesn't come from the land yeah but so many of the foods we depend on and love and and fetishize actually tea for example tea is not british it really we make it british we say we do but it's not and then there's i mean curry for example, is without question the national dish. And much loved by me. And I know many, many millions of others.

But there was a time not that long ago when none of us on these islands ever ate it. Seems incredible. It's funny, isn't it? And the Christmas pudding is stir up Sunday. Oh, is it this Sunday? Sunday, I think. What does that mean? Well, stir up Sunday just means that

that's the day you're supposed to stir up your Christmas puddings for Christmas. And then you boil them and then they sit and mature and they get delicious. And then you boil them again on Christmas Day. But if you take away the non-British foods from the Christmas pudding, if you take away the currants, the sultanas, you know, the spices and all the rest of it, you would be left with a pint of beer, maybe, and some apple fritters or something like that that would be a kind of British version of Christmas pudding yeah well

we could gather around a turnip I suppose but no not roast no not no no no a texter here says turnips as popular as ever in Scotland but only but only because that's what they call Swedes is that right yes it's really complicated so in Scotland and I but only because that's what they call Swedes is that right yes it's really complicated so in Scotland and I think some people in Cornwall call the turn then the Swede a neap or turnip okay yes and in England we tend to call turnips Swedes a kind of orangey thing that you mash and you have a burns night we call call those Swedes, and the turnips are often the little whitey, purpley things, small and delicate, which the French have in a kind of, you know, they might have duck and turnips or lamb and turnips

in a bistro dish, but you wouldn't catch many British people having a kind of restaurant. No, you wouldn't. When we were enjoying broad beans as much as we once did, what were the French eating? What was their equivalent of the broad bean? Do you know? Oh, that's an interesting question.

It would have been actually the broad bean, you know. Oh, they were also keen on broad beans. But yes, I mean, it's a northern, you know, it's a North European stalwart, really. We forget how close we are to them. And peas, oh yes, lovely. Well, there'll be some people tonight rushing home to cook themselves up a dish of broad beans and peas.

Actually, I've had worse. Isn't she fantastic? That is Penn Vogler, and the book is Stuffed, A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain. And I don't suppose you knew, Jane, that in parts of the country, the turnip is commonly referred to as the swede. No, I didn't.

You see? Which parts? Well, Scotland. Wow. That's quite a big part. No, I didn't. You see? Which parts? Well, Scotland. Wow. That's quite a big part. But that's just incorrect. No, it isn't. Oh, I see. It's the same thing. I just call it a different thing. I mean, there was quite a bit of controversy in the northwest of England when I

grew up. We, at Halloween, had turnip lanterns. I mean, did you have those? Yeah. Okay, so Derbyshire, Liverpool, that was where you grew up in Derbyshire, didn't you? Yeah. I'd never seen a pumpkin until I moved to New York at 33. We didn't dream of such things. I remember going to America and seeing my first ever pumpkin patch and feeling a wave of nostalgia for Britain and thinking, take me home. Just give me a turnip. This place is mad. Take me home to the land of the turnip patch. It just all sounds so blackout of these days to me.

Well, it does. It really does. Therese Coffey, our recently departed Environment Secretary, is a big fan of the turnip. She was. And actually, she knew her stuff because in Penn's book, we find out a great deal about the significance of the turnip and the broad bean.

So thank you very much for being with me today because I would have sounded even more of a plonker talking to myself so thank you for letting me appreciate it thank you thank you very much and hopefully Fee back tomorrow

our big guest tomorrow I hope she is back because it's Anton de Beek she won't want to miss that I wouldn't have thought so come on have a couple of pints of Lucas Aiden get on your pedal bike and join us

no I hope she's better because those things are nasty. Thanks very much indeed for taking part. Jane and Fee at Times.Radio. The Book Club podcast will come your way on Friday, fingers crossed. We very, very much hope because we love talking to the author of Boy Swallows Universe, Trent Dalton. Have a good night. You did it. Elite listener status for you

for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We miss the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man, it's Henry Tribe. Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at three o'clock Monday until Thursday every week. And you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts

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