Welcome to Episode 7 of Season B. This is a Listener’s Choice ep, and things get hot, messy and monstrous as Sam, Neil and Alessandra look at Boiling, Bloody Mary and bay leaves.

Things mentioned in this episode

Sam Bilton wins at the Fortum & Mason Awards

Museum of Royal Worcester project wins at the British Library Food Season Awards

Sam’s black pudding episode on Comfortably Hungry

Neil is appearing at the Chalke Festival on 27 June

Follow Serve it Forth History Festival 18 October on Instagram @serveitforthfest

Links & Further Reading

Boiling

Acton, E. (1845). Modern Cookery For Private Families. Quadrille.

Beeton, I. (1861). The Book of Household Management. Lightning Source.

Davidson, A. (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.

Grigson, J. (1992). English Food (Third Edit). Penguin.

McGee, H. (1984). On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen (1st ed.). Allen and Unwin.

Smith, D. (1998). Delia’s How to Cook Book 1. BBC Books.

Bayleaf:

Culpeper’s Herbal (I’ll find a link late)

What Is a Bay Leaf, Exactly? – Atlas Obscura https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-is-a-bay-leaf

Pliny Natural History iv: Books 12-16 https://archive.org/details/L370PlinyNaturalHistoryIV1216/page/n391/mode/2up?q=laurel

Ovid Metamorphosis https://www.gutenberg.org/files/21765/21765-h/21765-h.htm

Bloody Mary:

Why Is There an Entire Fried Chicken on My Bloody Mary?: An exploration of outrageous garnishes and the drink’s over-the-top evolution. The Spruce Eats

The Tomato in America by Andrew F. Smith (1994): A rich history of the tomato- from suspicion to Bloody Mary staple. Essential reading for any cocktail historian.

James Bond’s Other Drink: Long before Vesper, Bond was sipping Bloody Marys- shaken, not stirred, of course. Bormioli Luigi

Bloody Mina Gothtail: A Gothic twist on the classic- dark, dramatic, and dangerously drinkable. Instagram Recipe

Welcome to Episode 6 of Season B. The theme is ‘Meat’ and Sam, Neil and Alessandra get beefy with three choice nuggets of fleshy goodness, looking at Beef Wellington, Brains and Bovril. Don’t get the meat sweats!

Don’t forget the next episode is the Listeners’ Choice. Please send your suggestions (with a reason why you’ve chosen it) to aisofrapplepod@gmail.com. Your deadline is 21st May!

Links & Further Reading

• Did Sam win the awards for Best Audio at the Fortnum & Mason Awards?
• Allie will be taking part in the online conference an ONLINE conference on 23rd and 24th August 2025 marking the 100th anniversary of MR James A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories talking about food and the supernatural: https://romancingthegothic.com/2025/01/06/cfp-for-a-warning-to-the-curious-ghostly-supernatural-and-weird-tales/
• Follow Serve it Forth history festival on Instagram @serveitforthfest
• The Leeds Symposium of Food History and Traditions facebook page

Beef Wellington

• Manuale de cuoco e del pasticciere III by Vincenzo Agnoletti (1834) (Italian)
• Paddington Takes The Test by Michael Bond (1999)
• Julia Child cooks beef wellington on The French Chef
• Betty Crocker’s Hostess Cookbook (1967)
• Irish Traditional Food by Theodora Fitzgibbon (1984)
• Fashionable food: seven decades of food fads by Sylvia Lovegren, (1995)
• The French Menu Cookbook by Richard Olney (1970)
• You can read more about the Waterloo banquets on the Apsley House and Wellington Arch blog here and here.
• Lines of Wellington trailer
• Read about how beef wellington was used as a murder weapon in Australia.

Brains

• English Food (Third Edition) by Jane Grigson (1992
• The Complete Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking by Fergus Henderson...

In Episode 5 the intrepid team enter their blue period. Neil finds out how a unique blue cheese was resurrected from obscurity thanks to some mouldy leather. Allie explores the significance of blue corn to the Hopi in Arizona. And Sam explains why a blue flower was believed to lift the spirits (and also looks great in a glass of Pimms).

Blue Cheese

• Stichelton Dairy
• Neal’s Yard Dairy
• Eau de Stilton
• Harold McGee, On Food & Cooking (1984)
• Val Cheke, The Story of Cheese-Making in Britain (1959)

Blue Corn

• Flour: A Comprehensive Guide by Christine McFadden, 2018
• Hopi Culture - https://itcaonline.com/member-tribes/hopi-tribe/
• The Corn Maiden in Hopi Tradition: https://blog.kachinahouse.com/the-corn-maiden-unveiling-the-harvest-and-fertility-symbolism-among-the-hopi/

Borage

• ‘Borage – A Star Of Nature’ on Stories From The Museum Floor , 25 August 2017
• Robert Tyas, The sentiment of flowers; or, Language of flora (1841)
• John Gerard, The Herbal, or a Generall historie of plantes (1636)
• Pliny, Natural Histories VII
• Anon, A Proper New Booke of Cookery (1575)

You can follow the A is for Apple Podcast on Instagram and Bluesky

Sam Bilton also hosts the Comfortably Hungry Podcast and is the author of First Catch Your Gingerbread, Fool’s Gold: A History of British Saffron and The Philosophy of Chocolate. You can find her on

Check out Thom's podcast The Delicious Legacy here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-delicious-legacy/id1494707127

Watch Thom smoke pork and mutton over a charcoal fire like an ancient Greek:

https://youtu.be/u7JN1pl_JVs?si=k-j6dZGYVne_0zUa

The Odyssey by Homer:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1727/1727-h/1727-h.htm

In this bonus episode, Allie explores the rich tradition of barbacoa from Chef Edson Diaz-Fuentes' hometown, diving into its regional variations and the traditional pit-cooking techniques that define its deep, smoky flavours. They also discuss his journey through London’s dynamic food scene and how his three restaurants bring the heart of Mexican cuisine to the city.Ciudad de México: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of Mexico City by Edson Diaz Fuentes (2021)

Useful Links

• Ciudad de México: Recipes and Stories from the Heart of Mexico City by Edson Diaz Fuentes (2021)
• Edson and Natalie Feary have three restaurants in London- find out more here: https://www.santoremedio.co.uk/

Cooking is essentially a series of techniques. In Episode 4 Neil, Sam and Allie explore an ancient form of hearth cookery; find out why being called Béchamel could merit a kick in the posterior and get sizzling on the barbie. (No cakes or dolls were harmed in the making of this podcast 😉).

Useful Links

Neil’s recipes:

• https://britishfoodhistory.com/2012/02/21/pancake-day/
• https://britishfoodhistory.com/2020/12/03/to-make-crumpets/
• https://britishfoodhistory.com/2024/10/29/singin-hinnies/
• https://neilcooksgrigson.com/2015/07/13/411-brains-with-curry-and-grape-sauce/
• Delicious Legacy Podcast- A Short History of Barbecue
• Motherland Pig Episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07rsphm
• The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover - Peter Greenaway (1989)
• Goodfellas BBQ Scene
• Saint Lawrence Patron Saint of Cooks
• First Catch Your Gingerbread - Sam Bilton (2020) Perkins recipe
• Mark Meltonville - https://www.meltonville.uk/
• The Culinary Triangle Claude Lévi-Strauss (1966)
• Sumario de la historia general de las indias - Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1526)
• A New Voyage Round the World - William Dampier(1697)
• Dictionary of the English Language - Samuel Johnson (1755)

Suggested Reading

• French cookery: comprising L'art de la cuisine francaise, Le patissier royal, Le cuisinier parisien - Marie Antoine Carême (1836 edition)
• Kettner’s Book of Table - E. S. Dallas (1877)
• English Bread and Yeast Cookery - Elizabeth David (1977)
• A Book of Bakestone Cookery - Bobby Freeman (1984)
• The Scots Kitchen: It’s Lore and Recipes - F Marian McNeill (1929)
• Cooked - Michael Pollan (2013)
• The Saucier’s Apprentice - Raymond Sokolov...