​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.

How can the practice of eating together secure a sustainable future for our kitchens?

In the final episode of the series, Joanne MacInnes and Betul Piyade from the community centre West London Welcome describe what it's like for refugees and asylum seekers to live indefinitely in hotel rooms without kitchens. And academic and "food crisis responder" Marsha Smith explains why social eating is so important for us as a society, and explains how it's the key to future proofing our eating habits.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Thanks to my contributors on this episode Betul Piyade and Joanne MacInnes at West London Welcome, and Marsha Smith.

West London Welcome is an amazing place. You can donate to support their work via LocalGiving here.

The transcript of the episode is here.

Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Editorial feedback by Rory Dearlove

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Find Lecker on instagram.

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.

Does it matter what fuels our fire in the kitchen? Javon Bennett explains how his family adapted their cooking when they moved from Jamaica to England, and Carwyn Graves explores open fire cooking and other Welsh kitchen traditions.

A full transcript is available on the Lecker website.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove

Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Javon Bennett and Carwyn Graves. 

And also thanks to Naomi Oppenheim who put me in touch with Javon via the British Library Caribbean Foodways project and also to my friend and previous Lecker guest Sian Stacey for telling me about Carwyn’s work.

Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Extractor fan recording by Victoria Ferran

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.

Prefabs – built to help counter the post war housing shortage - were actually some of the earliest examples of fitted kitchens in the UK, and came with built-in fridges at a time when this technology was unaffordable to most people. Jennie Thomas reflects on growing up in a post war prefab in Hackney, and Alice Wilson, whose academic work examines tiny houses, reflects on the movement as a reaction to the housing situation in contemporary Britain.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Jennie Thomas and Alice Wilson. Find out more about the OpHouse project.

A full transcript is available on the Lecker website.

Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Additional guest research by Sarah Woolley.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.

Why are so many of our kitchens so unsociable? Lucy meets Johnny Grey, a kitchen designer who’s been fighting for decades to make kitchens a place for leisure not work, and Katie Pennick, a disability campaigner whose work has changed the face of London transport – but who still can’t cook in her own kitchen. Plus Sean Warmington-Wan reflects on the unsociable kitchen in his shared London house.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to the contributors on this episode: Sean Warmington-Wan, Katie Pennick and Johnny Grey.

You can find a full transcript for this episode on the Lecker website.

Buy the Kitchens print zine featuring original essays and illustrations!

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.

Kitchens are inextricably linked with the woman of the house. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the fitted kitchen was literally designed as a workspace to fit around a woman’s body. But what does this mean for women - and men - now? How are traditional gender roles built up and broken down by the kitchen itself? Michael Etheridge reflects on the distribution of domestic labour in his own home, and food writer Gemma Croffie talks about the narrow definition of accepted womanhood when it comes to domestic work.

A full transcript for this episode is available on the Lecker website.

The title Meal Machine comes from the companion guide to the 2011 MoMA exhibition Counter Space: Design + The Modern Kitchen: “Meal machine, experimental laboratory, status symbol, domestic prison, or the creative and spiritual heart of the home?”

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to my contributors on this episode: Michael Etheridge and Gemma Croffie. 

You can read Gemma’s piece Kitchens on the Path, which inspired this episode, in the print zine released alongside this audio series. Buy a copy now at leckerpodcast.com/kitchens.

Original music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions.

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman.

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

​​This month Lecker is re-releasing some older episodes: here’s Kitchens, a six part series from 2021 about the most important room in the home.

Aspirational kitchens are an integral part of our food media, but where did they come from? And what does it mean for those who can never attain a beautiful, cookbook-worthy kitchen? Design historian Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan explores what came before the fitted kitchen, and how the room itself has shape-shifted drastically over the 20th century. And food writer and author Ruby Tandoh considers the aspirational kitchen in food writing.

You can find a full transcript for this episode on the Lecker website.

Lecker is written and produced by Lucy Dearlove.

Thanks to the contributors on this episode, Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan and Ruby Tandoh.

There’s also a print zine featuring original essays and illustrations about kitchens released alongside this audio series. Buy a copy now at leckerpodcast.com

Original theme music was composed for the series by Jeremy Warmsley, with additional music also by Jeremy, and by Blue Dot Sessions

Research and production assistance from Nadia Mehdi.

Additional guest research by Sarah Woolley.

Cover collage by Stephanie Hartman

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

On this month's Lecker Book Club, a regular interview series with authors writing in or adjacent to food culture, The Jackfruit Chronicles by Shahnaz Ahsan.

The Jackfruit Chronicles is a recipe book and memoir hybrid which integrates food into the text in a very specific way. In the book, Shahnaz tells the story of her family’s migration - three generations across three continents - which begins with the arrival of her grandfather Habib in Manchester from Bangladesh in the 1950s.

You can still sign the open letter which Shahnaz was involved in creating and circulating, calling on Keir Starmer to take action over the Israeli government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to use starvation as a weapon of war against the Palestinian people of Gaza. Link here.

Lecker is now part of Heritage Radio Network! Find out more about this independent podcast network dedicated to food, beverages and the culinary world and discover their many fantastic shows at heritageradionetwork.org.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

The Jackfruit Chronicles is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

On this month's Lecker Book Club, a regular interview series with authors writing in or adjacent to food culture, Katie Goh's Foreign Fruit.

Foreign Fruit is a memoir which explores Katie’s experience growing up and existing as a mixed heritage person in the north of Ireland, but also documents alongside this personal narrative a history of the orange; how the fruit moved from East to West, gaining and shedding symbolic meaning along the way.

You can find the previous Lecker episode about citrus, Oranges and Lemons, linked here.

Lecker is now part of Heritage Radio Network! Find out more about this independent podcast network dedicated to food, beverages and the culinary world and discover their many fantastic shows at heritageradionetwork.org.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

Foreign Fruit is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

On Book Club this month: Heather Parry's Carrion Crow, a novel about a woman in the attic which encompasses class consciousness, turtle soup and Mrs Beeton.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

An A-Z of Chinese Food is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.

On Book Club this month: Jenny Lau's An A-Z of Chinese Food, an 'anti-glossary' offering a unique breadth of knowledge and insight into the Chinese diaspora and its food culture.

You can find a transcript for this episode at leckerpodcast.com.

An A-Z of Chinese Food is out now. Find all of the Lecker Book Club reads on my Bookshop.org list. [aff link]

Support Lecker by becoming a paid subscriber on Patreon, Apple Podcasts and now on Substack.

Music is by Blue Dot Sessions.