It is a truth universally acknowledged, that we all eat. Whether we’re considering the menus of last week or last century, food helps us to understand ourselves, our neighbours — and even our most treasured literary characters. When we read the novels of Jane Austen with an eye for the culinary, what might we discover?

The sound accompanying your mealtimes could be affecting the flavour of your food. Several scientific studies have shown a link between what we hear and what we taste. Sound can even influence what we choose to eat. If you find that hard to believe, grab a snack and have a listen — we have an experiment you can try at home.

A home garden typically conjures a sense of comfort and of self-sufficiency, but what if that garden were in Palestine? The celebrated Palestinian-British chef and author Sami Tamimi has written a new book, Boustany, inspired by the food of home. It champions the food of all our homes — the food we can grow in a garden or forage nearby — but also the food of his homeland, which is becoming disconnected from its rich culinary culture under the shadow of war.

Longtime Ottolenghi associate Helen Goh fell into a career in cooking after first studying psychology. She draws on both aspects of her training in her first solo cookbook, Baking and the Meaning of Life. Helen argues that the inessential nature of sweet treats elevates the act of baking beyond quotidian cooking, and that sharing baked goods is a distillation of human generosity. We test her theory in the kitchen.

Guest presenter Alice Zaslavsky takes a close look at Australia's maturing cheese culture. Thanks to adventurous cheesemakers and entrepreneurs in the 1970s and 80s, Australia's penchant for mousetrap cheddar has evolved to embrace a wide variety of cheeses. But is our homegrown cheese market as ripe as it could be?

Fifty years ago, not all Australians had ready access to a wok. Today, it is an essential kitchen item. But perhaps you could be getting even more from what 'wok therapist' Grace Young calls 'the most indispensable culinary tool in the world.' We trace the wok's history, its many uses and get best-practice tips from two wok masters.

Before Tik Tok and Google Reviews, there was the Michelin Guide. First published 125 years ago, the guide encouraged drivers to wear out their tyres by visiting the best restaurants in France, as judged by the guide's mysterious inspectors. The inspectors' identities are still a closely guarded secret, but the new documentary series Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars offers rare insight into their process and access to the kitchens of top chefs gunning for those elusive stars.

Whether it is Nigella, Stephanie or Yotam on your shelf, there is a good chance that you and I are cooking from the same book. The two best-selling books in Australia in 2024 were both cookbooks — and they were both written by Nagi Maehashi, the founder of the website RecipeTin Eats. Her two books — Dinner and Tonight — have together sold one million copies worldwide. So, what is it about the floury, greasy pages of a cookbook that unite us and shape our conceptions of food?

The books of childhood take us on adventures far from our own backyard, where we often encounter culinary delights that arouse memory and spark imagination. But if there's a common thread that runs through much of children's literature, it's that the paths to our deepest desires are stalked by danger. We explore the deep symbolism behind our favourite foodie fantasies in children's books.

Salad is at the core of Hetty Lui McKinnon's culinary being. For many, salad is something at the margins of our food lives — an adornment, if not something to be avoided. What might that attitude deprive us of? Since launching her career in Sydney as a cook and the author of the bestseller Community, Hetty has since moved to the United States and is now a regular contributor to the New York Times. Her new book is called Linger.