Food and drink

Pancake day celebrations

The history of Shrove Tuesday: why do we eat pancakes?

Annie Gray portrait by Ian Farrell

Annie Gray “For Queen Victoria, food was a way of exploring the world”

Women queue for potatoes in a greengrocer's shop in London, c1945. (Photo by Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer/IWM via Getty Images)

Second World War

Saving food, saving lives: rationing in the Second World War

The Eridge Hunt, Boxing Day 1952. (Photo by REX/Associated Newspapers)

A brief history of Boxing Day

Almond Hedgehog: A debonair addition to the hostess’s armoury in the Georgian period. (Illustration by Clair Rossiter for BBC History Magazine)

What was the best meal in history?

Illustration showing Roman Saturnalia banquet. (Photo by Alamy)

Saturnalia: the origins of the debauched Roman ‘Christmas’

Land girls on an Essex turkey farm round up the turkeys for the last time. (Photo by Reg Speller/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

A brief history of turkeys, plus why we eat a turkey dinner at Christmas

The First Thanksgiving in 1621, after a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme; screen print, 1932. (Photo by GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

7 facts you might not know about the history of Thanksgiving

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria’s voracious appetite for food and sex

Illustration for BBC History Magazine.

How potatoes conquered the world

A medieval king dining

Pig-chickens, beavers’ tails and turtle soup: 8 fascinating foods through history

Dr Michael Mosley holds up a tapeworm

Tapeworms, arsenic and magic soap: fact-checking history’s weirdest fad diets and weight-loss gimmicks

A royal banquet in the 13th century. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Blog Medieval(ish) matters #14: What did an aristocratic household eat in the Middle Ages? And who was Eleanor de Montfort?

Man and woman using a long-handled wooden paddle to bake bread in an oven, 15th century. (Photo by Getty Images)

Saturday lecture: Medieval food

Annie Gray photographed at her home in East Anglia (Photo by Ian Farrell)

Cooking for Churchill