Back in Time for Tea

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The Ellis family see what life was like for working class families over the past 100 years

The Ellis family travel back in time to discover how changing food in the north of England reveals what life was like for working class families over the past 100 years.

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Sara Cox

Polly Russell

Emily Shields

Christina Nutter

Wall to Wall Media

Back in Time for Tea: Series 1: Episode 6

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Episode 6

Series 1

BBC Two - Back in Time for Tea, Series 1, Episode 6

The family reflects on their time travel adventure.

The family reflects on their time travel adventure, and explores how the legacy of a hundred years of tumultuous history lives on in the northern diet today.

The Ellis family from Bradford – are embarking on an extraordinary time travelling adventure to discover how a transformation in the food eaten in the North of England can reveal how life has changed for Northern working class families over the past 100 years.

The family’s own home is their time machine, transporting them through a different era each week - from the sparse furnishings and meagre provisions of 1918 to the modern home comforts and bulging freezer of 1999. Guided through their time travel by Bolton born presenter Sara Cox and social historian Polly Russell, everything the family of five experience – from the jobs they do to the food they eat, will be based on historical data and spending surveys of the era. The Ellis’ will live through a time of dramatic change in the industrial North – experiencing everything from the mill to the mine, the Beatles to Thatcher and bland potato pie to the spicy delights of the curry capital of the UK. 

In the final episode of the series, the family reflects on their time travel adventure, and explores how the legacy of a hundred years of tumultuous history lives on in the northern diet today. Lesley and Sara visit a Liverpool bakery using the humble loaf to re-build a shattered community, and sisters Caitlin and Freya explore how recent changes on Manchester’s Curry Mile tell us about our evolving relationship with flavour.
 
After seeing kids increasingly targeted by food manufacturers over the eras, Harvey and Sara find out just how far novelty foods have come these days with a modern game that requires a very strong stomach…
 
Jon heads back to the mill to show Harvey how Yokshire’s textile heritage has used its specialisms to survive the decline of the industry. They’ll explore how the stereotype of the Yorkshire man in flat cap has been given a modern and hugely successful twist by local hat designer Rhian Kempadoo Millar.
 
The girls travel to Blackburn to meet Zainab Bilal, a one-woman pie business who is combining our modern love of easy fast food with this age-old favourite. Caitlin and Freya help her make a batch of ‘burger pies’, to explore just what it is that has made the humble pie such a winner for working families throughout history.
 
Finally, Sara and northern chef Rob Owen Brown prepare a celebration meal for the family. Using cuts of meat and nostalgic flavours the family might have turned their noses up at in the past, Sara then joins Polly and the family to raise a glass to the modern legacy of the north’s culinary history.

Back in Time for Tea: Series 1

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