Woman's Hour - Fashion Revolution Week: 6th anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

Today is the 6th anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, where over 1,000 garment workers died. Over half were women. Fashion Revolution Week wants to raise awareness about where and how our clothes are made - and what it’s doing to the planet. Fashion industry insiders Alice Wilby and Bernice Pan explain why sustainability needs to be more than just a trend.A home for unmarried mothers and babies in Tuam in Galway was run by Bon Secours Sisters from 1925 to 1961. Nearly 800 babies died there and when it was discovered a few years ago that they’d been buried in a secretive, undignified way it caused widespread outrage in Ireland and beyond. Since then an official investigation into what happened at 18 mother and baby homes across Ireland began, and is ongoing. Last week ‘The Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes’ released its latest report. This one – the fifth – focuses on how babies were buried at mother and baby homes, and part of it looked at another home called Bessborough in Cork. The BBC’s Deirdre Finnerty has been investigating. Why some women choose to become a solo parent using donor sperm and eggs and what they have learnt since making their decision. Jenni speaks to Genevieve Roberts, author of ‘Going Solo’ who has already become a mum using donor sperm and Beth who is using both donor sperm and egg and is pregnant with her first child. In Salt & Time, food writer Alissa Timoshkina transforms perceptions of the food of the former Soviet Union and in particular her home Siberia – the crossroads of Eastern European and Central Asian cuisine. Salt & Time contains recipes from the pre-revolutionary era and the Soviet days that are treated with a modern interpretation. Alissa joins Jenni in the studio to Cook the Perfect…Borsch.Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Deirdre Finnerty Interviewed Guest: Alice Wilby Interviewed Guest: Dr Bernice Pan Interviewed Guest: Genevieve Roberts Interviewed Guest: Beth Interviewed Guest: Alissa Timoshkina

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Woman's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 24th of April. Now six years ago more than a thousand workers died in the Bangladeshi garment industry when their workplace collapsed. Today in Fashion Revolution Week, how can you become a dedicated follower of sustainable fashion? Going solo, what persuades a woman to go it alone using sperm and eggs from

donors? And salt and thyme, recipes from a Russian kitchen. Alisa Timoshkina cooks the perfect beetroot soup known as borscht. Now you may remember a couple of years ago we discussed the case of the tomb babies. Nearly 800 had died at the Galway home for unmarried mothers and their offspring and it was run by the Bon Secours sisters from 1925 to 1961. There was outrage in Ireland when it was discovered that the infants had been buried secretly and without any respect. And later this year, the site will be excavated officially. Well, that discovery has led to an investigation into other mother and baby homes, 18 in all.

And the Commission of Investigation has released its latest report. Part of it focused on a home called Bespra in Cork. The BBC's Deirdre Finnerty has been to Bespra. What are the main findings of the report? So Jenny, the report found very high numbers of deaths but very, very little information about the number of, about where the children who have died in these homes are buried. It's thought that many are buried in unmarked graves. There's no records at all really for at

least three of the homes. In the case of Bessborough where I went, over 900 children died in this home in the years it was opened but burial records are only available for 64 of the children. The report is highly critical of the religious orders and local people who say they must know more about where the children are buried. The religious orders say they're cooperating fully, but the government's report has called some of their testimony inaccurate, speculative and misleading.

Now, the report, it's part of a much larger state inquiry into the treatment of women and children in these homes. The other accusations such as mistreatment, forced adoptions, that will not be kind of considered until the final report is released, possibly next year. But the underlying question as to why children died in such large numbers, that still has not been answered. So in lots of ways, this report raises more questions than it does answers. Now, I know you've spoken to some of the women who were girls at the home. How did they describe their experiences there?

So they described their experiences as, you know, coercive treatment. They say they did not want to give their children up for adoption. They say they did not want to stay in the homes, but they felt and they say they were made to believe that they had no other choice. They describe, you know, being given new names, being told not to speak about their experiences within the home and outside of it.

Some of them describe, you know, searching for their dead children for decades, but still not knowing where they're buried. What have they said about the children who died? I mean, can they answer the question about why so many babies died? Well, some of them describe allegations of mistreatment in the homes.

One woman I spoke to, she says she pleaded for her child to receive treatment in the hospital. She says the child didn't receive treatment for at least two weeks after she first requested it so that's what that's what she's saying um however you know the response from the religious orders is that they're cooperating fully with the government inquiry um but all of them say their experiences of being in besper being in the home changed them forever they

this is deirdre wadding she was in the home in in 1981 she gave her child up for adoption um when she was a student and I spoke to her in a cafe in Dublin I suppose it's like a shadow that's kind of always with me and the fact that I went through that experience is like a little mark in my soul and by that I don't mean sin I mean a shadow and I can never undo it I can never not be the person who experienced that um I know what I missed I know all those moments that I missed you know the, the little milestones, the walking and the first words and all that. And it's something, despite the fact that I'm so fortunate to have met my firstborn, I will never have that. What sort of resolution, Deidre, do women like Deidre Wadding expect to get? The thing is, Jenny, is that there's been a lot of expressions of regret from both the

religious orders and from the government over the past number of years. And what a lot of women say is that, yes, there is a lot of expressions of regret, but there's very little in the way of compensation or practical help. And there's an inquiry that goes on year after year and keeps being delayed. So they report feelings of frustration. Now, some of the women, particularly some of the older generation, you know, some of them have complex needs. They would like medical help. They would like some forms of compensation.

Women like Deirdre, who've kind of gone on to have successful personal and professional lives, gone on to have other children. They say that a state apology would really kind of give them an acknowledgement of of what happened to them and kind of a recognition that they didn't do anything wrong but what happened to them was wrong so that's something they you know people like deirdre mentioned as as something that would really help this investigation has gone on and on it how long is it likely to go on for? So it's been delayed a couple of times already. It was supposed to report back in February of this year but in January it announced

that you know it just really didn't have the information available to be able to do so. Now the government has said that it will report back in February 2020, February of next year, but it remains to be seen whether this deadline will be met. Why is information so hard to come by? I mean, is this because the state handed social services to the church and so records were not kept? Some campaigners and some of the women involved would say this but it's important to remember that these homes when they were set up they were inspected and they were also funded by the state so it's both the state and the church who have responsibility for what went on in these

homes. And what about responsibility for compensation if compensation is to be granted who takes that on? It's interesting when we've seen previous redress boards and inquiries like this in Ireland the government have been responsible for a lot of the compensation bill now we've seen with the announcement over the tomb excavation that the government asked the religious orders for a donation and a donation was given by the order of nuns responsible for the tomb home. So when this final report comes out, it remains to be seen whether other religious orders will also contribute. Well, Deidre Finnerty, thank you very much indeed for being with us this morning.

Keep us in touch of what goes on. And Deid in Institutions Like Bessborough, as well as in the infamous Magdalene Laundries, will be one of the topics for discussion. Another will be the abortion provision, because nearly a year ago Ireland voted in a referendum to make it legal, up to 12 weeks. Jane will present, and there's more information on the website shortly, and of course on the twitter feed

thank you very much deirdre now this week marks the sixth anniversary of the runner plaza collapse in bangladesh more than a thousand workers in the garment industry died in that disaster half of them were women fashion revolution week was invented to coincide with the anniversary. The campaign was begun to persuade us to be more aware of the source of what we wear. They hope we'll take a photo, put it onto social media, name the brand, and ask, Who made my clothes? There's also a focus on sustainability and what impact fast fashion might have on the planet. Well, Dr. Bernice Pan is the creative director of Deploy, a specialist design house.

Alice Wilby teaches a sustainable fashion course at Central St. Martins in London. What does she mean by sustainable fashion? Sustainable fashion, as the infographic that's gone out from Fashion Revolution this week, to paraphrase, I can't remember the exact quote, but the most sustainable pair of shoes is the one that you're walking in right now. So the first thing I always tell people when I talk to them about sustainable fashion

is to stop buying. Go right back to your wardrobe, see what you've got, do an inventory, understand what you've got, because I think it's like 30% of the clothes that we have in our wardrobe aren't being worn. So first and foremost, it's about slowing things down fashion especially fast fashion cheap fast fashion we are buying I think it's sort of like double the amount of clothes that we were buying just 15 years ago those are either not being worn or being disposed of so slowing things down I would say. Bernice I know you're keen to design in a sustainable way but telling buyers to stop buying can't be good news for somebody who's designing and selling clothes.

You're right. But how we actually design and make and supply customers is the critical question and is what the brand I set up, Deploy, since 12 years ago is all about. And what we really are about is caring for customers for their real lifestyle needs and functional requirements and looking at fit and function and fashion, again, properly, and look at how we can really increase versatility and value for customers whilst reducing waste at the same time. But what does it mean in terms of the material you use, the styles you create? So, for example, we are a carbon smart certified company where we source only environmentally certified fabrics from suppliers. And we then really think about design in terms of how to use the same amount of fabric or even far less amount of fabric to create

something that's multifunctional, that fits better, that serves women's lifestyle in a much more versatile way. So for example, this eco-denim jacket I'm wearing, you can actually wear it in three or four different ways, and it lasts... Oh, you're just wearing it as a jacket. An unbuttoned jacket has a neck at the moment. So, for example, this military jacket. Look, when you wear a jacket at work, sometimes you don't want to have it closed

because you need to do different things and sit all day. But most of the jackets, when it's not buttoned, it doesn't look very good on the body. So this one is designed to be worn open, like how you've seen that earlier. But you can actually, you know, for a meeting or something for a bit more formal, you can completely do it for quite a different look. And then you can also just take this whole piece off and wear it as a little bolero to style in a layered way. I've never had someone on the programme before just rip my clothes right in front of me. But, you know, Alice, how do you persuade people not to just follow fashion shamelessly because there's so much pressure

in the magazines and in the shops and maybe keep recycling or buy things that are more sustainable. And repair, reuse, recycle, take care of our clothes. I think we've lost contact with and the understanding of how our clothes are made, where they come from and when we don't understand where things come from and how they're made, and especially when they're cheap, you can buy a dress for the same price as a sort of drink and a sandwich at lunchtime or a round of drinks in a pub at night. So we've lost contact with how clothes are made.

So people don't value them as much. So this is one of the things Fashion Revolution is doing, is engaging people with this conversation about loving their clothes, falling back in love with their clothes, understanding their clothing. And, you know, this is clothing as keepsake. Exactly. Clothing is keepsake. And this has only been in the last sort of 15 to 20 years that we've had this influx of cheap, fast fashion that is clouding people's judgment and causing these problems. Traditionally, clothing has been something that was relatively expensive. It took a lot of time, energy and skill to make. When things were made, you would have that suit or that dress in your wardrobe for the rest of

your life. How expensive would your Rippable jacket be? So this eco denim jacket is, well, this is actually about eight years old now, seven years old. It retails for about two, nine, eight. And all our garments are made in London, as I said, not only using sustainable fabrics, but top quality fabrics. the best tailoring craftsmanship. A lot of very British old school craftsmanship that is seen in menswear, fine menswear only these days. But those craftsmanship not only make the garments beautiful inside out, they're really done in a certain way to increase longevity. But how many young people are going to be able to afford 298 quid for a jacket? Most kids can't afford that. But at the same time, they need to understand that they can't afford to keep buying £5 dresses

that are made from synthetic fabrics that aren't going to biodegrade, that are disposed of really quickly, often end up in landfill, or are going to second-hand and can't be sold by second-hand shops because the quality of the clothing is so poor. So it's a false economy, and I think our kids need to understand that. And they buy 10 times, for example.

There has been a discussion, I know, at the Environmental Audit Committee of the possibility of legislation. Yes, I think that's so important. How would that help? If we think about how estate car tax or congestion charges moment where we really need to think about this, what I call fashion reformation, because really this whole crisis has come to a head and it really requires consumers, us as individuals, businesses and governments to work together. And it can be tax, it can be a different thing. For example, I have this wild idea of proposing that for every thousand garment that a retailer produces, they have to disassemble 2000 garments to actually upcycle.

They have the workforce. They have the manpower. Why can't we do that? Alice, the Great British Saying Bee was a hugely popular program on television. And I wondered, how is education taking on this question? Even in practical skills, as well as ideas about the environment. This is, to go back to the Environmental Audit Committee, this is one of the recommendations that they made, that actually we bring education in schools. We bring sewing and making and mending back into schools because kids

aren't learning it and that again when they're buying all of the cheap clothing it's you know another uh another few steps away divorced away from what's actually happening and if we could educate kids in school to understand how to make a garment it's incredibly hard to make a garment you know we see it most people struggle to not most people but a lot of people especially younger generations um struggle to fix a hem or sew on a button. And those were skills that I was certainly taught in school. The skills that, you know, my mother used to make clothes for us. My grandmother used to make clothes for my mother.

My mother had clothes made. It was part of the daily discourse and that to bring that legislation back into schools would be incredibly, incredibly beneficial. And it would help the children understand that buying all of these cheap clothes it's a false economy there are a lot of recommendations i would i would suggest that people go and have a look at the environmental audit committee because there is a shorter bridged version you don't have to read through 70 pages i was talking to alice will be and dr bernice pan and let's hear from you on this one how many clothes have you got in your wardrobe and how many of them do you actually wear?

Send us an email, send us a tweet. Now, still to come in today's programme, Salt and Thyme, recipes from a Russian kitchen and Alyssa Timoshkina cooks the perfect borscht and the serial Ordinary Heroes. Now, you may have missed Jane's programme on Easter Monday on the subject of the appeal of true crime. Why do so many women read it, watch it, or listen to it?

Don't forget, if you missed the live programme, you can always catch up by downloading the BBC Sounds app. Now, there's been a lot of discussion this week about the IVF industry. There were warnings from Sally Cheshire, who chairs the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, about the hard sell employed by some practitioners and a lack of honest information about success and failure rates. The Barbican in London is holding a fertility fest in which Maxine Peake, who's spoken about her own failure to conceive, will take part in a play called Avalanche.

So what persuades a woman to make the decision to use donor sperm and donor eggs and embark on the efforts to have a child entirely alone? Well, Beth has done it and is now 11 weeks pregnant. Genevieve Roberts has a two-year-old daughter and is the author of Going Solo. Genevieve, why did you decide to go it alone using your own eggs but donor sperm? I was 37 years old and I'd always believed that I would have children at some point. It was just part of the fabric of the backgrounds of my life. I wanted to have a fertility test just to find out whether my

fertility was high and I expected it to actually come out quite high. I'd had a miscarriage a couple of years before that with a previous partner. The results were alarmingly low and I was told quite starkly that it was a decision I needed to make swiftly if I wanted to have children. And why do it on your own? I think at that stage it would have been, if I'd have run around trying to get pregnant with someone else, that maybe wouldn't have set up a very stable world for the children I was hoping to conceive. Beth, why did you choose to go it alone with donor eggs and donor sperm?

Well, initially, I was just choosing the donor sperm. And similarly, I was in a place where I always wanted children. I felt my life was in limbo. And that was assuming I'd do it with a partner. But I've gone through my 30s, largely single, you know, a couple of relationships and hit the point going, something's going to give. And the thing I really wanted was a child. I started off thinking my fertility was going to be great my sister had a baby with her husband at 40 my mother's mother had her at 38 and I was actually going into it

with just thinking it was donor sperm didn't even know donor egg really existed didn't really occur to me but after a lot of trying two and a half years of trying with donor sperm I and I knew my fertility tests were also extremely low I'd produced a couple of good embryos along the way had one chemical pregnancy which is when you get pregnant but it doesn't survive I hit a point financially emotionally where it wasn't right for me and for the last year I spoke to a counsellor about I wanted to come to a place where there was a next stage for me and I spoke to them they were absolutely amazing I asked every question every concern and got to that point over my last year of trying with three more IVF cycles

on my own I came to the conclusion donor egg was a positive move for me and then and then moved to it this year. Genevieve I know you began by going to a fertility clinic which gave you the name of a United States sperm bank what happened when you logged on to it? I was amazed I'd never kind of gone down a rabbit warren of the internet that had brought me to a sperm bank before so I was really really surprised to see the similarities between a sperm bank and a dating website. They're equally peculiar with people kind of looking, talking about their own personalities, profiling themselves. There were huge numbers of details looking at whether they were couch potatoes or active, neurotic or laid back, responsible, all sorts of things. There were photos, baby photos and adult photos.

And some of the people had written letters that I guess, you know, that the parents, that mums could pass on to their children. So that the donor conceived children could have an idea about who they'd been conceived by. How did you select the one? So for me, it was really important to me to bear in mind this wasn't going to be a partner for me. This was someone... But it could be somebody you might meet sometime in the future. It could certainly be someone that my daughter and son-to-be could meet.

And I feel very strongly that if they would if they want to do that that's something I'd really support them in. I looked for health predominantly I thought that was a really good gift you could give your child so I looked through so many entries I couldn't find one family that was untouched by cancer but I looked for families where most people seem to have lived to be quite an old age and that seemed like a good first thing. I also picked someone who was very passionate about life. Beth what about you? You had to choose a donor for both. Yeah I am there's lots of Danish sperm banks which is great for me I'm half Danish and I was really positive about

having a Danish sperm donor in particular my surname Danish. So my child's surname will be Danish. So that was very helpful. I went for physical attributes as my first thing. I had a real thing around in particular when if I had a blonde child and I'm brunette, if people go, oh, does your child look like daddy then? And just throwing up questions, just almost the ease of physical attributes and a sense of belonging to me and then other attributes as well. And then for the egg donor, I found it much harder because there are far fewer out there. And I decided I did want English. I decided I'd love the child to be the makeup of me, English and Danish.

But that made it really hard. And I was looking at the London Egg Bank because my clinic worked with them. I didn't want to. There's just not as many options and I didn't want to leave my clinic um so that I waited a little bit longer I was very lucky but I was and you don't get as much information but again I looked for some physical attributes and then was really keen if I could see signs that they had both a kind of a career drive and an artistic side and I did find someone and the letter they write a letter you get once you've chosen absolutely touched me and I just felt delighted. Beth this has gone on for a long time you've had a lot of treatment how much did it cost you? It's tens of thousands so I mean being completely open it starts with a five and I'm fortunate that I'm in a world where... You're 50,000 when you're talking.

And I'm in a world where I have bonuses and luckily I had a couple of really good years and have been able to fund it, but I funded it all myself. Initially I moved with a view that I would probably have a baby quite soon, to a two-bedroom flat. Of course, three years later that isn't the case and I'd allowed about 15,000 when I was moving in equity.

And then, as I say, fortunately had the bonuses that allowed me to continue. Genevieve, what about you? How much have you spent? Well, I conceived Astrid through artificial insemination, which is the kind of least medicalised process. And I think that was maybe around £5,000. I'm currently pregnant through an IVF pregnancy. And that was that was a little bit more. But yeah, we're talking just over £10,000. So slightly different figures. Genevieve, a lot of people will say, well, that's okay for you, you could afford it. Lots can't. And other people will say, come on, why this obsession with becoming a mother

that makes you go on and on trying? How do you respond to those really now rather common criticisms? I think I can, you know, I'm really open to people asking me questions like that. I did have this absolute longing to become a parent. And I felt that if I got to the end of my life, that would be the one thing that I would look back on with regret if I just hadn't tried.

I did speak to a friend who has adopted about adoption. He's a male friend. And he said to me, were he a woman, he would have gone to have a child himself just because the adoption process is so tricky in this country, particularly if you're on your own. And I think I felt that that rejection that can come of being unsuccessful in adoption would be would be very hard. But yeah, I do think it's especially hard if you don't have any resources behind you.

I was lucky to have savings. If you don't have that, then it's not as free an option. But I think probably since time has started, people have used other methods of becoming parents. Beth, what about you? How did friends, family, health professionals, your GP, the midwife presumably you're meeting now how have they responded to this overall really positive i mean my friends

and family have always known i've wanted to be a mum probably more than most of my friends throughout my whole life um and actually i had looked at adoption first and again came to some kind of blocks that looked much harder than I'd ever anticipated. And I was slightly afraid of it. And I'd always been slightly afraid of having a baby on my own for a couple of friends having difficulties during their pregnancy. So that was my fear of doing it on my own. And I suddenly had this release and had this almost epiphany for me that I wanted to do it on my own. And I was just welcomed with such warmth and particularly from my mum who's been brilliant about it all.

I just remember going, I'm going to have a baby on my own and her just opening her arms to me. So on the whole it's been very, very positive. And health professionals, it's quite weird going into the NHS system now. NHS system, they're slightly confused, which I'm surprised about at different points by having an egg and sperm donor. The system I still have to test for for i have to test for sickle cell and other and other um other potential diseases even though it's genetically not my child and they said it's just easier to put you through all those tests

than try and explain there's nothing difficult in the terms of their attitude towards me it's just the system isn't set up to deal with the non-genetics. Genevieve what do you say to strangers you might meet who assume there's a father at home and say oh how's the child's father? You know what it's an assumption I make when I see mums with their children seeing a mum with their child on maternity leave is so natural and it's actually more unusual to see dads on parental leave with with small children so um I'm very very open about it I I tell people I let them know that um Astrid is donor conceived there's definitely been times where I have just avoided the subject there's been various um cab rides and things like this where someone will go,

oh, is your husband excited about number two? Or something like this. And I'll be like, yeah, I don't have a husband. And then as they go, your boyfriend? And I'm like, oh, let's just not get into this this time. Just finally, what do you wish you'd known at the start of all this? Because you started writing as you were going through the process and doing your research. What do you wish you'd known then before?

I think it's been a more wonderful experience than I had ever anticipated. I think I was trying to prepare. I think probably you find solo mums prepare a lot more in advance perhaps um you're you're trying to kind of think of all these bad things that could happen and what you'll do to cope with them I don't think I spent much time thinking of how wonderful it would be and every day there's something that just reminds me why this was an amazing thing and how lucky I am to have asked it. Genevieve Roberts and Beth, thank you with your pregnancies. And just a reminder, the book is called Going Solo. Thank you both. Thank you so much. Now, there was a time when the idea of a Russian recipe book seemed

almost unthinkable. If you went to Moscow, you couldn't find a decent restaurant. Even the hotel seemed to be short of anything remotely edible. And the people, of course, queued for ages to buy the most basic provisions. Well, Alyssa Timoshkina came to this country from Siberia in 1999 when she was 15. She's the author of Salt and Thyme, Recipes from a Russian Kitchen. And she will cook the perfect borscht. Now, Alyssa, why salt and thyme? First of all, for me, this is a reference to fermentation. And fermentation is a huge part of Russian culture and culinary culture, which dates back to the Middle Ages.

And back in the day, about four years ago, when I changed my career into food and started working in different cafes, I've seen that fermentation suddenly became a huge trend here, which I found quite amusing because I actually grew up with it and it was a completely standard thing for us to do, not because of fashion, but because of actually shortage of food. Making sauerkraut at home is really trendy these days, isn't it? Exactly. So I thought, wow, that's quite interesting way to introduce my home cooking into something that's quite trendy.

So I started doing pop-ups calling them salt and time as a reference to this magic of almost cooking, you know, with nothing but salt and time. And of course we mean time, T-I-M-E, not the herb. Oh yes, thyme as a philosophical, yes. Just thought people might think it's the herb we're talking about, but it's not. Yeah, and the more I thought about it, and that's the time when the idea for a book came about, I thought that actually thyme is such a beautiful concept and it's

very relevant to my personal story of how I moved away from Russia when I was quite young. But then, you know, it took time for me to actually reconnect to my home country and food was a huge part of that reconnection. And salt is a beautiful thing that looks like snow. And to me, Russia and Siberia especially is very much about snow and I miss that beautiful sight and the sound of snow when you're fresh snow when you walk in it. Now borscht is for me the classic and it's also I have to tell you one of my favorite foods. There are lots of variations Polish, Ukrainian, Russian. What's the basis of yours? The basis of mine is beetroot. There are recipes for borscht that don't have any beetroot,

but I love it. For me, that's the kind of the meat of it because my borscht is actually vegetarian. So to me, beetroot is my meat in the borscht. What else goes in there? What else? We have red peppers, which is actually my mom's technique. We have red kraut. We have red onions and then also red kraut.

Red kraut. Yes. Sauerkraut made with red cabbage. OK, got it. And baked red kidney beans. So the main thing in my recipe that's quite different from the traditional one is that I make a broth. So I cook borscht traditionally, making a rich broth with all the vegetables in it. But then actually what I personally don't like about the traditional borscht is that you have to eat all these discolored vegetables that have lost their texture and shape. So I get rid of those vegetables and instead roast all the key ingredients that go into it. So I have here separately, so the beans are actually roasted with a bit of smoked paprika, so they have a nice crunch and a bit of smokiness to them.

The red onion is roasted with a bit of brown sugar, so it has a nice caramelization, but also a bit of sweetness. And the beetroot is nice caramelisation, but also a bit of sweetness. And the beetroot is roasted with pomegranate molasses, which is so not traditional, but I just love that combination, and it really brings out the sweetness and the kind of tartness. I hope we're heating up some ready-made here, because if we don't get to taste this, I'm going to be extremely upset. It sounds absolutely wonderful. What was Russia's cuisine before the revolution?

Oh, it sounds absolutely wonderful. What was Russia's cuisine before the revolution? Oh, it's very interesting. I have a cookbook that dates back into the pre-revolutionary years. It's a very famous cookbook by Elena Malachovets. And the most fascinating thing to me was that the food was very class-based. So they're actually recipes that are ranked according to class. And obviously the upper classes, they had very French-inspired, French-influenced cuisine because lots of the aristocracy had actually hired French chefs to cook for them. And it was the lower working classes and the peasants who had this tradition of authentic Russian food,

which was very simple, very little of meat, a lot of fermented vegetables and a lot of grains. People say all you could ever get in Russia was potatoes and cabbage. Not true, even during the Soviet era. I did once go to Moscow and couldn't find anything to eat at all, really. So what happened during that era for ordinary families? The Soviet era was a fascinating phenomenon, and there is a tendency in Russia these days to just disregard it in terms of the culinary history and just say, oh, it was a horrible time, let's just forget about it and move to earlier days.

But I find it's really important to actually acknowledge and remember it. So it was very interesting how the Soviets had to feed a huge new nation and kind of adapt the existing recipes to more contemporary needs, really, and how a lot of eating became more of a social thing that people, different classes were not really existing anymore. So people had a lot of kind of communications for food a lot more. And women were liberated from the kitchens. So, you know, using tinned food became quite popular, using mass produced food also, and kind of simplifying the recipes from the pre-revolutionary days using a lot cheaper, simpler ingredients. But at the same time, of course, you know, the Soviet Union lasted for 70 years. So that was their intention in the same time, of course, the Soviet Union lasted for 70 years, so that was their intention in the beginning, but of course it didn't really work. Siberia is cold, we know that,

and there are certain indigenous people who live in that area. I notice you've got a dish called, I think it's stroganina? Yes. Which is raw fish, which sounds very much like Japanese cuisine. Where does that come from? So in the book I actually refer to it as a Siberian sashimi,

just to make it accessible to people. It comes from the northern parts of Siberia, because Siberia itself is huge, so regional cooking is also very prominent there. And it does come from the indigenous groups, but further from the north. And they actually use this technique for eating deer as well. But fish is something that I find a bit more palatable. And it's actually, it might kind of seem counterintuitive to get fresh fish and then

freeze it and eat it but it's the most beautiful sensation of kind of shaving the frozen fish and then having it with different condiments like horseradish salt, red onion and then it kind of melts in your mouth and it's absolutely

glorious. Now I can smell the bush cooking and we won't be having vodka with it although I know And then it kind of melts in your mouth and it's absolutely glorious. Now, I can smell the borscht cooking. We won't be having vodka with it, although I know if we were in Russia, we would be having vodka with it. But I presume we're going to put some sort of cream on it, some sort of herbs on it when we serve it up. We've come to time for the cereal now. So I'm going to get the cereal on. You're going to prepare a lovely dish of borscht with all the trimmings and I will taste it at the end. Now, Elisa Timoshkina, I was going to describe the beautiful decoration of this borscht.

Unfortunately, I have destroyed it by eating virtually the whole bowl. Just tell me what you put on the top. So we had some fresh dill and sour cream. It is absolutely gorgeous, that sweetness that comes through. And also the beans just give it that extra bit of texture. And you didn't shred the beetroot. It comes out nice and crunchy and delicious. Thank you very much indeed.

That's lunch done. Just a reminder of the title. It's Salt and Thyme recipes from a Russian kitchen. covering this, the babies are still lost, thousands. Similar sized graves in every medium-sized Irish town. Bring up the bodies and save the sites for survivors. And then on fashion and sustainability, Anne said, I get laughed at because I have clothes that are 20 plus years old. I still wear them, although I do buy some new clothes. If you don't buy fashion items but purchase smart clothes, they last many more years. Jackie said, love this discussion on clothing. I've literally just finished repairing a rip in my purple linen trousers by reducing the size of the inside pockets and using the fabric to repair the rip. Such a satisfying feeling and we can all do it if we have a go. Diane said a £300 jacket you can wear buttoned or unbuttoned. Don't think so.

Emma said why or why does sustainable clothing have to be so expensive? How on earth can anyone afford a £298 denim jacket? I'm a nurse living on a budget. I would love to buy clothes that are fashionable and sustainable, but those prices are prohibitive. Get real, ladies. Make them affordable to normal, caring, working people. Otherwise, it's just an expensive gimmick. Norman said, the lady who's telling us about her super ethical clothing fails to mention that she presumably

makes a profit out of her purporting to be eco. But £298? She needs to join the real world. Sylvia said, I've clothes I've bought in my teens and I'm in my mid-60s. I've used charity shops for decades as they're an excellent part of the reusing, recycling process. The clothes use good fabrics and they're better made.

The vintage market has curtailed my purchases, but I have my mum's now. Jay's said, I'm a 40-something heavy metal fan, not your typical sewing type, but I learned to sew very young and often fix many of my clothes. I learned to sew by putting patches on my jackets in the 80s. Sewing is a must-have survival skill for everyone. And finally on this clothing question, Evelyn said, a young mother came to our craft group to ask if anyone could do alterations. She wanted someone to take her son's trousers up. We worked with a group of school children on a project and the vast majority of even year six pupils had never used a needle. How sad that there's no longer room in the curriculum for the sewing skills we all learnt in primary and secondary school.

Now, do join me tomorrow, if you can, at two minutes past ten for the live programme, when I'll be talking to Melinda Gates. Her new book is The Moment of Lift, How Empowering Women Changes the World. She is, of course, along with her husband Bill Gates, the founder of the world's largest private charitable organisation. And she's consistently been ranked as one of the world's most powerful women by Forbes. So, why has creating equality in her home life been a struggle? You can find out tomorrow. Join me then. Two minutes past 10.

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