Beyond thrilled that Leftovers has been shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason Debut Food Book award 2025! A complete honour!

This is a fun one - ‘The most disgusting British foods ever’, speaking as a food historian!

Find my comments on the history of food taboos and pineapple mania in this article on ‘the future on our plates’!

According to a legend, the Simnel Cake was created when a couple named Simon and Nelly rowed over what sort of cake to bake for Mother’s Day! Find out more in this month’s column!

What an honour to have hosted a series of historical supper clubs with the amazing Executive Head Chef Joe Fox at the beautiful Number Sixteen hotel in London.

Find my comments on the history of hot cross buns in this Guardian article

In time for Lent, I serve up stuffed aubergines from Renaissance Italy!

This month I offer a recipe for Viking-era mussels from York!

I try medieval cheesecake - surprisingly delicious!

Forbes Brazil select Leftovers as one of ‘8 books released in 2024 that deserve special attention at the beginning of 2025,’

‘Take your seat in the hotel’s orangery for a meal hosted by food historian and author Eleanor Barnett with the hotel group’s executive chef Joe Fox. This is the last dinner event in a series of historically themed evenings: a groovy homage to the 1970s (on 20 March) where guests will find devilled eggs and a prawn cocktail, Orange en Surprise and a pink blancmange. ‘

I speak to Clare Foges on LBC about the history of turkey, goose, and Christmas leftovers!

Find my interview on a Victorian Christmas and the change in our food choices over time in today’s Telegraph.

‘Barnett’s detailed storytelling makes food waste fascinating […] From medieval England to Brexit and the pandemic, Barnett expertly rolls out the dough of U.K. history to prove that “if ‘you are what you eat,’ our values and culture are equally defined by what we don’t eat.” 

“‘The world produces enough food to feed everyone, if distributed equally,’” Barnett writes, quoting the founders of Food Not Bombs. Pandemic-era distribution efforts showed us what’s possible in terms of food rescue, and AI is already in the kitchen tracking scraps. Pick up Leftovers for motivation on reducing the muckpile.

We discuss the history of food waste from the sixteenth century all the way to the present day; the influence of women who developed food preservation, through the art of refrigeration; the role of pigs, wars, and pandemics in food waste; and so much more.

The Christmas issue of BBC History Magazine contains my recipe for a classic Victorian Xmas Pud, complete with its delicious history!

Watch this talk - all about how we came to waste so much food as a society and how our ancestors sought to prevent waste through preservation - now on Youtube!

Find my recipe for Tudor ‘Snow’ - ironically most often served during the summer months - for December’s BBC History magazine column

It was great speaking at the Oxford Food Symposium's Kitchen Table for the zoom event: 'We need to talk about : Gleaning in the 21st century: old traditions and new solutions for our waste-conscious world'!

So wonderful to see my recipe and exploration of WW2 food waste and thrift in the New York Times this week!

I tell BBC Bitesize all about a 2,000-year old recipe and its fascinating history!

The cutest recipe yet - for November’s BBC History magazine I recreate an 18th-century marzipan hedgehog along with the bizarre history of hedgehog-eating!

It was so much fun to speak about my book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation at Wigtown Book Festival this week in Scotland, chaired by the lovely Vivian French!

Leftovers is on the recommended reading list for the global think-tank Food Tank as it deals with climate change issues this week in New York!

As spooky season approaches, I explore an early recipe for pumpkin pie and the fascinating history of pumpkins!

In this month's magazine, you can also read my review of Neil Buttery's new book Knead to Know!

Our forthcoming supper club, hosted at Number Sixteen Hotel in London, is receiving lots of press attention, including from the Evening Standard, the Telegraph, the Londonist, Country & Townhouse, Wildflower Magazine, Fabric Magazine, and Secret London!

Try Parthian Chicken, a recipe from the oldest cookery books from antiquity, Apicius!

I had a wonderful time speaking about food waste through the ages and the road to sustainability in the food system at Bristol’s new food festival!

It was a great honour to speak about the history of fruit preserves at the Oxford Food Symposium this year!

My food history interview will be out in the new season of Roux Down the River!

This month in my BBC History Magazine column I try out a Westminster Fool!

‘It is a story of vinegars and jams and e-numbers and freezers, and Eleanor Barnett tells it well in her engaging new book, Leftovers, [with a] knack for linking different eras with thematic threads’

I try Victorian cucumber ice cream and introduce you to Agnes Marshall, Victorian celebrity chef and ‘Queen of Ices’!

Catch up with our fascinating live discussion all about Leftovers - the history of food waste and preservation through the ages - over on @historyeats on Instagram!

It was a pleasure to speak about my book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation at Chippenham Museum, and especially to see Ann and Sue again, who shared their post-war food memories with me for the book!

For this months’ column I explore the history of sowans, a native - and overlooked - Scottish ferment!

‘Leftovers: a history of food waste and preservation takes a much broader look at food scarcity, food surpluses and the byproducts of food production that people don’t or won’t eat. Our conversation reflected on the complex relationships among food waste, human behaviour, and systemic factors throughout history, advocating for a renewed appreciation of the value of food.’

Published in Bloomsbury Food Library online.

Leftovers ‘couldn’t be timelier than right now… a very readable deep dive into everything from pickles and canning to what we did during Covid-19 and what we should do in the future’

‘We talked about many things including the history of food waste used in agriculture and industry, food preservation in wartime, and Hannah Glasse’s dubious method for preserving very rank potted birds’

Listen to my interview all about Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation from 2.22 onwards!

Tudor Jumbles! These simple, delicious, and elegant biscuits are the feature of my History Cookbook column in this month’s BBC History Magazine. And, as always, the recipe video will be up soon for History Extra members too

‘A thought-provoking and entertaining examination of our relationship with food from Tudor times right up to the food banks and Covid lockdowns of more recent times’

It was an absolute honour to be invited to speak at Corriere’s televised event, which brings together women who work in the food industry!

Featured in the Caterer about the history of the cheese course in Rosie Conroy’s article on savoury desserts

Leftovers ‘shows us what the past can teach us about the future of food waste’!

‘After all those delicious meals, it’s only appropriate that we should consider the leftovers. A scholarly history of food waste and preservation, Eleanor Barnett’s Leftovers explores the inventive ways our ancestors sought to make the most of their food, how we do so today, and how we might go about it in the future’

I explore the history of hot cross buns in an English Heritage article ‘Holy or Heretical? A History of Hot Cross buns’.

It was wonderful to talk in Bristol - my home-town and a leader in food waste issues - to a great crowd! Thanks to those for coming and for all your comments and questions!

Listen to me talking all things Leftovers on the BBC History Extra podcast - from the Tudor almoner to the Victorian rag-and-bone-man!

‘She’s an indefatigable researcher. And she keeps the reader’s spirits up with some splendid stories’

‘Studying past habits is a reminder to keep up pressure on how we manage surplus food, but it also highlights successes, such as inventing products from waste streams - Golden Syrup and Marmite are industrial byproducts - and the impact of a state-run thriftiness campaign in the 40s’

My column in this month’s BBC History Magazine is a special one: ‘A Sustainable Historical Three-Course Feast’, sharing some of the historical recipes found in Leftovers!

‘Wasting food means wasting life, but also the huge amounts of energy and resources that go into making it.’

‘What better way to connect to the lives of people in the past than through their food – Leftovers recreates the tastes, smells, and sights of Victorian London, for example, where poor rag-and-bone men scavenged for crumbs and flecks of meat on discarded bones; the striking bursts of sweetness provided as a reward for many sweaty hours spent preserving oranges in the Tudor still-room; and what it was like to taste banana for the first time, as the invention of artificial refrigeration made it possible to transport them to Britain in 1901 all the way from the Canary Islands.’

‘Leftovers is more than a historical retrospective; it is book for our time’!

How the Tudors dealt with food waste?

‘Eleanor Barnett [is] one of the UK’s leading food historians, as well as one of the most accomplished communicators of academic research to a wide popular audience’!

I explore how Bristol features in my new book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation’, and ask ‘in our quest to create a more sustainable food system, can we learn from the wasteful mistakes and thrifty triumphs of the past?’

‘If mum’s a foodie, I’d recommend a fascinating newly published book: Leftovers. It’s an informative and entertaining history of food preservation and waste in Britain, from the 16th Century to today.’

'Barnett excels at choosing specific, often funny examples that demystify the past, a skill she’s honed from running her popular Instagram account, @historyeats. Her nimble, confident writing makes Leftovers bingeable (as it were), without coming at the expense of rigour or depth. It’s clear that she loves her subject material, and her enthusiasm is contagious'. The Telegraph

Accepted as a member of the Guild of Food Writers March 24

'As timely as it is fascinating... informative and entertaining' Delicious Magazine

Some of the best its of my new book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation!

‘A fascinating…informative and entertaining history’ !

Quoted in Ashleigh Arnott’s article ‘Marvellous Marmalade’ 🍊

Hear about the history of our favourite Christmas food, from mince pies to turkey, plus a sneak insight into my book Leftovers: A History of Food Waste and Preservation!

I try the much tastier (IMHO) and 18th-century mushroom version of ketchup!

Learn 5 fun facts about the history of Christmas food! Published in print and online.

Find the recipe for Potato Pete’s Potato Piglets in this month’s BBC History Magazine column along with a bonus WW2 potato soup recipe to make sure there’s no food waste! 🥔

I also wrote the food history quiz for their 300th issue quiz! 🥝

I’ve published two articles in January’s issue: ‘What is the world’s oldest surviving recipe?’ and ‘Sugar-free Tudor biscuits’ with recipe!

I explore the history behind three festive treats and share how to make them in this series of recipes videos commissioned for BBC History Extra members.