Great British Food Revival - Episode Guide

In this first episode of the series, two-star Michelin chef and co-host of Masterchef - The Professionals, Michel Roux Jr., gets passionate about the lost art of bread making. He's concerned that mass-produced, bland-tasting loaves have made us forget what real bread should taste like. He campaigns for the return of the artisan baker to the UK high street and shares his own unique recipes to show how easy and rewarding home baking can be.

Hot on his heels, the Hairy Bikers get revved up and join the Great British Food Revival campaign to highlight the plight of the British cauliflower. It's fallen out of fashion as other greener vegetables have become more popular and have taken its place in our shopping baskets. The Bikers are determined to show that not only is it nutritious, but it can also be versatile and delicious. They rustle up three mouthwatering recipes where the overlooked cauli becomes the star ingredient.

In this episode, greengrocer cum MasterChef host Gregg Wallace makes a case for the revival of the humble spud. All too often replaced by rice or pasta on our plates, tasty tatties need more respect in Gregg's opinion. He tracks down some heritage varieties that are full of flavour, and whistles up three fabulous dishes including a definitive shepherd's pie and his own favourite, dauphinoise potatoes.

Pinning her flag to the mast of rare breed pork is Clarissa Dickson Wright. Never one to mince her words, Clarissa believes that government meddling in the 1950s has left us with flavourless commercial pigs, with none of the character of our native breeds. She meets some of the hardworking farmers battling to preserve our rare breed porkers and lets us in on some of her cooking secrets, including how to get perfect crackling on your Sunday roast.

In this third episode of the series, chef and proud Yorkshireman James Martin takes on the challenge of reviving the British apple. Forced off the supermarket shelves by identikit fruit that have been shipped in from as far away as New Zealand and Chile, James is determined to show off the qualities of our native varieties. He discovers that we can all play our part in the revival by checking if that tree at the bottom of the garden is one of several hundred varieties thought to be extinct, and by showing us three delicious recipes that highlight the variation in flavour of this under-appreciated fruit.

Leading the charge on behalf of mutton is chef Matt Tebbutt. Knocked for six by cheap imports of lamb, mutton has lost its place as a family staple. But Matt is determined to win back its reputation and discovers that the cause is being taken up from the mountains of Wales to the markets of London. He also demonstrates how tasty and versatile this meat can be by cooking a melt in the mouth stuffed shoulder and a spicy North African inspired tagine.

In this fourth episode of the series, one of the UK's best known chefs, Ainsley Harriott, shows off his sweet side as he starts a campaign for the revival of British honey. With bees under threat from disease and a lack of awareness of our native honey production, Ainsley has to criss-cross the country to find out how we can all play our part in its revival. He also takes to the kitchen to show how honey can add its signature flavour to glazed duck breasts, a warm goats' cheese salad and a fabulous fig dessert.

Then its time for Michelin starred chef and Great British Menu favourite Glynn Purnell to ride to the rescue of British cheese. Cheap foreign imports, misleading labelling and a lack of public knowledge of the sheer variety of British cheeses available mean Glynn has his work cut out for him. But on his journey of discovery he meets some truly passionate cheese makers, samples some great tasting cheeses and shows off his own restaurant quality dishes.

In this final episode of the series, culinary legend Gary Rhodes wants us all to appreciate the virtues of the British tomato. Unlike our Italian or Spanish cousins we view the tomato as a year round product so ignore the British growing season when our own fruit is at its best. To show us why we should change our ways Gary discovers the wealth of varieties out there, learns how easy it is for us to grow our own and demonstrates a three course menu that has great tasting British tomatoes at its core, including an innovative white tomato sorbet.

Then Michelin starred chef Angela Hartnett attempts to find her sea legs when she delves into why crab is so unloved in Britain. Although our coastal waters are teeming with sweet tasting brown and spider crab, the majority of those caught by our fishermen are destined to be shipped abroad where they are highly prized. Angela cooks three fabulous recipes that show why this crustacean deserves its place on British plates.

Michelin-starred chef and host of Masterchef - The Professionals Michel Roux Jr gets passionate about our heritage pears. Concerned that eighty per cent of the pears we eat are imported, Michel wants to find out what can be done to persuade people to buy British. He also inspires us all to cook with homegrown pears as he prepares a delicious selection of dishes including a fabulous pear soufflé.

Veteran food campaigner Clarissa Dickson Wright takes up the plight of British garlic, often not even recognised as being a British-grown ingredient. Clarissa takes us to one of only a handful of garlic farms to discover the amazing taste and range of garlic that is grown in the UK. She digs back through her history books to prove that garlic has a long and illustrious heritage in Britain and to prove her point, she cooks a recipe straight from the medieval court of Richard II.

Greengrocer turned Masterchef host Gregg Wallace reminisces about his love of rhubarb and can't understand why sales and production have plummeted. He heads to Yorkshire, the home of forced rhubarb, to meet plucky growers who continue with their traditional labour-intensive methods and who have triumphed in the face of adversity. In the Revival kitchen, Gregg aims to prove that rhubarb has far more to offer than just the filling for good old-fashioned crumble.

Meanwhile, Ainsley Harriott wants us to remember the taste of a fresh pea straight from the pod. There is no doubt that peas are popular but over ninety percent of those we grow are frozen. Ainsley argues that we're missing out on one our homegrown treats if we don't eat them fresh when they're in season. Even HRH Prince Charles is rooting for the fresh pea, as Ainsley discovers when he visits the kitchen garden at Highgrove House.

For Masterchef's John Torode, British beef is his passion. His quest is for heritage beef and is shocked to discover that five breeds are on the critically endangered list. He heads to Scotland to meet a beef farmer dedicated to reviving the fortunes of the original, traditional Aberdeen Angus. Amongst the dishes he cooks in the Revival kitchen is a stupendous slow roast four bone rib of beef complete with Yorkshire puddings. If anything will persuade you to try rare breed beef it will be this incredible Sunday roast.

Seafood supporter Valentine Warner wants to reverse the fortunes of British cockles and mussels. He discovers that the vast majority of our mussels are exported, and our cockle industry has shrunk to almost nothing. He is determined to remind us that these nutritious and plentiful fruits of the sea are fresh and available right on our doorstep. To encourage us to start buying them Valentine rustles up some delicious dishes in the Revival kitchen to show us how easy our shellfish is to cook.

Saturday Kitchen's James Martin wants to convince us to cook with different sorts of eggs, rather than always choosing the tried and trusted hen option. He travels to meet duck and quail egg producers who are trying to revive the fortunes of these once popular eggs. Among the dishes he creates in the Revival kitchen is a magnificent sponge cake made with duck eggs which looks nothing less than spectacular.

Irish-born chef Richard Corrigan is a keen fisherman and is passionate about fresh fish but he is shocked to discover that we export the vast majority of our mackerel catch. He is determined to change our attitudes to this rather overlooked fish by proving that not only is it incredibly good for us but that it tastes delicious too. He devises a range of wonderful recipes which showcase the benefits of cooking with locally caught fresh mackerel.

Renowned chef Raymond Blanc thinks it is a tragedy that so many of our native orchards are disappearing and is determined to try reverse this trend. One of his favourite fruits is the British plum, many varieties of which are now seriously under threat. He meets farmers who are struggling to sell their plums, many of which lie rotting on the orchard floor because there is no longer a viable market for them, and die-hard lovers of plums who, like him, are determined to revive the fortunes of this classic British fruit. In the Revival kitchen, Raymond creates a range of amazing dishes that are so mouthwatering that they make you want to go and plant your own plum tree.

Michelin-starred chef Angela Hartnett's campaign is to persuade us to cook with turkey outside of the Christmas season. She wants to reverse the perception of turkey as an over-cooked, dry meat that we only eat once a year and encourages us to embrace the slower-reared heritage varieties of turkey that produce succulent, tasty meat. Angela is determined to get us to be more experimental with turkey and cooks up some tasty treats to prove just how versatile this healthy and affordable alternative to chicken really is.

The UK has a fantastically diverse range of produce, yet it seems to be widely ignored in favour of cheaper or more exotic foreign imports. Some of our heritage varieties are genuinely in danger of being lost forever unless they are used once more for cooking and eating. Each episode of the Great British Food Revival sees chefs and foodies champion a different piece of British produce and demonstrate how it can be used in the kitchen.

Following her Great British Bake-Off triumph, Mary Berry demonstrates a genuine passion for fresh herbs and wants the world to know how easy they are to grow, use and store. She questions a commercial herb grower about why more herbs are not available fresh in our supermarkets and she visits the largest collection of organic herbs in the UK. Mary introduces us to three of her favourite herbs and cooks three delicious meals to showcase them including a superb lemon balm ice cream.

Award-winning chef Jason Atherton is passionate about only using fresh, seasonal fruit and vegetables in his restaurant kitchen. Cabbage has always been a staple on his menu but it has an image problem and is shunned by the younger generation. On Jason's revival campaign, he seeks the advice of a young cook and food blogger to find out how to get more young people eating cabbage and he leads by example, using the various cabbage varieties we produce in Britain in truly inspirational ways in the Revival kitchen.

Greedy Italian Antonio Carluccio discovers the shocking truth that we've lost half our beetroot fields in the last 30 years. He doesn't share the memories of over-cooked, vinegary, pickled beetroot we detested in our school dinners, and can't understand why we don't make more of this wonderful veg in our cooking. He opens our eyes to some fascinating varieties, and finds ways to cook beetroot we may never have thought of to inspire us to rediscover a love of beetroot.

Matt Tebbutt takes time out from his busy restaurant to champion the cause of British currants in all their magnificent colours. Although we grow plenty of blackcurrants, most are turned into cordial - growers would like to see this super-fruit soon rival the blueberry. Meanwhile, our other currants are no longer easy to get hold of. Redcurrants mainly go into making jelly and the production of white currants has almost ceased. So it's going to be a huge challenge for Matt to make people rethink their attitudes to this native fruity little gem and demand them once again.

Gary Rhodes is fanatical about the quality of the produce he uses, in his relentless pursuit of perfection in the kitchen. He's horrified to discover that, not only have we lost the vast majority of our cherry orchards, but hardly any of the cherries we eat in the UK were grown here. His campaign takes him to meet growers who are trying to buck the trend and fight back, not only with new strains of sweeter, larger cherries, but with old-fashioned heritage varieties. Gary's powers of persuasion to make us fall back in love with the British cherry come to the fore in the 'Revival' kitchen, where he prepares some exceptional dishes, including his signature dessert - a delectable cherry clafoutis.

Award-winning food writer and restaurateur Yotam Ottolenghi is passionate about nuts. He uses them in many of his recipes as they are an integral ingredient in Middle Eastern cookery. He discovers that although Britain has a rich history of growing nuts, most of us are completely unaware of this tradition. We can grow fantastic walnuts in the UK but not enough for them to be commercially viable, so most walnuts we eat are imported. Yotam wants this to change and for us to get behind our native nuts like the British cobnut - a nut that most people have never heard of unless they live in Kent, where it is grown. To get us to appreciate these homegrown delicacies, he creates some fantastic sweet and savoury dishes including a magnificent cobnut crumble cream and roasted aubergines with an amazing walnut salsa.

Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux Jr wants the public to revive its tastebuds and be more discerning when it comes to the British strawberry. He serves up a blind taste test with Wimbledon strawberry aficionados Sue Barker, Andrew Castle and Tim Henman, and makes history with a charity that's reviving the age-old practice of gleaning. He also visits East Malling Research Centre, where he uncovers EM 1764, the British strawberry of the future.

Saturday Kitchen's James Martin discovers that sales have halved for watercress over recent years. He takes a ride on the Mid-Hants Railway Watercress Line as he pleads the case for this once-loved British product, following its historical trail to Covent Garden where he tries his hand as a watercress street seller, and finds out why this leafy salad is so good for us - from the only man in the country with a PhD in watercress.

Our rabbit population is at its highest since 1950 and Clarissa Dickson Wright wants to revive our culinary heritage and get them back in our cooking pots. Gregg Wallace champions British raspberries as he discovers there is a deadly enemy threatening their survival.

Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace heads to Perthshire, where he comes face-to-face with an enemy that threatens the future of the British raspberry - root rot. He visits the remains of Tin City, an entire makeshift community where many Glaswegians enjoyed a holiday while they picked this valuable fruit. In the revival kitchen, he cooks three delicious dishes including his amazing raspberry pavlova.

Food writer and cook Clarissa Dickson Wright is as irrepressible as ever as she campaigns for the revival of wild rabbit. She investigates the history of this once highly valued animal, whose delicious meat would grace the tables of kings. She tries to get to the bottom of our prejudices to find out why we aren't eating rabbit anymore. At Anglia Ruskin University canteen, she persuades students to ditch their burgers for rabbit rolls but it is a challenge that even Clarissa finds tough.

Raymond Blanc can not understand why we are not eating more trout as it's both sustainable and delicious. He casts his rod in the river Wye after being given permission by the landowner to fish for Wild Rainbow Trout. Then in Camarthen, Wales, he takes trout to the people to see how well they know their fish and in the revival kitchen he cooks three tasty trout dishes to encourage us all to seek out this fabulous fish.

Mary Berry is on a mission to revive one of her most favourite foods, ice cream, after discovering that just two and half per cent milk protein is required to name a product 'ice cream'. She wants us all to go back to basics and learn how to make real dairy ice cream. She uncovers some of the earliest ice cream secrets by exploring a 19th century ice house and confectioner's kitchen at Syon House and then goes to University College London to brush up on her ice cream chemistry. Equipped with an old fashioned street seller's bike and her home-made dairy ice cream, she tackles holiday makers on Eastbourne's seafront to convert them to her cause.

TV chef Ainsley Harriott comes over all hot and fiery as he leads the charge for long forgotten British mustards. He discovers why every kitchen should have its own cannonball as he makes up some Elizabethan Tewkesbury mustard. No one is safe as he descends on the Cotswolds, armed with his very own mustard, to persuade people to keep the tradition of British mustard alive.

Passionate cook Valentine Warner has been deer stalking since he was twenty years old and he cannot understand why we don't eat more of this plentiful, sustainable, free range meat. He goes stalking with a countryside ranger as well as finding out how a Lincolnshire culling initiative gets all its meat back into the food chain. He's delighted to track down a like-minded educational project which wants to democratise venison and make people realise it is not a food just for the elite. Finally, Valentine goes back to the classroom as a whole deer is taken into a Nottingham school for the children to skin, butcher,cook and eat.

Matt Tebbutt tries out lambs testicles and lymph nodes as he campaigns for less waste and more offal and Antonio Carluccio goes foraging to revive the fortunes of his favourite ingredient, the British mushroom.

It's a match made in heaven, as Antonio Carluccio takes us on a magical journey in search of the hidden world of British mushrooms. After a secret tip off, he takes us foraging for the elusive St George's mushroom, and opens our eyes to cultivated British speciality mushrooms. He meets a young enthusiast who has found a way for us all to grow mushrooms at home - in used coffee grounds.

Matt Tebbutt takes on the culinary equivalent of climbing Everest by championing offal. It is cheap, nutritious - and to avoid waste, we should all be eating it. He finds out about one supermarket who is leading the way by selling all the offal from their slaughtered animals. In Barnsley, one of the bastions of offal eating, even Matt's stomach begins to churn as he samples cuts like wesson and reed. But he is then reconverted to the offal cause when he visits a group of lads in Manchester who indulge in some extreme offal eating - but this is fine dining standard.

Michelin starred chef Giorgio Locatelli makes his first appearance on the series and heads to Cornwall. He discovers how the Cornish fishermen used some clever spin to turn the old fashioned and failing pilchard into the trendy sardine that everyone puts on their barbeque. He also tracks down the historical Stargazy pie, a dish which celebrates a heroic fisherman's sardine catch during one particularly bad winter.

Another Michelin starred chef Jason Atherton discovers that the gooseberry is no longer a summer fruit of choice in the UK as sales of this berry have fallen dramatically. He is determined to change our perception of it and cooks three mouth watering dishes to prove just how versatile and tasty it can be. He investigates the world of the competitive gooseberry growing and is given access to a contestant's top secret garden.

Award winning chef Glynn Purnell delves into the history of King's Lynn's old fishing yards, before challenging the fastest shrimp peeler in town. He also goes out with the tide in Morecambe Bay to fish for brown shrimp the old fashioned way on a rusty old tractor.

The Aylesbury duck is one of our oldest breeds but Masterchef presenter John Torode discovers just how close this ancient bird is to disappearing for good. At a south London school, he shows some budding young chefs the delights of cooking with duck and in the revival kitchen sets out to prove there's more to this tasty bird than a Chinese takeaway.

Monica Galetti flies the flag for British asparagus and is delighted to discover that the season has been extended from eight weeks to six months. Tom Kerridge champions our remaining artisan producers of traditional cured ham and encourages us all to seek out this delicious meat.

Michelin starred chef Tom Kerridge, loves his ham, and thinks too much of it's not up to scratch. For centuries, every village would have its own ham curer, and in Devon he meets up with one of the few remaining artisan producers of traditional British cured ham. To persuade us to break our 'bad' ham habits, Tom takes to the streets of Northampton with a campaigning ham sandwich giveaway.

British asparagus always sells out during its brief eight week season, but Monica Galetti of Masterchef: the Professionals fame, has good news. The British season is now extended to six months, thanks to a farmer in Herefordshire who's using modern technologies to grow a range of varieties, in Peruvian-like conditions. And Monica heads to the sand dunes of the Sefton Coast to find that last remaining field of Formby asparagus, the most famous of our heritage varieties.

Only 15 percent of beer sold in pubs is real ale, and Angela Harnett champions it's revival as she challenges a group of city women to get rid of their prejudices and swap their wine for ale. Michael Caines celebrates the charms of hard working British carrot and proves it can be much more than just a side dish.

Real ale used to be the golden nectar supped by all, and celebrated chef Angela Hartnett is determined to get us all drinking it once again. She discovers that women, or ale wives, were the original brewers of ale and challenges a group of city women to ditch the white wine in favour of real ale. In the revival kitchen she cooks with ale to prove just what a great addition it can be to a number of dishes.

We're boring when it comes to cooking our carrots, and Michelin starred chef Michael Caines wants to change this. He searches out some glorious heritage varieties and finds out how carrots helped to win a world war. In the revival kitchen he makes the carrot the star of the show in three mouth watering dishes.

Over recent years, the UK has lost three quarters of its runner bean fields. Gary Rhodes is fighting for the revival of this quintessential British summer vegetable. Allegra McEvedy champions the humble little oat and discovers that there is much more to it than just porridge.

Allegra McEvedy goes to Scotland to uncover the history of the oat and discovers just how important it was to the sustenance of the nation. She examines its credentials as a superfood, and in the revival kitchen creates three delicious dishes featuring oats - and there is not a bowl of porridge in sight.

Chef Gary Rhodes is backing the British runner bean and broad bean. Both have fallen out of favour with the British public over the years and he is determined to remind people of their unique qualities. In Somerset, he finds the martock bean which dates back to the 12th century, and makes up a delicious medieval pottage which was once the working man's staple diet. He also discovers that although people have turned their backs on it, the British dried fava bean is a big favourite in Middle Eastern and North African cuisine.