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The team choose one book that has made them think and one that’s made them cook from the last year, while Sheila visits a group of young food activists to discuss reading habits and food.

Christmas lists to the ready! Cookbook sales are on the up, according to data by Nielsen, and we’ve bought almost £60 million of them in the last year. But what exactly are we buying and reading? What books stood out to the presenters of The Food Programme this year? And, with TikTok taking an ever-more dominant role in food inspiration, is the role of the cookbook coming to an end? All that, plus guest chef appearances and a review of one of the most talked about food books of the year, in this year’s books wrap up by The Food Programme.

Here are the books chosen by those featured in the programme this year:

Chosen by Dan Saladino, presenter on Radio 4’s The Food Programme
National Dish: Around the World in Search of Food, History and the Meaning of 鲍鱼tv, by Anya von Bremzen
Invitation to a banquet: The story of Chinese food, by Fuschia Dunlop

Chosen by Leyla Kazim, presenter on Radio 4’s The Food Programme
A New Way To Bake: Re-imagined Recipes for Plant-based Cakes, Bakes and Desserts, by Philip Khoury
The Dinner Table: Over 100 writers on food, compiled by Ella Risbridger and Kate Young

Chosen by Sheila Dillon, presenter on Radio 4’s The Food Programme
The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen, by Bee Wilson
Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food...and Why Can’t We Stop? By Dr Chris van Tulleken and Xand van Tulleken et al.

Chosen by Jaega Wise, presenter on Radio 4’s The Food Programme
Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud, by Rebecca Gibb
Gin: A Tasting Course, by Anthony Gladman

Chosen by Nina Pullman, producer on Radio 4’s The Food Programme
The Farmer’s Wife: My life in days, by Helen Rebanks
Bold Beans: Recipes to Get Your Pulse Racing, by Amelia Christie-Miller

Chosen by Julius Roberts, author of The Farm Table
Brutto: A (simple) Florentine cookbook, by Russell Norman

Chosen by Poppy O’Toole, author of The Actually Delicious Air fryer Cookbook
Have You Eaten?: Deliciously Simple Asian Cooking for Every Mood, by Verna Gao (@vernahungrybanana)

Chosen by Rukmini Iyer, author of the Roasting Tin series and India Express
The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours: Plant-led Pairings, Recipes and Ideas for Cooks, by Niki Segnit

Chosen by Melissa Hemsley, author of Feel Good and Eat Green
Imad’s Syrian Kitchen, by Imad Alarnab

Chosen by Kathleen Smith, cookery book buyer at Topping and Company bookshop
The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen, by Bee Wilson
Bitter, by Alexina Anatole

Chosen by George Harris, creative director at Tin Shed Theatre Company
Good Housekeeping’s Basic Cookery in Pictures (1953)

Also mentioned in the programme
Ravenous: How to get ourselves and our planet into shape, by Henry and Jemima Dimbleby

Books chosen by Bite Back activists Dev, Jayda and Alice:
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal, by Eric Schlosser
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling
Spoon-Fed: Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong, by Tim Spector