Comfortably Hungry

In Episode 13 of Season 4 we heard just how important salt is to our lives and the role it once played in Britain’s economy. A little less thought is given to the spiritual aspects of salt. This halloween I’m going to explore the relevance of salt to death. Joining me is Dr Dan O’Brien a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. We talk about the use of salt at funerals, sin eaters and funeral biscuits.

This episode was originally released as a bonus subscriber episode in June 2026.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

You can find Dan on Instagram and TikTok or visit his website.

For more information on funeral foods and biscuits read this article by Alison Petch for the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford (where you can find an original funeral biscuit wrapper) or listen to Dan on this episode of A Curious Appetite.

Funeral Customs by Bertram S. Puckle (1926)

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Ahead of my discussion with Jennie Hood and Professor Giles Gasper at the Serve It Forth Food History Festival about how the Normans changed the way we eat, I had a chat with Kevin Booth, English Heritage’s Head Curator of Collections, about what the skeleton of ‘Conquest Man’ can tell us about the diet and health of the English at the time of the Norman invasion.

Facial depiction by Face Lab, Liverpool John Moore’s University. Credit: English Heritage

There’s also a little taster of the other courses my co-curators ( A Curious Appetite, Neil Buttery and Thom Ntinas) are serving up during the festival which features Eleanor Barnett, Paul Couchman, Sally Grainger, Sudi Pigott and Alexandra Sills. Tickets for the online festival are available here.

The Serve It Forth Food History Festival is made possible with the generous support of our sponsors ckbk, Steenbergs, Regency Fiction Writers, Replica, Blackfriars Restaurant and Lindisfarne Mead.

If you happen to be in or near Barton on Humber in Lincolnshire on 20 September 2026 between 12pm and 4pm you can see Conquest Man’s skeleton and find out more about this project at St Peter’s Church.

If you’d like to get a sense of what life was like for Conquest Man and his contemporaries during the Norman Conquest, Battle Abbey in East Sussex is hosting its annual reenactment of the Battle of Hastings on 10 and 11 October 2026, the week before Serve It Forth. Hundreds of reenactors take part, recreating Norman and Saxon camps and giving visitors an insight into everyday life for people almost 1,000 years ago. Tickets are now available from www.english-heritage.org.uk/battle

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this extra helping of the Comfortably Hungry podcast I chat to chef Jago Rackham and author of To Entertain: Instructions for a Dinner Party about the complexities (or not) of hosting a dinner party. We chat about stuffy Victorian etiquette manuals (which Jago’s book most definitely isn’t), his Grandmother’s account book and why plating up à la Russe is overrated.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

To Entertain: Instructions for a Dinner Party is available now from lots of great independent booksellers (and the other usual suspects).

You can find Jago on Substack and Instagram.

I will be appearing at the Ludlow Food Festival (as will Jago) and the Gloucester History Festival later this month and will be one of the hosts of the Serve It Forth Food History Festival on 17 October 2026.

Suggested Reading

There are lots of Victorian etiquette manuals available online at Internet Archive if you want to see examples of the advice that used to be dished out, such as:

* The Habits of Good Society (1859)

* Host And Guest : A Book About Dinners, Dinner-Giving, Wines, And Desserts by A. V. Kirwan (1864)

* Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (1864) - not an etiquette book but his characters Mr & Mrs Veneering are perfect examples of the sort of people that these books were aimed at.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this bonus episode I plunge into the history of the anchovy - the little fish with a big flavour with food writer Sudi Pigott. We discuss how Sudi became an anchovy evangelist, explore the lives of the women (sobadoras) who are vital to the anchovy industry and lots more.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

Consider the Anchovy is available from all good independent bookshops (and the usual big book suppliers but they don’t need a plug here).

Don’t forget to visit Sudi’s website for more details on her work and events plus follow her anchovy travels on Instagram and Substack. You’ll find Sudi at festivals in Abergevenny, Chiswick and Folkestone later this year.

And I will be appearing at the Ludlow Food Festival and the Gloucester History Festival.

You can find out more about the Serve It Forth Food History Festival on 17 October 2026 here.

* Consider the Anchovy Dinner at Caldesi Restaurant in London

* Anchovy Festival and the Anchovy Tapa Trail in L’Escala (Spain)

* Museo Dell’acciuga in Aspra (Sicily)

* Anchoas Hazas

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In Part 2 of my deep dive into the history of macaroni and cheese with culinary historian Karima Moyer-Nocchi, author of The Epic History of Mac and Cheese, we chat about colonial FOMO, the macaroni fashion craze and debunk a stubborn gastro myth concerning Mac ‘n’ cheese’s popularity in the US.

You can catch me at the Ludlow Food Festival on Friday 11 September where I’ll be discussing what foods were served in castles over the centuries in a live A is for Apple podcast with my co-hosts Alessandra Pino of A Curious Appetite and Neil Buttery of the British Food History podcast.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

You can find Karima on Instagram and don’t forget to check out her website, The Eternal Table.

Karima’s books include:

* The Epic History of Mac and Cheese (2026)

* The Eternal Table: A Cultural History of Food in Rome (Big City Food Biographies) with Giancarlo Rolandi (2019)

* Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita (2015)

Suggested Reading

* A complete system of cookery by William Verrall (1759) - the White Hart inn in Lewes where he served as chef is still open today!

* La cuisiniere bourgeoise by Joseph Menon (1771) - you can find a later English translation here.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

July 14 is National Macaroni and Cheese day!

To mark the occasion I thought it would be fun to delve into the history of Mac ‘n’ Cheese with culinary historian Karima Moyer-Nocchi, author of The Epic History of Mac and Cheese. In Part 1, Karima and I explore the antecedents of this iconic pasta dish and how it found its way to England to develop into a recipe fit for medieval kings complete with a liberal sprinkling of spices.

Part 2 will follow soon!

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

You can find Karima on Instagram and don’t forget to check out her website, The Eternal Table.

Karima’s books include:

* The Epic History of Mac and Cheese (2026)

* The Eternal Table: A Cultural History of Food in Rome (Big City Food Biographies) with Giancarlo Rolandi (2019)

* Chewing the Fat: An Oral History of Italian Foodways from Fascism to Dolce Vita (2015)

Suggested Reading

Forme of Cury (1390)

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In the last episode of Season 4 (sad but true) we plunge deep into the ‘underworld’, figuratively speaking, in our final quest for fresh water.

I chat to Niyati Kukadia about Gujarat’s ancient vavs, or stepwells, once vital for supplying drinking water to communities in one of India’s most arid areas. I discover that these architectural wonders were so much more than a source of water. Historically the vavs provided women with a space and the freedom to socialise away from the patriarchal gaze. Although many vavs fell out of use during the British colonial era, they are once again being looked at as a potential solution to water scarcity in this region.

Show Notes

* Niyati runs adventure, wildlife and cultural tours through Soar Excursions, which include visits to the Rani ki Vav (Queen’s Well) mentioned in this podcast and pictured above. You can follow Soar Excursions on YouTube and Instagram.

* Niyati also runs the Dang Forest Retreat in Gujarat.

* You can read about Hyderabad’s newly restored Bansilalpet stepwell in this article on the Guardian website.

* Rani Ki Vav (the Queen’s stepwell) at Patan, Gujarat

* India’s Forgotten Stepwells by Victoria Lautman on the Arch Daily

* Robert Macfarlane’s book Is A River Alive is a troubling but important read if you want to learn more about the pollution of India’s waterways.

* Much Ado About Cooking event at the British Library Food Season Big Weekend on 13 June 2026. Even if in-person tickets have sold out you can buy an online ticket.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode I head to the midlands town of Droitwich which was once a powerhouse in the English salt production industry (and arguably still is) on account of its brine springs. Helping me explore the town’s heritage are local historian Paul Jones LRPS and Steve from Churchfields salt works.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

* For more details on the products produced by Churchfields visit their website

* Paul Jones’ books include Droitwich Spa The Postcard Collection and Droitwich Through Time co-authored with Helen and Roger Peberdy.

* Droitwich Heritage Centre

* Droitwich Salt Festival

* Ludlow Food Festival September 2026

* British Library Food Season 2026 (I’ll be taking part in a panel discussion on food in Shakespeare’s plays on 13 June at 4pm)

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In this episode we’ll be journeying to pre-Colombian Mesoamerica with Dr Gabrielle Vail, Research Collaborator in the Department of Anthropology, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to explore why the worship of rain gods like Chaak was so crucial to the Mayans and discover the role that food played in these ceremonies.

You may also want to go back and listen to the first episode of Season 2 where I discuss the Day of the Dead celebrations with Maite Gomez-Rejón.

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

The Maya Hieroglyphic Codices website features a searchable translation and analysis of four codices (screenfold books) painted by Maya scribes before the Spanish conquest in the early 16th century. The codices contain information about Maya beliefs and rituals, as well as everyday activities, all framed within an astronomical and calendrical context.

Gaby’s co-authored books include:

The New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs, Volume Two By Martha J. Macri And Gabrielle Vail (2023)

The New Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs, Volume 3 By Matthew Looper, Yuriy Polyukhovych, Martha J. Macri And Gabrielle Vail (Out November, 2026)

Madrid Codex: New Approaches to Understanding an Ancient Maya Manuscript (Mesoamerican Worlds: From the Olmecs to the Danzantes) Edited by Gabrielle Vail and Anthony Aveni (2009)

Gaby also contributed a number of chapters to Chocolate: History, Culture, and Heritage edited by Louis Evan Grivetti, Howard-Yana Shapiro (2008)

You can find out more about the Mayan Melipona Bee Sanctuary Project here.

Suggested Reading

* ‘Water Rituals and Offerings to the Maya Rain Divinities’ by Cristina Vidal Lorenzo and Patricia Horcjada-Campos in the European Journal of Science and Theology, April 2000, Vol.16, No.2, 111-123

* Chocolate in Mesoamerica : a cultural history of cacao ed. Dr Cameron McNeil (2006)

* Water Beings: From Nature Beings to the Environmental Crisis by Veronica Strang (2023)

* ‘Rain and Fertility Rituals in Postclassic Yucatan Featuring Chaak and Chak Chel’ by Gabrielle Vail and Christine Hernandez in The Ancient Maya of Mexico: Reinterpreting the Past of the Northern Maya Lowlands ed. Geoffrey E. Braswell

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

In episode 11, I visit Barry and Chris Flannaghan at the restored Burton watermill in Sussex. I discover how Burton Mill has evolved over the centuries but always using water as its source of power. The present 4 storey, 5 bay mill building dates from 1780 and was built on the foundations of an earlier forge or fulling mill (there is a record of a mill close to this site in the Domesday book). Today Burton Mill produces traditional stoneground flour and I get to taste the results!

If you enjoyed the podcast you can become a paid subscriber to the Comfortably Hungry Substack (which means you’ll receive additional content) or show your appreciation by leaving a small, one off tip here.

Useful Links

* Burton Mill near Petworth is only open to the public a few times per year. Please check their website for details on their upcoming open days.

* You can find Chris’ recipe for Irish tea bread here.

* Mills Archive Trust

* Sussex Industrial Archaeology Society

Suggested Reading

* Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton (1845)

* The English Bread Book by Eliza Acton (1857)

* The Canterbury Tales by Geoffry Chaucer (Modern English Version, 1934)

* English Bread and Yeast Cookery by Elizabeth David (1977)

* Watermills, Kent and the borders of Sussex by Michael J Fuller and R J Spain1986

* Water in England by Dorothy Hartley (1964)

* Puck’s Song by Rudyard Kipling (1906)

* The English Huswife by Gervase Markham (originally published 1615)

Don’t forget you can follow me on Instagram or Bluesky @mrssbilton or find out more about my work on sambilton.com.

A huge thank you to Thomas Ntinas of The Delicious Legacy for doing the sound mixing on this season of the podcast. Sound effects and music provided by Zapsplat and Pond5.

Comfortably Hungry is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.