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- [00:00]
Marshall Poe
Hello everybody. This is Marshall Po. I'm the founder of the New Books Network, and if you're listening to this podcast on the New Books Network, I bet you like to read. I know that I do. That's why I founded the New Books Network. So as readers, we need to know what to read. And I have a podcast to recommend for you. That being the Proofread podcast. Do you have a goal to read more this year? How about a goal to read more of what you love and less of what you don't? The Proofread Podcast is here to help you. Hosted by Casey and Tyler, two English professors and avid readers with busy lives, Proofread helps you decide what books are worth spending your precious time on and what books aren't. They have 15 minute episodes that give you everything you need to know about a book to decide if you should read it or skip it. They offer a brief synopsis, there's fun and witty commentary, and there are no spoilers and no sponsored reviews. Life's too short to read a bad book, so subscribe to the Proofread podcast today. And by the way, there's a new season coming soon.
- [01:00]
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
Every style, every home.
- [02:00]
Marshall Poe
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [02:04]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hello and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Jenny Linford about her book, published by Thames and Hodson in partnership with the British Museum in 2025, titled Repast the Story of Food, which takes us through artifacts in the collection of the British Museum, which is a massive collection. Anything related to food across time, across space, going all the Way from very, very far, very far back in time to pretty much the present across a number of different themes, some of which we'll get to talk about probably in more detail than others, but really helping us get a sense of everything related to food, feasting, eating, hunting through some really fabulous objects. So this is a conversation I'm very much looking forward to, with the caveat for listeners that of perhaps all the books that I do, this is one where you really should Google some images as we go that will definitely add to it. But we have so much to discuss. Jenny, thank you so much for joining me.
- [03:10]
Jenny Linford
No, thank you for inviting me. I'm looking forward to this.
- [03:12]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Miranda, I am looking forward to it as well. Before we dive too far into the book though, can you please introduce yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write a book? I mean, why, for example, is food a good way to investigate the past?
- [03:27]
Jenny Linford
Well, I'm a food writer. I'm a London based food writer. I've been writing about food for over 30 years and it wasn't very fashionable to write about food when I started and now it's sort of hilariously fashionable. And I think that, you know, food, the great thing about food, which something I said to the curators of the British Museum when I was working with them, this book is Food is universal, yet particular. You know, we all eat, we have to eat. There's a biological imperative for us to stay alive. We have to eat that, you know, over and over again through our lives. And so everyone can relate to food in some way. I mean, they may not be interested in it, but they still understand it. And that makes it a very good way to explore the human relationship with food. The project came about because Thames and Hudson, who produced very beautiful art books, worked very closely with the British Museum in collaboration and do books together. And they decided, the two of them, that they wanted to do a book about food. And then I was approached and asked if I would write it. And I love the British Museum, I'm a Londoner, it's the most amazing museum. So I sort of was thrilled, little realising how much hard work would be involved anyway, so I leapt with excitement and then, and it was, you know, it was an amazing and interesting project to work on it.
- [04:40]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Is that hard work, in fact, that I'd like to turn to next? You mentioned speaking with the British Museum curators. What kind of access did you have to the collections and what was it like to work with them?
- [04:50]
Jenny Linford
Well, it was drawn out because they're very Busy people, and a lot of them. And, you know, you. Yeah, there was a long consultation with them, and it was fascinating because I think what I, you know, I am a food writer. I'm not an academic, so I have a very sort of broad brushstroke approach, which, in fact, I think works really well for a book like this. But obviously what I needed from them and what we got was their input into, I suppose, into their areas of expertise. And that's what I realized is they. They specialize, you know, so if you talk to somebody, they're specialist in Roman Britain, and that's what they'll know about in huge depth and with great. Yes, with a great level of detail. But then they wouldn't, you know, but then they wouldn't be able to tell you about something else, because that wasn't their area. And so that was something that was very fascinating for me to. To come across that. I think what I came away with, the sense was, you know, it was sort of muscle, respect for their expertise, expertise, a sense of nuance, you know, because academics, everything is nuanced. And as a food writer, I'm near something very different. I'm trying to tell stories. I mean, that is the subtitle of the book is the Story of Food. And I'm. I'm doing, you know, I'm outward facing. I'm facing general public. I'm making things accessible. I'm telling these stories. There are stories in food. You know, food travels, you know, the ingredients that we take. You know, we think of potatoes as a European ingredient. Now, if you live in Europe, and yet, of course, you know, their origins are in Peru in Central America. And it's a food, like many, many foods, which has traveled around the world, taking a long journey, and now become part of our lives. And we never think about that. So I wanted to highlight those hidden stories that are there and the museum collection really allowed to do that. And I think what's wonderful, as you touched on in your introduction, Rand, is that the objects in this book, they are so beautiful. I mean, and it's sort of fascinating. We're so used to seeing. I think nowadays in the age. We're in an age of social media platforms like Instagram, we're very used to seeing cooked food. That's when we think food, we tend to think of it, you know, see it. We're presented to it in terms of images, you know, of cheese melting or a beautiful cake or someone, you know, cut it, or steak, let's say. But this book, does it has some images of cooked food, but most of the objects in it and the images in it are not of cooked food. And I think it allows. What I want to do was say to the reader, look, this is food. It's so fundamental. Human beings, we knew how to eat and we, wherever we were in the world, we ate and we ate in different ways. And yet. So we shared, you know, certainly asking about the universe in the particular. So in whatever climb we're in with you in an Inuit hunter with your hunt in Africa, with your totally different climate, you are hunting and you make special weapons to hunt and to catch animals to keep you alive, you know, and we could put. So it allowed me to tell a. More a fundamental story of food. I think working on a book like.
- [07:51]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
This, that's a lovely insight into the process of all of it and as well the kind of way you approached the storytelling and the sort of merging of the general audience with the specialist academic knowledge. In more detail, though, this book is organized. You didn't just kind of run rampant through the collection and then kind of throw them in willy nilly. Like, there's some themes going on here, right? We've got hunting, alcohol, religion, feasting, a bunch of different themes. How did you decide on that? Did you decide, I want to have a page on mushroom foraging and then go contact a curator and go, what have you got for me? Or did they come to you with ideas? How did sort of building the themes work?
- [08:32]
Jenny Linford
The themes came quite early on because when I got the project, it was very, you know, it was sort of shapeless, actually. And they had. People thought that maybe they would arrange the book geographically, like in the way that the museum at Current, you know, you have an African department, you have a European department. I didn't think that was the best way to arrange the book because for me, what was always one of the things that this book could do would be. Would be to offer juxtaposition across different cultures, across different times, side by side. I thought it would make it intriguing and interesting. I felt that. So if you'd made. If you'd been, you know, if I'd had an Indians or an Asians, it would have been Asian, you know, it was huge. And I said that brings up lots of complexities where you'd be generalizing. I wanted. So I wanted the sort of human, I suppose I wanted the global human nature of food to be expressed. I thought these human themes would be the best way to do it. So I came up with the themes and I came up with this idea of attending a story of food, which seemed to try and give a narrative O to the book. So begin with the fundamentals of how food was acquired, which are hunting, gathering, fishing. And for most of human history, that is how we caught off. That's how we acquired food. And then agriculture comes along about 12,000 years ago, and it's huge, you know, and it changes our lives. You know, it changes human life. And again, I don't think people really think about that or understand it. So I wanted. So agriculture, agricultural animals, agricultural plants, given the book. And then I wanted to explore the cultural aspects of food because that's something that's always interested me as a writer. So we put in things like, you know, religion, alcohol, and there's a lot. It's hilariously a huge amount of stuff about alcohol in the museum. Absolutely fascinating. But it's sort of the way that human. Human ingenuity in. In preserving food, in processing it, you know. You know, we're eating. You know, we have a rich diet now in the 21st century. And that's because for. For thousands of years, people have put a lot of time and energy into making our food really interesting, you know, and taking raw ingredients and then processing them. If you think of chocolate, it is remarkable. The gap from the cocoa bean to the bar of chocolate is in it. That was. It was a lot of ingenuity goes into that story, really. And then I wanted to end up with have food by putting food in. I put eating in and eating out, which I think, again, are not particularly. Perhaps not particularly academic, but I think for me felt very important because eating in, you know, we. You know, our first food, we eat at home, you know, and we often romance the idea of our mother's food or home cooking. And so I wanted that because I thought everyone can relate to that. I wanted the book to be very relatable. And then eating out, you know, London is full of people snacking and grazing in a way that wasn't when I was a child. Food was much less present. It was eaten less often, I would say. And now when I go back, I know London really well. I've written a lot of books about London and food. And I walk around it and I look at it and I think that streets have nothing food. And that's got cafes and chocolate shops and bakeries and. And, you know, it's just sort of the food and restaurants, it's just. And pubs and coffee bars and it's like we eat all the time. So I wanted that. I wanted to end with something that was very. Are again, relatable to. And the way we worked was that. So I hate the themes. We approached the curators with themes. They suggested objects from their collection that they thought were, you know, relevant or important or, you know, yet really, really telling. You know, that thing that if you're going to do a book with the British Museum, you know, from that department, you would have to put this in. So then we had that feedback that was. But then with gaps, because, you know, just by the nature of the consultation process. But the visuals of the book gave it a very clear structure because every page has got a sub theme. So it made broad themes like agriculture, but then, you know, it might be a spread on sheep or, you know, it might be a spread on gathering tools under gathering. And so then you have to find other objects because I've been given a wonderful. Someone has said to me, for example, the Korean curator, she said what she really wanted to be in the book was this beautiful huge jar. I mean, it must be about sort of 4 foot high. It's a kimchi jar. So then that went into my preserving spread. So I found other objects by looking. I did a lot of visiting museum and looking around it, but in fact, the collection is only partly on display and they have a wonderful. The British Museum has a fantastic source online, which I would recommend, if anyone's interested, which is that you can search the collection online. And it's pretty sophisticated. You put in your keyword and then you can hone it down by sort of by place, by time, by all sorts of things, by the type of object it is. I mean, you do end up looking at a lot of bits of broken pot, which I did. But then also you find wonderful, wonderful things, you know, like. And that was the joy for me. It was a real thrill, Miranda, to be able to think. I was trying to write about harvest and I was looking through it and I was like, oh, there's a Botticelli drawing of. I was trying to think. I put in keywords and I thought of autumn, because that is a time of harvest. And then up popped this very beautiful Botticelli drawing of a personification of autumn. Like, I will have that in my book. That's pretty exciting. Yeah.
- [13:39]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay. I'm so glad that that's what the experience was, because reading the book, I was kind of hoping you had experiences like that. Putting it together, reading through it, looking at the sub themes, you know, it was sort of a fantasy of mine that you'd get to do something like that. So I'm so pleased to hear that. That was very much the reality I do about the searches that didn't quite work. Were there any objects that almost got included? You had one, but not enough for a page, or you wanted them there, but the gap couldn't be filled. What happened there?
- [14:11]
Jenny Linford
Yeah, it was. There was some. I mean, I must have had at least twice as many. The book has got about 300 objects in it. I must have had, I would say, at least 600, if not more possible candidates for inclusion. And actually, what's fascinating was that certain things I thought, you know, when I. So I came up with the board themes, I used to put in essays because I wanted to highlight aspects of those themes through essays. I had ideas for essays. And one of the things I'd want to look at was vegetarianism, because it seems such an important part of human how humans eat, but actually very hard to find. You know, we couldn't find any objects related to vegetarianism, which, as you think about it, sort of makes sense, you know. And another thing I'd wanted to write about was cookbooks, but of course it's the wrong collection. I didn't. I knew the. Which library would have the cookbooks, but I thought maybe which museum might have, you know, front pieces or book, but it doesn't. So some things fell out by the nature of the collection. But luckily, because the collection is, as you said, so huge, so diverse, so rich, you know, it wasn't a problem. And what happened was I was just sort of really rueful because you would get very. I mean, there were so many objects. Like, there's not one in particular. But I just remember sort of thinking like, I had so many beautiful baskets, but the skill of the basket weavers in cultures that gathered food, you know, whether it was indigenous North Americans or Australians, was remarkable. They're absolutely beautiful. And so you'd be like, oh, I can only put three in. You know, I want to put 30 in. It was more like that, you know. And then, of course, the tableware. There's a lot of very beautiful tableware. And again, that was really hard to choose. And the Japanese, they have really chronicled their food culture. They're all these amazing prints of aspects of Japanese sort of food, beautifully depicted. But again, you have to be aware, you know, because the book had to be balanced. It couldn't all be Japanese, Japanese prints. So, you know, so I'd have to sort, no, no, we can't have another Japanese print, you know, and we, We. The way we did it was was really good, actually. The, the head of publishing at the British Museum who I was working with, as well as with the Thames and Hudson publishers. It was a double. Yeah. Yes. It was a very sort of collaborative process really. She suggested that we treat it like an exhibition. So they printed out the images of all these objects. See these hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of objects. We spent about three or four days with Blu Tack in a room, a large room, sticking them up in spreads on the wall and thinking, okay, we do that. And then standing back and thinking, oh, actually no, that's. And it was very useful visually because it allowed you to think, you know, that we have got too many objects that look very similar. You know, that's yet another, you know, Egyptian tomb model. Okay, let's. Which one should we get rid of? You know, let's take that out and what do we replace it with? I mean, yeah, it was quite a. It was a massive process run. That's all I can say. It was a massive sifting and I'm now very emotionally attached to what's in the book and I've forgotten what it was. I'm rueful about because I'm just. I'm just focused on the fact that I do feel we put a lot of care and thought into choosing what went into it.
- [17:11]
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- [18:06]
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- [18:31]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that sounds like a fabulous process. I can only imagine being in those rooms. But what is in the book? I mean there's so many incredibly cool objects that I sadly cannot ask you about all of them. So I have gone through and sort of picked out some myself to ask you about. So thinking in the sort of category of tools used to acquire food, there were some really specific examples. Not just kind of basket to hold things, but like honey harvesting basket or boomerangs for hunting or special scoop shaped fishing lures. Can you tell us about some of these kind of hyper specific food acquisition objects?
- [19:09]
Jenny Linford
Yeah, I think, yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean again that's what came across I think was the knowledge of these societies and the skill and you're right, you wouldn't, you know, you think basketball, gathering basket will be the same? No, no, they're all different, literally. And in that, in the book I have, you know. Yes, I have a honey basket, I have a basket that's used for, for gathering, you know, rain, sort of rainforest vegetation. And they're all different, they're different weeds, you know, they're making different materials, they're different shapes. It's actually fascinating. And one I find which is very resonant, which is among one of the oldest objects in the book is a spear thrower. It's a late ice age spear thrower shaped like a mammoth. It's a very powerful shape actually. And it's carved from reindeer ankler. And you know, we human beings were living alongside mammoths so we knew, you know, we knew of them. Which again I think is. There's something quite extraordinary about that really nicknamed now that we're in the 21st century and that is very beautiful and powerful. And I think yes, it was just that sort of level of specialization and the knowledge, I mean I was quite intrigued. There was an Italian. One of the things I put in the book under hunting is a board game from 18th century Italy and it's all about hunting birds. I mean it's quite, you know, sort of, it's quite chilling actually because it shows men with, with different ways of hunting birds with lures or, you know, or things that would stick, catch them and they'd stick to it. And it's just. Yeah. And you think again, wow, what special, you know, imagine making. Who says let's make a board game about hunting birds. But it shows how Especially, you know, how much there was known about hunting birds, really in a way that we would find very hard to imagine. Now, I think, yeah, that's quite a.
- [20:53]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Lot of very specialized knowledge just in that one object. But of course, there were many things that were not known about these processes of getting food and ensuring that it's edible. Kind of unknown forces that had to be appeased to make sure that one had the good luck finding the right food or that once one acquired it, it didn't go bad in storage. So what kinds of objects did you come across around sort of securing good luck from gods or spirits to make sure that kind of everything went well?
- [21:23]
Jenny Linford
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, and I think, I think one of the things that the book does do is it shows you how important food was. Now it was not taken for granted in any way. And that includes, you know, if you think of the harvest festival, I've got depictions of harvest festivals because, you know, that meant, you know, are you going to stay alive or are you going to die in winter? You know, did you get good harvest? Were you able to gather your food in and store it? And that's really fundamental. And the idea still lives on, but to a lesser extent, I think with climate change, we may start to perhaps think about and appreciate our food more and respect it more, actually. But there are all sorts of objects which are to do with auspiciousness. There's this wonderful yam shaped stone from the Pacific region which was buried in the ground like an auspicious object to make a good harvest, really. And then I see we have a beautiful little figure which was like an auspicious white spirit, I think, from Indonesia, certainly from Southeast Asia, which again would be. It was to sort of, you know, it was going to look after your, your crop for you. And that was a very recurrent idea. And it's fishing. If you think about fishing today, it is one of the most dangerous. You know, it's people, you know, fishermen lose their lives in order for us to eat our fresh fish. And again, we should respect that. And you can see that a lot in there was their figures that go on boats which bring good luck. And you think about and the depictions of, you know, tiny boats in very rough seas. And that idea which is, you know, which is still really resonant, I think that, you know, you're setting out to this, you know, onto this great elemental force, especially in the days, you know, before sat nav, before communication. So you head out, you know, and you hope you're going to come back and possibly be, you know, with a great harvest, you know, with a great catch of fish, but you don't know what's going to happen and you know, and there might be a storm looking for you. So. So a lot, you know, a lot of anxiety. All the people that people at home waiting for you to come back safely, you know, fearful and yet. And there's always the joy when you do come back and if you've had a good catch, the excitement must be high, you know, and you've got money and you're going to be able to feed yourself. So that was a big thing. And also just stepping up from that a little bit, just the idea of. Of food and religion, you know, it manifests itself in various ways. Food is an offering to the gods across many cultures. There are animal sacrifice, there are numerous depictions of offerings in temples. Special festivals from around the world in different cultures. And it's what's fascinating, they say food for the dead. So many cultures have this idea that when you go into the afterlife, you must be provisioned for it. So the ancient Egyptian, they were the most wonderful and extraordinary models. Two little models were placed in tombs. I mean, I think the, you know, the art of the dead in ancient Egypt, absolutely fascinating and the way it was conceived. And so much sort of energy and care went into it. These most beautiful tomb murals depicting foods. And they see little models of things like seeing. And you'd have a model of someone making beer or baking bread so that when you go into your afterlife, you are well provisioned. And they would have been bringing food offerings as well, you know. And then so in ancient China, most intricate little dishes as well, of tomb. Of food, tomb offerings. So I think that idea of the spiritual dimension to food is something I really wanted to put in the book because it felt so important. And so many objects in the British Museum absolutely related to that.
- [25:02]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's such a key part across so many different places in time. So I'm glad it's in the book and that we got to talk about it here, but I want to talk perhaps, perhaps about journeys that don't just go out, as you said, into the very anxious unknown of trying to catch fish and then come back to the same place. I want to talk about journeys that go from one place to somewhere else because there were so many objects in the book that speak to the way that food travelled from one place to another. And you mentioned that a little bit earlier. I mean, some that just jumped out at me. A Chinese made Mustard pot that's meant to be used by people in Germany or Pacific Islander navigation charts or a silver nutmeg chest. They were just kind of in all sorts of different themes and the book objects that very clearly showed that food, food ways were traveling. So can you tell us about some of these?
- [25:49]
Jenny Linford
Yes, I mean that's something again when I was choosing my themes that's one I absolutely wanted. So I've got travel and trade which absolute key and so many other. As I sort of touched on earlier with the potatoes. So many things we take for granted now have come from other places. I mean so Chili's again, I mean what's called the Colombian exchange, that expression for you know, what Columbus took to what was called the New World to Central South America, which you know, which includes disease as well as. But they say things, you know, like livestock, animals, wings, juice. It was a massive exchange really. And a lot of food stuff came from that part of the world but then taken out and spread around the world really by the colonizers, by. And not unless you're through trade. So chilies that we think you know of as so which are indeed absolutely core to cuisines like Indian cuisine or Southeast Asian cuisine, but they were introduced by trade. And I think what's interesting you think about it, you know, seeds are tiny and really portable. So it's something. And people, people so open minded, you know, they're always looking for what can we bring back what's going to work. And. And it's then people seem so receptive to like oh there's this new exotic plant. Let me try it, let me plant it. Let me see what happens to it. You know, is it going to be a useful source? Because I think again it gives back to fact. You know, we take food for granted now we live in a. You know, I dropped in my local supermarket. I mean I'm spoiled for choice. You know, there's ample food but that's not always the case at all. Food was scarce for lots of people. People's diets were incredibly limited. And I think the idea of a new crop that could be useful and feed you was really embraced. I mean one thing I. So one of the essays in that traveling trade section is on chocolate, which is the most remarkable story. And I think what I love about the objects I got to illustrate that I think we fit that richness. I've got this very beautiful image a Mexican because chocolate, cacao. Chocolate comes from cacao which you know, comes from Central America. And it was on these ancient cultures, the Aztecs and Incas, they drank chopped chocolate for most of its history. It was actually. It was consumed as a drink rather than eaten. The solid chocolate bar, something comes out in much later, so 18th century, with the Industrial Revolution, when the equipment to process cacao and turn it into eating bars, people had ground down and eaten it. But really, it was primarily. It was drunk before. But there's this beautiful image which is from a codex, and it's from the Mixtec culture, and I think it just gives us richness. It's a scene from the Tornide Codex, and It has Lady 13 Serpent, Cocoa Flower, offering a vessel full of drinking chocolate to the Mixtec ruler, Lord Ape Deer, Jaguarclaw, during their marriage ceremony. So that's a drink because chocolate. So you really get the idea then chocolate is for. It was for the elite, the social elite of those cultures, those Mesoamerican cultures. They, you know, it was. It was. It was highly prized. It was flavored with exotic spices. It was flavored, you know, with vanilla or with chili. It was. There was a lot of skill and art into making it. It was in what. In some of the cultures, it was frothed to make it very light. And this is what the Spanish saw. So they knew that cocoa beans were valued. They were using them as currency, and they bring them back to Central America. And initially they. It's a Courtney drink because it's very rare, it's very expensive. And one of the other projects I have in this section is these really little beautiful gold cups that date to around 1700. So literally pure gold cups made for drinking chocolate. Because that's how, you know, elite and that market and special chocolate is. So it's a drink, you know. So even at Hampton Court, they found a little chocolate kitchen. We know where the king would have his chocolate, his hot drinking chocolate be made for in the morning. And we've got the, you know, the rise now of drinking chocolate shops on our high streets, haven't we? But I think this, you know, we're very used to chocolate being very. Not as cheap as he was, but he's still, you know, very available and very affordable, really. And yet I think you get a sense from those images of how special it was, actually. And that's something that I wanted to do.
- [30:06]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's quite fun to understand, especially coming up to the end of the year when lots of people are reading, perhaps even more chocolate to get a better sense of the history of it. Another thing you mentioned very briefly earlier that I love to pick up on is Tableware. Because in some senses, some of the ones you found that you put in the book look really similar. Like, quite surprisingly similar. Like, if you told me that These were from 2010 and not medieval times, I would believe you. And then there's some other things that, like, maybe in terms of the shape of them look the same, but we don't use forks that have gold in them sort of as an everyday item anymore. So can you give us a sense of. In terms of sort of tableware or food storage, the kind of everyday type objects, which are some of the ones that look really similar across time versus maybe really don't.
- [30:55]
Jenny Linford
Yeah, you're absolutely right, because I think the book is full of things. It's this wonderful mix, I think, of things that are very relatable to you, but, you know.
- [31:02]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yes.
- [31:02]
Jenny Linford
And particularly tableware. You know, the plates and the cups and. Yeah. And you look at this piece of ceramic and you think, wish it was really like, you know, you'd find it in a Croft contemporary craft gallery. Like, oh, no, it's actually, you know, takes back hundreds of years. Absolutely remarkable. And I think. So I've got a square. A Japanese square omelette pan. I think the print, I think, is 18th century. So it's a. It's a drawing of one, and I think it's 18th century, and that's still on sale. You know, if I went to a Japanese shop in London, I saw kitchenware, Japanese kitchenware, I'd be able to find one. Because, you know, that Japanese. You know, the aesthetics of Japanese food are so remarkable, and that this very neat square omelette is used a lot, you know, so, you know, rather than a round one, which is sort of wonderful. I think what's really interesting is. So then in terms of things. But this, you have things that are really, really different, which I think, again, remind you of, like, wow, different times, you know, And I think salt cellar. I mean, so what's really interesting is we have things. I've got a very beautiful ivory salt cellar which dates back from around 1525 to 1600, and it was made for European visitors in Benin. I mean, in fact, Jerusalem ivory had been just for the world Court at Benin. But the king, rather sensibly, or the rulers, decided, you know, look, there's a profitable market. Let's make stuff for export. So it's a really elaborate salt cellar with three figures, European figures. And it just, you know, and you would not put it. You would not see something like that on a table nowadays, I think. And I said, that is one of the examples. And this I have a very beautiful Roman silver, Roman pep pot which again goes. Which again points at the cachet that spices had. How expensive they were, how unregarded they were. See, spices in Europe have come a long way. You know, they come from India, they come from Southeast Asia. There was a lot of money to be made, you know, from spices. One of the things driving people, driving European colonizers to go to these other countries was to try and find lucrative goods they could bring back. And spices were one of them. Again, you know, again, partly it's sort of fascinating because they're so small and light and yet so precious at that time. And I think so again, I sort of think that, that you get a sense of the specialness of the food which perhaps we don't have nowadays. You know, we take pepper for granted and yet, you know, it was a very, very sought after spice and plant plays and spices play have this huge historic. And there's so much interesting history tied up with them and quite, you know, a dark side. There's a lot of dark side to feed history. Yeah. But I think it just. I did love that sort of juxtaposition of the two. And one of the things that really spoke to me is what, in fact, when you look at it visually, it's. It's a little wooden fragment with some writing that's very hard to read and it's very moving. I find it's from Vindolanda, the Raymond Fort, which is near Hadron's War in Northumberland. And it was deciphered with, you know, enormous. Using technology. Using. Yes, yes. It took a lot of work to decipher it. And it's a shopping list for the garrison and it says. What I love about it is it's text relatable because whoever wrote the list is instructing someone, presumably a servant or slave, to shop in it. They say, you know, buy a hundred apples if they're good. Buy the. Buy 100 or 200 eggs if the price is fair. Words exactly right. But pretty much that I forgot. There's sentiments of, you know, look at the price, look at the quality. That's literally what I would be. Those things I would take into account when I do my shop. Oh, is that, you know, is that on offer today? You know, let's buy some butter. It's on, it's on. You know, it's been reduced, so it's totally human. So of course, nearly 2,000 years ago, you've got something as prosaic as a food shopping list, which I love. I just thought for me, that was a really. I did love those objects. Some of the objects in the book are very, very grand. You know, the feasting section is full of absolute treasures, which the British Museum is, you know, boy, because they have treasures. Unbelievable. But I think I found the ones that resonated me were the ones that were more domestic and humble. And I love the fact that they spoke across so, you know, across huge amounts of time in such a, in such a grounded way. Coca Cola for the big, for the small, the short and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers for the optimists, pessimists for long distance love for introverts and extroverts, the thinkers and the doers for old friends and new Coca Cola for everyone. Pick up some Coca Cola at a store near you.
- [35:46]
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Jenny Linford
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- [36:47]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Of those things were definitely incredibly relatable in a way that kind of, you know, the gold silver chalice goblet was less so for most of us, I think these days. But aside from the objects, I think the other incredibly relatable aspect was some of the practices or behaviours or processes that came through in some of these objects, especially around sort of fast food or food to go. Because I think we so often assume that that must be, well, if not just a 21st century thing, maybe going back to the 20th century, but not that much further than that. And yet you found some objects that show it goes rather a lot further back than just the last 150 years or so. Can you give us some examples of something that Essentially looks like fast food or Food to Go. Way further back than the last few generations.
- [37:35]
Jenny Linford
Yeah, I mean, I think Food to Go has been around and we know that the Romans had snack bars, you know, at Pompeii, they're called Thermopolium. And I think under the curator, the one I spoke to about the sort of Roman, Roman, British era, he pointed out to me, you know, restaurants, eating out was for the poor because you couldn't, you know, you didn't live somewhere you just bought that had perhaps you didn't live, but you didn't have much space and you'd just buy something to, you know, to go. But if you entertain. What he's pointing out was then you wouldn't have gone out for a meal to a restaurant in Roman Britain you would, but you'd had to if you're wealthy or you'd invited people to your home because a. That was also secure, you know, but as it meant you had space, you had servants, you could afford, you know, fine ingredients, you could afford musicians for entertainment, you could afford wine. And there's all status symbols, obviously. And those things were done in the homes. It's a very. Because now we think we're so used to thinking all eating out is a treat. But actually, funny enough, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't always a treat and eating out was something that people did. So if this, you know, say for centuries people have sold, you know, food to go. Because I think also for centuries, you know, markets are such a fundamental way of. Of trading food. Am I put in a section, I've got an essay on food shopping, which subject very close to my heart because I do, I do sort of. I love, I love a good food shop. And markets are such a primal, a fundamental way where humans have, you know, brought things, exchanged them, traded them. And you sort of know that may not be a written record because again, you know, food history is really lacking quite a lot of food written records. But you know, that people would have been selling things to eat because you can just sort of see that's literally what we. We do, you know, so someone there were to have the enterprise to, you know, to raise some chestnuts at them up. They're wonderful images of, you know, I've got a fantastic Day of the Dead Palpierre Mache figure. They're very vivid. There were lots of those I wanted to put in the book. But, you know, again, I was like, I can only have one. I said I was what made it. And it's a Tortilla seller, a skeleton making tortillas to sell. And this figure is from the 1980s, but you know, but that would have been, that would have happened a long time, you know, for centuries and, and some of their wonderful expressive Japanese images of street foods dating back again. The image I have in the book is making some six. But you just know again that would have happened for much longer. We have street traders in, in London sending all sorts of things, you know, and in Italy, medieval Italy, you know, sending milk, you know, bringing food around, street food. If you read Henry Mayhew in London, London Labour and the London Poor, he's, you know, he records the street sellers sending everything from, you know, from pies to sort of do fresh watercress. So yeah, I mean that's, you know, that just because we need to eat, you know, food is just, there's a vitality about food because you can make money from it. You know, that's what's so interesting is that, you know, we have to eat every day. So therefore you have to keep buying food. So therefore there's a market to be had in selling food, either few other ingredients, you know, and like a butcher or grocer or ready cooked food to enjoy. And that was one of the things I, yeah, I enjoyed that sort of. I want to try and surprise people with the book and just bring home. Yeah, that, that sense of. I mean, I think one of the other objects thinking of things that span the centuries was a metal drinking straw from Ur, which is thousands of years old. It's very beautiful. It's silver and lapis lassithi. And I put it in the book because it sort of amused me because I thought, and the curator pointed out to me and, and it was a wonderful object. And of course it's very resonant because now in an age where we've tried to cut down our plastic consumption, you know, I have a metal drinking straw in my drawer and suddenly they're on sale again. And yet there's this object from thousands of years ago which was a make, which is a straw. And I think, you know, we wouldn't, we don't. We think, I think we tend to think of straws as being quite recent, yet they're not. You know, we've used them for thousands of years.
- [41:40]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That's something I think we've both come back to a number of times through the conversation of going, oh wait, we think this is modern and yet this is modern and old kind of all at the same time. So the last sort of very Specific type of item I'd love to ask you about is whether you came across any objects related to cheese.
- [42:00]
Jenny Linford
I did and I was very excited because I love cheese. And what was really interesting is in sort of history, cheese is a very. It's one of our great ancient foods. And the theory is that the milk, I mean cheese, are made by curdling milk. One of the things that curdles milk is rennet, which is found in animals stomachs. And the theory is, which makes a lot of sense I think, is that, you know, possibly in the Middle east, no one really knows for sure, but that milk was put into an animal hide carrier, you know, like a bag, but made from perhaps a stomach pouch of an animal taken on a journey. And then the rennet that was in that naturally present kerdal of milk. So by the end of the journey, instead of framing soft with liquid milk, you ended up with, with curds. And then you would, oh, what's this? Oh, this is. Tastes interesting. And you would have understood, humans understood that there was. That you could do this to milk. But in cheese history, among the earliest objects we have that allow us to trace the history of cheese are either cheese strainers or cheese molds. And I have a Roman cheese mold which would have shaped the curd. So it's this, it's a dish with holes in it. So you would have curdled your milk and then you would put the curds, which are still full of whey, into this mould and the, and the whey, which is liquid part. So basically milk, when you coagulate it, it separates into curds, solid curds, pretty solid, but basically contains some whey which is the liquid part. So what you're trying to do, especially if you want to preserve your cheese, is you try and get rid of the watery part, which is the whey. So it would have drained it. So that was very telling. And I paired it with a. A really quite sweet, almost, not quite kitsch, but sort of getting there. I feel 18th century image of a Swiss cheesemaker welcoming visitors to his mountain chalet. And that's quite wonderful because that tradition still exists in the Swiss arts, where in the summer season when the pastures are full of beautiful aromatic herbs and flowers, for centuries people have taken up the herds, either sheeps or goats or cows, up laboriously up into the mountains to graze there. And they would build little huts. They stay there with their animals through the summer months. They feed on the ample pasture. The milk that they give is turned into cheese then. And there in the huts. That's what happens in Switzerland. And then that cheese would have been taken down and there was a sort of prestige to it. So you can. And you can still find that if you went to a wonderful cheese shop and ask for an Alpine cheese and ask for some Alpine cheese, you would get a cheese made in that way, which is pretty remarkable.
- [44:27]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I have, in fact, had those kinds of cheeses. And so it's very cool to hear about an object that really has the exact same sort of functionality as is still being used today. So thank you for telling us a bit about that. Are there any objects that we haven't mentioned yet that you want to make sure we include same meaning?
- [44:45]
Jenny Linford
Miranda, where do I start? No, I think we've done a really great overview. Yeah, No, I think we've done a very good job of covering it, actually. Yes, I feel that's trouble. I'm just so attached to this book. I'm like, that would be interesting. I mean, I think what's quite funny is what I would say is that Bushmuseum has got this incredible collection of prints and drawings. And that was really wonderful resource for the book. And I put in what I sort of enjoyed doing was being able to, again, to be playful with things. So I've got things like I've got a Heath Robinson drawing of. In Eating at Home. And it's sort of. I mean, it's quite funny in the Edge of AI, I suppose, on Robots, I mean, because it's, you know, Heath Robinson, he drew these things. He's 19th century illustrating. He's drawing all these extraordinary gadgets and gizmos. And it's a scene of a dining. Of a dining scene with so many things over, so set up over the table. It was in 20th century. Yes. Not so perhaps later than 19th there. And everyone's just sitting, looking. It's a family with. Looking very solemn, tugging things to bring down a blanc mange from a great big. Which has been lowered, you know, on a. On a winch, I suppose, from a hole in the ceiling. And it's just absolutely hilarious. I had great fun putting in. I wanted to sort of. I suppose I wanted to say to people, you know, see about the British Museum is it's got such a range to its collection and we have these, you know, I think we tend to think of, oh, it's got Egyptian mummies. Oh, it's got this great Assyrian things. It has, you know, I think we have certain pieces come to mind, but I wanted to show this extraordinary range that it had And I, you know, I had fun. I really love putting the chance to put in pictures by artists I love, like people like Thomas Buick, who did a lot with his incredible wood engravings to depict. Again, there were a lot of Buick, we actually shared that. But because again, he's. He's portraying life, you know, really well and really interestingly. And so I've got Buick, you know, I've got Edward Borden, I've got Ravinius, I've got Beatrix Potter, I've got this Heath Robinson drawing and I've got some wonderful 18th century cartoons which are just so very satirical. And that was a great age for satire. So. And there's a lot of satire because, of course, course, food is, they say, cultural, isn't it? And there's. So there's satires where the French are. Are, yeah, are teasing the British and making fun that are British. Anki's British ways. And then there's a wonderful picture of which which really made me laugh because it's sort of an English sailor who's really affronted being given a dish of fancy food by a. In a French restaurant, is going, I want, you know, good, honest British food, which again, you know, it points out that, you know, food is emotional for us, isn't it? So we have. We attach value and meaning to it and. Yeah. And that print and drawing department was such a wonderful resource to use.
- [47:44]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
I cannot imagine what project you could possibly tackle next. Maybe it's just my fantasies you're ticking off with this, but, like, what could top this? What could even come after this?
- [47:56]
Jenny Linford
Is there?
- [47:58]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Or are you just kind of stopping now because what else is there?
- [48:01]
Jenny Linford
I'm not stopping because I love what I do. But I think you're right, I'm never going to get to a book as interesting as this. I mean, that was quite remarkable. I do just feel. I do feel very. It's had a very good critical reception. It had wonderful reviews in, you know, in journals that I would never read. Like, you know, Archeology Review had done lovely, thoughtful reviews of it. And it was a wonderful spectator, which had a phrase that made me so happy because she said, you know, it said, it's the rarest of creatures, a coffee table book that you can't stop reading. So the reviewer paid tribute to the quality of the prose as well to the. It's why you look at this book and think, it's a beautiful book. It really is. So for me, as that writer who had written the text, it was so nice to have the fact that she thought it was well written, picked up on, was, was very gratifying. But I am, I am doing a book about cheese, actually, which of course, and that makes me really happy because it sounds as you and I share a love of cheese. And so, yeah, so that's keeping me busy. And I'm eating a lot of cheese Moranda, including those Swiss, those Swiss sort of Alpen style cheeses that we talked about and thinking, what a remarkable food. You know, from milk, from one ingredient, hundreds of different cheeses with different textures, different flavors are made. I mean, human ingenuity. That, for me, that's the, that's the thing to take away from this book. Is that the skill. Human. Yeah. We are a clever species, you know, I mean, we're stupid species as well in many ways. And yet we. But you know, boy, will, the, the complexity of what we created with food, the ingenuity, you know, the resourcefulness, the imagination, it just kept hitting me over and over again as I worked on this book. Yeah. So I think you're quite right. I'm never going to have a book project. And it was a long, I spent years working on, was a long process. I lived this book for many years and it is lovely in a way, to be the other side of it and to be able to, to just pat this, this book which doesn't show. I think I said to somebody, you can't see the blood, but yeah, this is very special. It was a very special experience. And then hopefully this book, you know, will be there and can be enjoyed by people. So that's exciting.
- [50:00]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, anyone who wants to pat the book themselves, get their own copy. It's titled Repast the Story of Food, published by Thames and Hudson in partnership with the British Museum in 2025. Jenny, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [50:13]
Jenny Linford
It was lovely to be invited. Thank you, Miranda.
- [50:28]
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