In this special episode, Adam Coghlan is joined by Ruby Tandoh, the author, journalist (and Vittles contributor) who has just published the book All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now. The book is an attempt to explain the growing power and absurdity of food culture via the mediums it is transmitted through, whether supermarkets, newspaper supplements or Instagram reels (Tandoh’s ‘15 Cookbooks That Changed Everything,’ which was published on Vittles earlier this year, was loosely based on chapter on cookbooks).
As a sprint through the terrain of contemporary food culture, All Consuming covers everything from the rise of bubble tea, restaurant critics in the US and in the UK, food influencers, supermarket battles, the dominance of the queue, TikTok, wellness elixirs, trad wives, the invention of Viennetta and modern ice cream culture, Mob Kitchen, recipe development, and the impact America has had on British food (via Wimpy). We talk about the process of writing the book, the speed at which food culture is changing, and the democratisation (and regression) of food media.
Later on in the podcast, Adam checks in with Vittles founder and editor Jonathan Nunn, who has some thoughts about the current state of fine dining, including reviews of Row on 5 in London, and Wilson’s and Upstairs at Landrace in the West Country.
Like our previous two podcasts, this episode is free to listen to for all subscribers. You can listen to it here, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you normally listen to your podcasts. The restaurant focus of The Vittles Podcast will continue later this month with an episode in which we speak with two ~tastemakers~ about some of the undercurrents affecting the London restaurant industry and their own competing versions of what’s good and what’s… mid.
A massive thanks as usual to Lucy Dearlove who produced it, and to the Young Space who provided the beautiful recording space.
Everything must go
We are on the verge of announcing the line up for Issue 2, but in the meantime, we have about 40 copies of Issue 1 left. Our distributor is out of copies too, and so are most shops, so we would recommend ordering directly from our web shop if you’d like to read it.
Credits
The Vittles Podcast is presented by Vittles Restaurants editor Adam Coghlan.
Ruby Tandoh is a writer and hater on food and culture whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, Vice, Taste, Eater, Vittles and more.
Lucy Dearlove is an audio producer, sound designer and writer originally from North East England, now based in St Leonards-on-Sea. Her food podcast, Lecker, is a two-time winner of the Fortnum & Mason Podcast of the Year Award.
The full Vittles masthead can be found here.
