What is English food?

It sounds like a simple question. But the answer leads through empire and industry, class and migration, Michelin-starred kitchens and Greggs bakeries, artisan sourdough and supermarket meal deals.

Join us for an evening with award-winning writer and podcaster Lewis Bassett, whose brilliant new book The Full English uses eight iconic foods to tell the story of England itself. Along the way, Bassett works in an artisanal bakery, cooks in Michelin-starred kitchens, joins a fishing boat in the North Sea, and asks why a nation so obsessed with food remains strangely uncertain about its own culinary identity.

In The Full English Bassett argues that what we eat has always reflected who we are. Through roast beef, curry, olive oil, pastries and sausage rolls, Bassett uncovers the hidden forces that have shaped English taste—from urbanisation and empire to war, immigration and changing ideas of class.

Lewis will be in conversation with food historian Pen Vogler, author of Scoff: A History of Food and Class in Britain, among other books.