A is for Apple: An Encyclopaedia of Food & Drink

It’s a Listener Choice special as the team tackle three very different culinary favourites. Sam champions custard in all its forms, from medieval recipes to modern puddings. Allie investigates the mischievous history of Sicily’s “Chancellor’s Buttocks” pastry. And Neil celebrates the crumpet, exploring the history of those hole-filled griddle cakes that have become a staple of the British tea table.

Sources/ Useful links
Custard
There’s a very good overview of custard by Neil on the British Food History Podcast website along with a recipe for proper custard.
The history of Birds Custard
How to make pastry cream (Crème pâtissière)
Two Fifteenth Century Cookbooks by Thomas Austin (1888)
Cooking and Dining in Medieval England by Peter Brears (2012)
Dumas on Food (Translated by Alan and Jane Davidson) by Alexandre Dumas (1979)
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (1935)
The Tale of the Custard Dragon by Ogden Nash (1936) - a cute poem about a cowardly dragon called custard.
Laurel and Hardy - The Battle of the Century (1927) - The Pie Fight
Dr Who ‘Fish Fingers and Custard’ on YouTube
Rhubarb and Custard (the 1970s cartoon) on YouTube
Custard Pie song by Led Zeppelin
Byron’s letters, including references to custard and other food-related observations, can be accessed via Peter Cochran’s edition of Byron’s Correspondence.
Allie’s talk on Byron and baked rosewater custards, hosted with Sam Hirst, is available here.

Chancellor’s Buttocks
Simeti, M.T. (1989) Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food.
"Palermo's Secret Dessert Scene" (Saveur) – an introduction to Palermo's historic pastry culture, including fedde del cancelliere (Chancellor's Buttocks).
Cavalli, Rita, “Fedde del monastero, il dolce delle monache di Palermo che si prendevano gioco del fondoschiena del Primo Ministro”, FIRSTonline (17 February 2024): FIRSTonline article on the Fedde del Cancelliere and Palermo's convent confectionery traditions

Crumpets
Neil’s crumpets recipe from British Food: A History
Neil’s muffins recipe with table of crumpet-muffin recipes showing the fluidity between the two
Knead to Know: A History of Baking by Neil Buttery (2024)
English Bread & Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David (1977)
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse (1747)
Crumpets with Potted Shrimps on Foodism
Want to make the dripping crumpets of Rebecca? Pre-order Allie's A Gothic Cookbook, out this October, published by The History Press.

Don’t forget Allie will be exploring food and feasting in the works of the Brontë sisters and other classic gothic writers at an in-person event at the Brontë Parsonage Museum on 18 July 2026.
Allie will also be presenting an online talk on Gothic feasts with Morbid Anatomy on 26 October 2026.
Join Sam, Neil and Allie in person for a live recording of A is for Apple at Ludlow Food Festival on 11 September 2026.
Allie will be appearing at the Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival on 11 October 2026, where she will be in conversation with author Kate Young.
The Serve It Forth Food History Festival returns online on 18 October 2026. Keep an eye on social media for further announcements.
This is the final episode of Season C of A is for Apple. Thank you to everyone who listened, shared episodes, and sent in suggestions for our Listener Choice special.
We look forward to welcoming you back for Season D. Until then, happy cooking, happy reading, and thank you for joining us on this alphabetical adventure through food and drink culture.

The team return to the theme of vegetables for this episode. Neil champions the much maligned cabbage which he calls the ‘dog of vegetables’. Sam expresses her beef with celery and why it needs a lot of help from its friends to make it more palatable. And Allie delves into the anthropomorphic qualities of cauliflower.
Sources/Useful Links
Cabbage
Jane Grigson’s Vegetable Book (1978)
A Nievve Herbale, or Historie of Plantes by Dodoens (translated by Henry Lyte; 1578)
Regula Ysewijn’s Cabbage Pudding on CKBK

Celery
‘Herbs in History: Celery’ on the American Herbal Products Association
Apiaceae description on Britannica
How to Grow Celery by RHS
‘Ancient Greek Funerals Were Decked Out in Celery’ on Atlas Obscura

Cauliflower
The People of 1381 The website of an innovative new research project set to produce the most comprehensive interpretation of the Peasants’ Revolt to date.
Opera dell’arte del cucinare. Bartolomeo Scappi (1570)
The Art Of Cookery Hannah Glasse (1747)
A Cauliflower in Her Hair (1944) by Shirley Jackson
Mark Twain on cauliflower in The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894)
Roasted cauliflower steaks BBC Goodfood recipe

Don’t forget…
Sam will be discussing food in Shakespeare with Will Tosh, Sheila T Cavanagh and the actor Sir Simon Russell Beale at the British Library on Saturday, 13 June 2026.
Allie will be digging into food themes and motifs in a series of classic and contemporary gothic novels from the 19th century to the present day at the Brontë Parsonage Museum on 18 July 2026.
Coming up next is our Listener’s Choice episode. Which culinary C’s did we miss?

As promised in the last episode of A is for Apple, here is the full interview with Tom Tibbits and Lydia Crimp of Artistraw Cidery and Orchard in Herefordshire.
Lydia and Tom go to great efforts to make a natural cider and perry using fruit from their own orchards, fermented the natural way without pitching any yeast.
You can find out more about Artistraw on their website www.artistraw.co.uk, where you can also sign up to their newsletter, or follow them on Twitter, Instagram and Bluesky @artistrawcider.
Today, we talk about the basic process of natural cider making, and how it is both an art and a science, what makes a good cider apple, terroir, and the folklore associated with cidermaking.
I’ll be back in a week with Alessandra Pino and Sam Bilton with the next regular episode of A is for Apple.
See Artistraw on BBC Countryfile: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002kw2w

Don’t forget to email us at aisforapplepod@gmail.com or tag us on Instagram or BlueSky if you have any suggestions for future episodes.
You can follow the A is for Apple Podcast on Instagram and Bluesky
Sam Bilton also hosts the award winning Comfortably Hungry Podcast and is the author of First Catch Your Gingerbread, Fool’s Gold: A History of British Saffron The Philosophy of Chocolate and Much Ado About Cooking: Delicious Shakespearean Feasts for Every Occasion (written in collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe). You can find her on Instagram and Bluesky
Dr Neil Buttery also hosts the British Food History Podcast and is the author of A Dark History of Sugar, Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald Britain’s Most Influential Housekeeper as well as Knead to Know: A History of Baking and The Philosophy of Pudding with another book in progress. You can find him on Instagram and Bluesky
Dr Allie Pino produces and hosts the Curious Appetite Podcast and the Fear Feasts Podcast with Vanessa Baca. She is also the co-author of A Gothic Cookbook and is currently working on a new book. You can find her on Instagram and Bluesky

Drink is the theme for this episode! Sam explores the (reputedly) perfect beverage to drink while giving birth. Neil chats to Tom and Lydia from Artistraw who make natural cider and perry. And Allie reveals there is a whole lot more to a cappuccino than a frothy top.
You can listen to the latest episode here or wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the penultimate episode before our Listener’s Choice finale so don’t forget to send us your suggestions for the culinary ‘C’s that we’ve overlooked and tell us why we should cover them!
Sources/Useful Links
Early modern stuffed carrots video (from around 29 mins 10 secs)
Sam’s cameline sauce post on Substack
Caudle
Forme of Cury (1390) also don’t forget to check out Jennie Hood’s Substack, Medieval Food with Jennie
Giving Birth in Eighteenth Century England by Sarah Fox (2022)
Mrs Caudle’s Curtain Lectures by Douglas Jerrold (1866)
A New System of Domestic Cookery by Maria Rundell (1806)
Liquid Nourishment: Potable Foods and Stimulating Drinks edited by C. Anne Wilson (1993)

Cider
Artistraw website
Follow Artistraw on Instagram @artistrawcider
Why is it that some pubs won’t serve ‘snakebite’?
Cider Planet by Claude Jolicoeur (2022)

Cappuccino
Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas (1966)
“Deciphering a Meal” by Mary Douglas, in Implicit Meanings (1975)
Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste by Pierre Bourdieu (1979)
“Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption” by Roland Barthes, in Food and Culture: A Reader edited by Carole Counihan and Penny Van Esterik
The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities and Meaning of Table Manners by Margaret Visser (1991)
Food Is Culture by Massimo Montanari (2006)
Italian Identity in the Kitchen, or Food and the Nation by Massimo Montanari (2013)
Coffee: A Global History by Jonathan Morris (2018)
Espresso Coffee: The Science of Quality edited by Andrea Illy and Rinantonio Viani (2005)

Don’t forget to email us at aisforapplepod@gmail.com or tag us on Instagram or BlueSky if you have any suggestions for future episodes.
You can follow the A is for Apple Podcast on Instagram and Bluesky
Sam Bilton also hosts the award winning Comfortably Hungry Podcast and is the author of First Catch Your Gingerbread, Fool’s Gold: A History of British Saffron The Philosophy of Chocolate and Much Ado About Cooking: Delicious Shakespearean Feasts for Every Occasion (written in collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe). You can find her on Instagram and Bluesky
Dr Neil Buttery also hosts the British Food History Podcast and is the author of A Dark History of Sugar, Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald Britain’s Most Influential Housekeeper as well as Knead to Know: A History of Baking and

C is for Caraway, Curry & Cinnamon
In this episode of A is for Apple, we turn to aromatics and ask what these ingredients carry with them beyond flavour.
From the binding qualities of caraway in early modern folklore to the layered histories of curry and its place in Britain, and the enduring warmth of cinnamon, we explore how spices move, adapt, and settle. Along the way, we think about trade, migration, memory, and the ways in which taste is shaped over time.
And somewhere along the line… did we get a little carawayed?
What we discuss
Cinnamon
What is the difference between cinnamon and cassia, and does it matter?
Why is cinnamon so strongly associated with comfort and memory?
How has it been used historically, both in cooking and in medicine?
Curry
If one dish tells the story of Britain, is it chicken tikka masala?
Can food ever belong to one place once it starts to travel?
What do curry houses reveal about adaptation and taste?
Is “authenticity” a useful concept, or does it obscure more than it reveals?
We also draw on insights from Allie’s previous conversation with Mallika Basu on A Curious Appetite with Dr Alessandra Pino, her new podcast, particularly around migration, flavour, and the politics of naming.
Caraway
From comfits to cupboards, how has caraway been used in cooking?
Why was it once believed to prevent loss, theft, or even wandering lovers?
What does this tell us about the symbolic life of everyday ingredients?
Useful links amd further reading

Caraway
Anderson, I. (2023). The History and Natural History of Spices: The 5,000 Year Search for Flavour. The History Press.
Brears, P. (2012). Cooking & Dining in Medieval England. Prospect Books.
Davidson, A. (1999). The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press.
Hieatt, C. B., & Butler, S. (1985). Curye on Inglysch: English culinary manuscripts of the fourteenth century. Oxford University Press.
Mason, L. (1988). Sugar-Plums and Sherbert: The Prehistory of Sweets. Prospect Books.

Curry
Collingham, Lizzie. Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Dickson Wright, Clarissa. A History of English Food. London: Random House, 2011.
Glasse, Hannah. The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy. 1803.
Huxley, Aldous. Jesting Pilate. 1926.
Panayi, Panikos. Migrant City: A New History of London. 2020.
Panayi, Panikos. Spicing Up Britain. 1995.
Sukhadwala, Sejal. The Philosophy of Curry. 2023.
Empire Podcast – “Inventing Curry: The British Taste for India”

Cinnamon
https://www.britannica.com/plant/cinnamon
How cinnamon is harvested:
https://youtube.com/shorts/4LINdKpRmpM?si=dYt_TS0Ny9KqJQo-
https://youtu.be/fNguphwF_hI?si=1jS0qWsyseRQGVFR

Get in touch
If there’s something you’d like us to think with, a food, a memory, a question, do write in. We’d love to hear what you’re curious about.
You can get in touch with us via Bluesky @AisforApplepod. You can also Tweet us at A is for Apple Pod and we’re on Instagram at A is for Apple Pod_ and you can find a group dedicated to the podcast on Facebook. Or you can email us at 📩aisforapplepod@gmail.com.