Rick Stein’s Food Stories S01 complete (1080p, soft English subtitles)

A mouth-watering melting pot. Rick Stein tucks into the nation's cook book, savouring the UK's favourite food. From farm to fork, he explores age-old traditions and modern tastes.

E01 Cumbria
Rick Stein begins his food tour of the UK in the Lake District, enjoying a traditional mutton hotpot with sheep farmer and author James Rebanks. He pays homage to actor Stan Laurel before braving Morecambe Bay’s treacherous mud flats to meet a shrimp fisherman and discover an old favourite, potted shrimps. Back home in Padstow, Rick is joined by his son Jack to cook his mum’s shepherd’s pie.

E02 Argyll
Rick rediscovers his love for the foodie heaven of Argyll, where land and loch yield exquisite produce. He meets chef Pamela Brunton, a Michelin Green Star winner, whose menu showcases local and foraged ingredients. He also catches langoustine with teacher-turned-fisherwoman Mary Galloway and explores a century-old smokehouse. At home, Rick cooks arroz rojo and tattie scones with Scottish smoked salmon.

E03 Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire is a county of farming innovation, where Rick meets inventor James Dyson, who allows him special access to his farm of the future. Here, strawberries, tended by robots, are grown all year round. Chef Rachel Green cooks Rick traditional plum bread, and he meets pig farmers producing the finest Lincolnshire sausages. Rick makes simple strawberry sorbet and the ultimate bangers and mash.

E04 Northern Ireland
Amid Belfast’s buzzy food scene, Rick tucks into Filipino-style Sunday lunch. On Northern Ireland’s Atlantic coast, he meets an award-winning chef with a ‘no waste’ approach who turns fish offal and underused species such as dogfish into stunning dishes. Rick makes his first ever Filipino dish, and after witnessing the dry-ageing of some special Irish beef, he cooks beef and Guinness pie.

E05 Manchester
In Bury, at Britain’s best market, Rick immerses himself in the rich food traditions of north west England. In Manchester, he meets Joe Otway, an exciting chef reinventing those traditions for a hip crowd, and at a shop selling old vinyl records, Rick recalls how much joy Manchester's music has brought him. Rick cooks a scotch egg for a ploughman's and one of his favourites, liver, bacon and onions.

E06 Wales
On Wales's Gower Peninsula, Rick meets the farmer raising salt marsh lamb who's thankful that none of his sheep have been blown up by the WWII bombs still buried there. Rick is intrigued to try vegan rhubarb pizza made by social media star Gaz Oakley, and he's hoping to catch a fish whilst coracle fishing at night on the River Tywi. He cooks rack of lamb and demonstrates how to smoke sea trout.

E07 Bristol
Rick gets his chops around the ultimate jerk chicken made by the man behind Bristol’s most exciting Caribbean food kitchen. He delves into the history of the city’s African-Caribbean carnival and witnesses the healing power of food at a café staffed by victims of modern slavery. He dips into the recent craze for fermented foods and makes his own version of a modern UK favourite, the burrito.

E08 Suffolk
Halfway through his tour of Britain's favourite foods, Rick visits a Suffolk bakery making artisan sourdough. He meets an old friend who sells fresh fish on the beach, and in Southwold, Rick discovers that the writer George Orwell held surprising views on English cooking.

E09 London - Part 1
Rick’s in London, the city where he started out as a chef, which is now home to 120 world cuisines. In Chinatown, he’s entranced by the art of making dim sum, and in west London, he witnesses the magic of mozzarella making. DJ Stuart Maconie, who's written a book on the full English, tells Rick about the hilarious variations he's had of the country's favourite breakfast. At home, Rick cooks beef chow mein.

E10 London - Part 2
Rick continues his food tour of London in Walthamstow, meeting head brewer Jaega Wise, who explains why craft beer is so fashionable. Rick discovers more about Walthamstow’s little-known silent film studios, and in west London, over a bowl of borscht at a Ukrainian restaurant staffed by refugees, he is reminded of how food creates community. Rick also brings back a favourite ready meal, chicken kyiv.

E11 Kent
In Kent, the 'garden of England', Rick harvests English cherries at a family-run farm. From Ramsgate, he heads out to sea in search of dover sole, his favourite fish, and in Margate, he celebrates the artist Joseph Turner and Britain's love of fish and chips. At home in Padstow, he makes red velvet chocolate and cherry cupcakes, and shows us a simple French dish called dover sole a la meuniere.

E12 Glasgow
Rick delves into Glasgow’s multicultural food scene, tucking into Korean and Pakistani dishes and finding out how Italian food became part of the city's fabric. He discovers the best chocolate he’s ever tasted, made by an artisan chocolatier who used to be a car engineer, and uses it to make profiteroles. He also teams up with son Jack to make an inexpensive Stein family favourite, osso buco.

E13 Yorkshire
In Yorkshire, Rick discovers the history behind the yorkshire pudding and how best to make this most famous of British foods. After Indian-style mushy peas in Leeds, he enjoys a pint of his favourite bitter and a chance to reminisce about his literary hero, John Betjeman, before visiting the UK’s biggest tofu factory. At home, Rick cooks two vegetarian dishes, tofu pad thai and paneer jalfrezi.

E14 Midlands
Food writer Gurdeep Loyal gives Rick a tour of Leicester’s finest Indian food, from a hidden gem of a food truck to the Indian equivalent of high tea at the Ritz. There’s Michelin star fare from Birmingham chef Aktar Islam and the story of how a traditional mill was saved by the local demand for chapati flour. Rick cooks a British favourite, chicken tikka masala, and a vegetarian dish called matar kulcha.

E15 West Country
Rick ends his UK food tour on home turf, the West Country. He meets a bevy of food pioneers, from Riverford’s Guy Singh-Watson, who blazed a trail for organic food before many people even knew what it was, to the famous cheese maker Mary Quicke, finishing with his friend and fellow chef Mark Hix, the master of simple British food. Rick cooks a carrot tarte tatin and a cheese, potato and spinach filo pie.

First broadcast:  February-March 2024  
Duration:   30 minutes per episode  
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