Meet the Robshaws. Brandon, Rochelle, Miranda, Roz and Fred. For one summer this food-loving family is embarking on an extraordinary time-travelling adventure. To discover how a post-war revolution in what we eat has transformed the way we live. It's just amazing, look at them! Britain has gone from meagre rations to ready meals at the touch of a button in just 50 years. But how has this changed our health? We've got to pull our larder! Our homes and our family dynamics. This is what would make a woman break. To find out, the Robshaws are going to shop, cook and eat their way through history. It's 1974! Woah! I think that is enough sugar to be led by. Starting in 1950s, their own home will be their time machine. This carpet hurts my eyes. Who designed that? Someone who was colourblind. Fast forwarding them through a new year every day. As they experience first hand the culinary fads, fashions and gadgets of each age. Over that time, they've seen a total transformation in their diet. From the austere 50s to the space age 60s, synthetic 70s and time pressured 80s. I'll never do it again. This week, the Robshaws enter the 90s, a decade of cheap and plentiful food. It's all different varieties of cheese. It's all of the great wall of cheese. It's probably visible from space. With a nasty aftertaste. Is that beef brie, too? Yeah. A bit of a gamble, isn't it? Yeah. It's a bit of a gamble, isn't it? It's the final stage of our time-traveling experiments. And to set the scene for 1990, we've transformed the Robshaw's brash 80s house into a vision of calm tranquility, with a lick of magnolia paint, feature wall, and the ubiquitous potpourri. In the kitchen, the arrival of warm wood, nostalgic details and a sofa mark the transition from dining to living room. Food historian Dr Polly Russell and I are back to see what the 90s had in store for the Robshaws. Wow, it's quite nice! It is, isn't it? It's definitely an improvement on the 1980s and the sofa much more casual than they were in the decades before. You're really ramming home the message about the, uh, it's a family room. Yeah. They can all sit and watch Rochelle cooking because it was the decade when people watched people cooking more than they actually cooked. See what's in the fridge. Wow. The abundance of food. Just a huge, huge amount. And it's not directed towards particularly making some amazing meal. It's you could go in here and just pull your lunch out of it at any time. It's a huge contrast to the sparseness they began with, which means following the experiment's rules to eat only food available at the time shouldn't be a problem for the Robshaws. They've got more vegetables than there have been salad things before, but all semi-prepped. This is sort of food for people who are time poor. And when you think about the amount of food that's in this kitchen, you know, you've got a good supply for a week or two. And as I shut the fridge and it disappears, everything's integrated. Yeah, the appliances have all gone, whereas before they were, they were always on display. They were something of significance. But once everybody's got a fridge. Once everybody's got a microwave, it doesn't become... The chances of someone walking into your kitchen going, my, the Robshaws have got a fridge, is quite small. I've been using the National Food Survey to guide the Robshaws'diet during their time-travelling experience. Every year from 1940 to 1999, thousands of households diligently noted the food they bought and the meals they cooked over the course of a week, providing an extraordinary insight into the culinary tastes of a nation. But by the beginning of the 90s, we were showing signs of dissent. Whereas in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, people were really happy to fill out the survey, in the 1990s, increasingly people fed up with it and refusing to do so. HW, which is the housewife, kept the shopping list but it's difficult to get all the information. Most of the interviews were done sat on the garden wall. HOH, head of house, would not have anything to do with the survey. It's quite different from the previous decades where they were much more complicit in the whole thing. People are just increasingly concerned with their privacy. Despite these problems, the National Food Survey still offers useful clues about how families were eating and shows a noticeable shift from the 1980s. There are more fresh vegetables, fruit being sourced from around the world, prepared food which is chilled, not just frozen. And people were really time poor in this decade and so they're spending much less time cooking, much more time buying prepared food. The longest working hours in Europe were just one of the squeezes on family life in 1990. By the end of the year, the country had slipped into recession. The ERM crisis of 1992 saw interest rates soar to 15%. The subsequent property crash meant many families had to tighten their belts. It's millions of people in this country who are going to pay the price for these mistakes. Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you. Bye now. It's all a distant memory for Brandon and Rochelle, who were in their 20s in 1990, while the children weren't even born. It's 24 years ago, like The beginning, yeah, 24 years ago. That is a long time. The funny thing is I can remember quite a lot about things like the music of the 90s. And of course I can remember meeting... And I can remember the birth of these lovely children. I can't remember much about food. Fish. I've been longing for fish. But I'd like to grow gills by the end of my life. It's the last time in the experiment that the Robshaws will see their house transformed. Oh, this is really nice. That's inviting you to sit down, isn't it? Well, I think it's absolutely lovely to have a big family space like this. What? Pop-tarts. How about that? Look, pop-tarts. Got pop-tarts. No, we've got to pull out an order! See, before, right, you'd open a cupboard and there'd be, I don't know, like five items in there. Now there's like 500. It's a lovely fridge and it's got wine in it as well. It's the drinking decade, isn't it, really? It's sort of like, that's why people wouldn't be bothered to cook because they're too drunk. Is it? Was it the drinking decade? I think a lot of people took to drinking, including myself. Not in the 90s. And we didn't really think it was very bad for us. No, no. In fact, we used to sort of think it was rather good for us. But it was quite healthy, didn't it? Yeah, it did. So it looks as if we're ready for a bit of a booze-up, isn't it? I've left the Robshaws the 90s manual, offering guidance on food, leisure activities and their roles during the decade. In their contemporary life, Brandon does the lion's share of the cooking. Lion's share. What, Brandon? But throughout the experiment, he's gone out to work while Rochelle has been in sole charge of the kitchen. He's got absolutely no idea what it's like to be in the kitchen for the whole day. But in 1990, change is afoot. Brandon, you are now free to be a proud 1990s new man. That's good. Taking on responsibility for much of the cooking duties without ridicule. I wasn't laughing. You were. I wasn't laughing. You'll be working from home and it's perfectly acceptable for you to be in charge of the kitchen. That's okay then. So. In the National Food Survey, there's some sort of braising steak and beef burgers. A lot of steak still. Steak and kidney pie, steak pie, meatballs and chips. A lot of meat. There's a lot more meat being eaten, isn't there? I don't think an ordinary family would have had steak for supper back in the earlier decades. The cost of food relative to wages has come progressively down over the decades. In 1950, the average family would have spent one third of its income on food. By 1990 it was down to barely a tenth. Oh my! Oh it's got no sleeve! That's like a feature wall isn't it? Yeah. Look at that telly! Look at the size of it! It's stupid. What game called Supermarket? Supermarket Sweet Face! You know, Supermarket Sweet Face needs to be big enough for trollies to be wheeled around at high speed. In the corner is Brandon's home office. Look at that! So this is like the work bit of the room. While Rochelle will go out to work. By the end of the decade, there would be more women than men in the workplace. The Robshaws immediately embrace a quintessential 90s pastime. It's the world's master ship! It's the British Grand Prix for amateur ship! I didn't know it had been going this long, I really didn't. The 90s saw an explosion of food programmes on the box. A multitude of new series launched, introducing many household names to an enthusiastic public. Food as entertainment was booming. Each week our three competitors face a simple challenge. Prepare a championship quality three course meal for four people and do it in just two and a half hours. First course I'm starting with phyllo pastries of goat's cheese with a salad. I've forgotten about the phyllo parcel. It's all coming back. Very, very well put together. Very, extremely well put together. For home, very ambitious. But it's MasterChef, not MasterCook, isn't it? It's like, it's chefy restaurant food, isn't it? It's not home cooking, is it? It seemed to be so fiddly that people just thought, I'm not even going to try that. But some people were willing to try it. The MasterChef cookbook encouraged viewers to have a go. Brandon is up for the challenge, and I've come to give him a hand. This is a really seriously complex recipe. What, have you got to devein the spinach? Yeah, yeah. Oh, that doesn't... Where's the spinach? The nutmeg doesn't come in until the end. It's not like deveining a leg of lamb. I'm not going to get out of the kitchen. God, there's just an awful lot of preparation here, isn't there? An urgent inquiry into BSE, the so-called mad cow disease, has been welcomed, but will it allay public concern or prolong the worry in some quarters that the so-called mad cow disease may pose a threat to humans? Fears surrounding BSE overshadowed much of the early 90s. A degenerative brain disease found in cows, its likely cause was giving cattle feed that contained the carcasses of other diseased animals. That's right, they gave meat to animals who would not eat meat. That's disgusting. Isn't that disgusting? The government was adamant that humans could not catch BSE from eating beef. The government continues to say that beef is safe. The agricultural food minister John Gummer was happy to chomp his way through a beef burger, although his four-year-old daughter Cordelia was less enthusiastic. Why did you go like that? This is Kevin's camera, Mr Gummer. It looks fine. She didn't eat it. She said it was too hot. Thank God. Cut the fillet of beef down the centre line. Tie each piece of... I don't really know what it's talking about. Have a look. I have no idea what you're meant to do there. After saying cut the fillet, it does refer to each piece. Are they cooking beef? I'm not sure if they're cooking beef. I think they might be cooking beef. It's an experiment. Is that beef they're eating? Yeah. This is fillet of beef. There's been much about the beef scandal at Mad Cow. That's why it was cheap. That's why we could afford it. Yeah. It's a bit of a gamble isn't it? But it's fine because John Gummer fed a beef burger to his child so it's okay. Yeah I actually when Mad Cow News came along I went vegetarian for about a month. A month? Yeah and then I had a burger. That is funny because I actually went vegetarian for about five years. Really? Same idea. Same idea. So what are you doing with that? We're going to slice it finely and we're going to put it in this tiang, which will be layers of spinach, mushroom, tomato and beef. Quite a lot of work here. And each one will be placed on top of a little glistening pond of garlic. More, more, more, more, more, more, more, more. Yes. Christ almighty. I thought I was standing back or I lost my arse about that. I was standing behind you or I'd ruin my shirt. Rochelle's attempts to make dessert are being sidelined. I need to get to the cooker. That's what I need to do. Just do this stop. Yeah, just do a little sip. Do you feel this is a kind of testosterone-fuelled environment now? Yeah, it's hot and sweaty. And when I was in the kitchen, it wasn't hot. It was hot, but it wasn't sweaty. I've got to say, down the line of the beef, it wasn't particularly obvious. I mean, with the grain, did they mean with the centre line? It is about show, and I think that's what happens as men start to come into the kitchen. I think three's a crowd, isn't it? Three's a crowd. I suppose it is. They don't want to do it quietly. They want to do it with a bit of a bang of steel and a bash of pots. Three's a crowd. Not bad. Who's skipping? Oh, because Rod. No, you're not skipping. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Is it... Another one. Right, well we've only made 5. Quick, another plate. Look, we can make one out of this stuff. Please. It's taken two hours to prepare a fancy version of meat and three veg. Well, I tell you what, see if you can identify what's in. Oh, sure. Maybe. Yes, in fact there are. But what's on the top? Well, beef, obviously. Look. Now we're all going to get mad tired of you guys. Don't worry, we'll be alright. You've got it already. What do you think, Fred? Are you a bit grumpy about your small portion? Well, you're lucky you've got a portion. So how did it go for you, the first day of the 90s, the long-awaited liberation decade? Well, I actually felt... ousted from the kitchen. I found it a fight to the cooker. I had liberation, but I needed my land back. Bye, have a good day. It's a new day signalling a new year for the Robshaws, and I'm here to accompany them on a typically 90s excursion. Aha! Good morning. Good morning. Come in. Come through. Hurrah. Rochelle, hello. Hi. Have you got a hangover from last night? No, not at all. I'm fine, thank you very much. You finally managed the washing up. Yes, I did. The bit they never show in MasterChef. Yeah, yeah, I always wondered who did it. Yeah, it turns out it was you. We are going on an exciting expedition to a massive superstore. Wow. In a massive Great Big People carrier. According to the National Food Survey, and we'll be shopping to an actual shopping list from an actual house drive from your friend, the National Food Survey, which is three pages of ingredients. for 92 quid because you know food really really cheap and by this time let in the whole experiment at this point it's the lowest percentage of the household income that goes on food so you're going to go and just walk down these massive brightly lit aisles and wow the range of fizzy drinks you can buy basically hurrah well come on then hey never driven one of these before so at the point you have to keep them there can you what's the people carrier what's the fire don't distract me darling Crunch, crunch, crunch. Steer it through that narrow gap there. Good start. Five years earlier there were 50 out of town supermarkets in Britain. By 1991 there were 250 and most people drove to them, possibly with more finesse than Brandon. Well that's right isn't it? So why is your indicator pointing left? It's alright, we're going. A relaxation in planning laws in the late 80s saw out-of-town sites snapped up by supermarket chains and the floor space of the average store more than doubled. As supermarket chains get bigger in size and fewer in number, is it necessarily good news for the consumer? This is the first time in the experiment that the Robshaws have visited a shop anything like the size of this 1991-built superstore. I'm seeing this with new eyes when I'm just looking back to the other shops we've been to in this experiment. This is just on a different scale altogether, isn't it? This is like the land of the giants. Look at it! The sheer scale of the new stores meant the number of products on offer could be massively increased. In 1970, the typical supermarket stocked around 5,000 lines. By the early 90s, it was up to 15,000. I do think this is amazing. This whole aisle, which must be about 20 metres long, is all different varieties of cheese, but even just the cheddar. It is a wall of cheese. It's probably visible from space. What's down here? Do we need any meat? It says here three pounds of chicken quarters. There was almost no free range chicken in supermarkets in those days. Armed with their 1991 shopping list, The Robshaws are discovering the perils of too much choice. Pasta bake and microwave chips. It's supposed to be in that aisle, I think we might have missed it. Celery. There was some celery, there was the one that cost lettuce. They mixed up the cabbage with the lettuce. There's probably a whole lettuce aisle somewhere. Yeah, there must be. This shop's too big, all you want is a small greengrocer that sells lettuces. This is too big. It's all water. I know. We evolved to be the kind of animals that had to snatch food whenever we could get it. So it's difficult actually to walk through the supermarket and restrain yourself from grabbing things and putting them on the trolley. You're starting to feel like you've embarked on a marathon. I feel like I've been sort of around the world. Now I'm quite fussy about packing so shall I go down the end and... Yeah, I'm going to start with all the frozen stuff so we'll have a frozen bag. The era of cheap and plentiful food has well and truly arrived, a consequence of the total transformation in the way food is produced since the Second World War. After the lean years of rationing, the government had encouraged farmers to do all they could to increase their yields, so that Britain would never go hungry again. Their response included chemical fertilisers, growth hormones and industrial-scale factory farming, bringing down the costs of bread, cereals, dairy, eggs and meat. I suppose we have been driven this way to produce food and I think the public have been very fortunate to have been able to produce it. They have plenty. Meanwhile, increasingly mechanised food production and the use of air freighting to fly new ingredients in from around the globe had all helped to massively extend the range available. and prices were lower than ever, with five supermarket chains controlling 60% of the grocery market by 1990. They were in a strong position to negotiate lower prices from their suppliers, savings they passed on to customers. Consumers were starting to take cheap and plentiful food for granted. My own memories of the 90s were actually feeling pleased at seeing all these new ingredients that were appearing in supermarkets, getting all under one roof. And I actually do remember thinking in the 90s, you know, this is great. I haven't been into a big supermarket the whole time during this experiment. It's shown the extraordinary range of produce. Everything is available. It's come from every part of the world. So in that way, that's good. See, so much of this stuff is perishable. If we don't eat it soon, we'll have to just chuck it out. You are going to end up eating more, but simply by the fact that it is here. It's 1992 and while the nation speculates about Fergie's French holiday antics, Rob Shaws are enjoying a French affair of their own. These are nicely warm. A continental breakfast. But yeah, I do remember having my first one of these. And I remember getting mixed up a few times as to whether you put the coffee in before you put the plunger down. Yeah, do you know what, I suppose it's funny that it's taken us so long to have this kind of continental sort of breakfast. I mean, everyone had had it on holiday, hadn't they? It is saying, OK, we'd like to be French because you're cool. Yeah. Well, I haven't used the juicer before, but... A juicer? Is it that thing there? Not this, surely? We're not doing by using this. Exactly, it's very like cutting edge, is it? Fred, do you want to come and do some juicing for us? Just come and do it. Look, you see that? Oh, that's quite good actually. Oh, it's working. Once relatively expensive, oranges were now a cheap everyday staple. Orange juice consumption had tripled over the 80s and by the early 90s fresh juice was de rigueur, if you could be bothered to squeeze it. That's really lovely but that is the juice of three big oranges so it's a lot of work to get that amount of juice isn't it? But you don't want to be late Ros? I'm not going to be late! You know what the French say? No. They say in the faux pas etre en retard. That's very important. What does that mean? It means you mustn't be late. Well done, that's very important. With the rest of the family off to school and work, Brandon's about to embrace another European sensation that was sweeping the nation. IKEA fitted kitchens come in a wide range of finishes. Every component has been rigorously tested, and the most modern production techniques are used to keep down costs. So, after buying one, you can still afford to eat. IKEA, the furnishing store from Sweden. Morning. Have a delivery from Giles. Oh, what have we got? I wonder what I've spent my money on. With Rochelle at work, Brandon takes the opportunity to customise the family kitchen to his own unique specifications. Bookcase. It's the Billy bookcase. If only he can understand the instructions. See it right? I don't like the way that's sticking out there. Is that supposed to do that? Rochelle returns to her worst kitchen nightmare. So, we've done it. Done it? What do you think? You know what it is, Brandon? It's been in the kitchen. All my sort of lady things. Yeah, it does look more masculine now, doesn't it? All my grassy bits have been moved. This looks like a professional kitchen that means business. It's all kind of gleaming. stainless steel. I think it makes it look like a proper chef's kitchen. Where's the proper chef? Me. She wasn't very pleased about it because she can't see the point. I think we had a bit of a disagreement about the grunt towel. To make things up with Rochelle, Brandon's taking her out for lunch. So far in the experiment, eating out has been reserved for special occasions. From fine dining at motorway services in the 60s... Cheers, everybody. Cheers. ...to Nouvelle Cuisine in the 1980s. Oh, gosh. Wow. But over the 90s, restaurants became increasingly informal, kick-started in part by establishments like The Eagle, the country's first gastropub. We served restaurant quality food in a scruffy pub. And that was the concept, if you'd like to call it that. We opened it because we were working in restaurants and we couldn't afford to go to them. There's something about this, this kind of informal spirit of it, that just seems really 90s, and it really sums up the 90s. The informality is crucial. People like that. They don't like to go into a space and have some stuffy maitre d'look down his nose at them and say, have you booked a table and would you like an aperitif? They don't really want any of that. It's very eclectic, isn't it? It's from all over the place. And it's from all over the place because the chefs are from all over the place. Oh, yes please. That's the chicken. Thank you. That looks lovely. That looks delicious. The eagle's relaxed style proved popular with customers, and the formula was swiftly imitated across the country. This chicken is just beautiful. It's just falling away from the bone, melting. It is absolutely delicious. It is really, really fresh. It's really herby. I'll be happy to eat this for the next 20 years. I think we should drink to Giles, because he sent us to this excellent establishment. To Giles, and to Michael for inventing the gastro bubble. It set out the template for what this kind of establishment was going to be like. The stripped, scrubbed surfaces, the lack of carpet, curtains, casual, informal atmosphere. Those are innovations that they've really stood the test of time. Subtitles by the Amara.org community While we became increasingly interested in trying new foods and flavours outside the home, we were spending less time than ever actually cooking. The National Food Survey shows an increasing reliance on pre-prepared convenience food in the 90s, and the average time taken to prepare a meal shrank to just 33 minutes, compared to an hour in the 80s and 100 minutes in 1960. Oh my god they're burning! Oh Miranda! They're burning! Only if we could burn 15 chips. 93 It's 1993 and the Robshaws are getting their hands on the hot new taste sensation that British kids were clamouring for. They used to come with a warning didn't they? Because the filling got so hot people's mouths got burnt. No seriously, these are like really dangerous, don't touch. So hot they're cool. You need an asbestos glove to eat that. sit down and put a mitten on. I still find it weird it is a breakfast, though. Oh, they've got icing and sprinkles all over them. They're really horrible. I'll just have a bit of coffee, then I'll go. Well, look, you'd better go or you're going to be late. I'm already late. Rush off, go on. I'm rushing. The breakfast table wasn't the only place for innovation. For the evening's dinner, food historian Polly Russell is bringing some products that transformed our definition of convenience in the early 90s. In the 90s saw an explosion of pre-prepared salads. So instead of just having to buy heads of lettuce and much more limited supply where you just had iceberg or roundhead, maybe little gems, you start to see new varieties of leaves which hadn't previously been available. Right, you know in the 50s, I wouldn't have known about rocket unless I grew it. Yeah, exactly. These sort of cushioned bags remove the oxygen. put in additional carbon dioxide and that adds life to these products of about 50% so they're really really convenient, they're not going to go off quickly. So the cherry tomato and then the young toots, what was exciting was that you could get this variety, that you could get it year round, that it was all available. This is fresh tortellini and a jar of bolognese sauce. Readymade sauces emphasized authentic ingredients and suggested a homemade quality to time-pressed cooks. Made with the finest ingredients like fresh dairy cream in country French chicken or juicy tomatoes and peppers in Spanish chicken, you get a whole lot more with Chicken Tonight. Chicken Tonight, like Chicken Tonight. More sauce, masses of taste. Chicken Tonight. So this is sort of prepared food of the 1990s. This is the perfect thing to appeal to sort of a working housewife. So should we put this all together and make a meal? Yeah, great. Cheers. Cheers to the 90s. Brilliant. What are you cooking anyway? Tortellini. Yeah, fresh tortellini. Yeah. Pre-bagged salad just got tipped out of a bag. So simple. Very simple. Fantastic. I mean, this is processed, but somehow it just feels better, doesn't it? It feels more like real food. So I think the 90s was this tipping point of where more pre-prepared food was chilled, not frozen. And it's just outsourced the work of washing the lettuce and chopping the lettuce and making the dressing. It's like seconds in comparison to... to um to the other meals that we've done you can cook for a family in 10 minutes here can't you working longer hours children out at school for longer after school clubs you know being able to come home and produce sort of freshly prepared ready food i imagine it would have been a real help yeah it would explain why it exploded at that time i think well these things didn't exist today in the 50s How does this meal rate compared to the other pre-prepared meals that you've had? Before, we had either a ready meal so the whole thing was made, or we had like everything was from scratch, but this is like a nice mix, you know? The pasta and the sauce is processed, but you've got a fresh green vegetable. That's not processed. It has come over from Kenya, and it has had its... me and Rochelle didn't have to top and tail it, so it has been processed in that way. It's been creamed and refrigerated. I think this is the home-cooked meal. oh it's home cooked but not homemade the interesting thing for me is is that i haven't actually touched anything so the salad has been tipped out i haven't you know rinsed it of any grit or earth haven't put it in water i haven't picked it out i haven't spun it it's just come out of a packet By 1994, two of Britain's major supermarkets had upped the cheap food ante, slashing prices and launching value brands as they competed for market share. So the supermarket giants deny there's a price war, there's clearly intense competitive pressure. There were even TV shows dedicated to cooking with cheap ingredients. Sound Britain? Is that Sound Britain? Sound Cotton? Sound Britain? What's she called? Sound Britain? So? Ready, steady, cook. Launched in 1994, the show saw TV chefs help contestants create meals for the studio audience to vote on from a price-limited bag of ingredients. It was a runaway smash and ran for an incredible 15 years. What are your first thoughts over here please Brian? Well, I'm quite lucky because it strikes me as being a fairly classical dish. Stuffed chicken breast with bacon and mushrooms. I've sent Ready Steady Cook regular Brian Turner to re-enact the show in the Robshaw's kitchen. They'll be competing to cook a delicious two course meal with ingredients costing just See what it is? It's sort of bananas surrounded by pineapples with a kind of cream sauce thing, but I don't like the look of that. Well, they like the look of it. They love it. They think it looks great. Hello, how are you? Thank you. Mr Rochelle. It's been a while. I've been sick. It's great to see you. Right, you'd better come in then. Let me put that there for you. I'm glad you're coming in. And then let me shake your hand and say hello, how are you? It's great to meet you. You too, how's it going? How do you do? It's a budget bag is this. It all came together for less than I'm interested to see the mince beef which is Despite concerns around its safety, beef was still very much on the menu. And with prices this low, who could blame us? Well, I'm thinking this is kind of just asking me to make a chicken curry, isn't it? Like a crispy vegetable side dish. Right. I think we should give it at least half an hour. OK. Ready, steady, cut. Oh, off you go! It's nerve-wracking, isn't it? I'm a nice bitch! Let's see how it works. The two pandas are kind of models. Now remember, you can always put some more in if it's not enough, but you can't take it out. Can't take it out. Too easily. I'm going to taste this. That sauce is a bit, it is a bit vinegary. You could put a little hint of sugar in there if you want, if it is too vinegary. Take the edge off the vinegar. I'm not... Don't know. It's a possibility. It's a possibility, okay. Instead of sugar, if I put a bit of sliced banana in there, would that work? Perfect. Right. It's really pulling confidence now isn't it? I know, I know, it's just putting me off a bit. Are you happy with that? I'm happy that I'm going to be with it, yeah. The curry looks very appetising. Made a kind of arctic roll, a homemade arctic roll. Homemade arctic roll? The kids, like the Ready Steady Cook audience, will vote on the best meal without tasting. So this is your mum's. Okay. It is a bit meatball-ish. Some fried onion in there as well. What are you doing with a bit of salt in there? Right, let's see what your dad did, shall we? I've called it Chicken Maryland Bon Marché. And I call that because Chicken Maryland, I think they put bananas in with the chicken, is that right? They do, they do. There's a few bananas in it. And it's called bon marché, which is French for cheap, because they were value ingredients. Did you make any dessert? Mm-hmm. Rice is a little bit claggy, is that? And the dessert is some Swiss roll with some lemon juice soaked into it and on top we've got some yoghurt and it's gone into the freezer and it's frozen to make a lovely arctic dessert. So it's just yoghurt on cake? Right now then, come and stand by me, you two. Are you ready? So, ready steady cook, let's see who's the winner. Oh, it's a draw, what is it? So that gives me the wonderful opportunity to declare the winner, your mum. Sorry Brandon, I hope it wasn't a sympathy vote. It is quite amazing when you look at it, the amount of stuff on the table for and so much stuff left over there as well. That's each. Yeah. But, like Brandon, some were starting to recognise that an abundance of ever-cheaper food came at a cost. In 1995, the first Brit died from V-CJD, the human equivalent of mad cow disease. While the government had taken firm steps to eradicate BSE in cattle, they were still denying that eating beef posed a risk to humans. Others were not so sure. If the human disease, CJD, in most cases... If they don't come from cattle, where do they come from? God's sake, it puts you off a bit, doesn't it? You wouldn't feel happy giving Fred a load of beef knowing that there is not... how safe that beef is. How would you possibly feel safe giving it to him? I don't like it. I don't like those farming methods. The fact is, we know that the food chain is violated. at various points. The central dilemma is that people want very cheap food, and there's no way to produce that cheap food that doesn't involve the intensification of those animals and birds. When you do that, you're getting into circumstances where diseases can spread very rapidly. It's 1996, and I'm sending the Robshaws on a road trip. This was the year the government finally acknowledged that British beef may pose a health risk to humans. The government has admitted there could be a connection between BSE and its human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The lead story in the Daily Mirror saying that, you know, it's official, as they put it, that mad cow disease can kill you. Anyone who caught the new CJD did so by eating contaminated beef. The disease affects cows'brains. I can do maths? Yeah. I can do maths. I can do maths. Yes, it is. What do they do in their mondays? Oh, I'm just expressing. Are you about to... No, I don't know. Perhaps unsurprisingly, sales of British Beasts plummeted by 90% to an all-time low. Right. If you're thinking about it like now, like you just heard that news, British Beasts seem sweet. Yes. But in the 90s, would it be actually now? I would not want it to fail. I would not want it to fail. I would not want it to fail. One consequence of the scare was a boom in sales of organic food and veg, which increased 20-30% every year of the 1990s. The Riverford is one of the biggest organic farms in the country. Its 800 acres are almost entirely made over to the production of organic vegetables. It's become a business with a million pound turnover and 2,000 customers, as people's demand for naturally grown products has increased. Do you think you'll benefit today? Probably not today, no. The Robshaws are getting a tour of the farm from owner Guy Watson. There was a kind of innate... desire for people to know more about where their food came from and who grew it and a sort of growing suspicion of the food industry, food processing, additives in the food. Yeah, you know, abuse of animals, the sort of thing that led to BSE, all associated with what I would call the abuses of our food system. I mean, feeding a cow, a herbivorous animal, ground up bits of sheep or beef, intuitively you just know that that's wrong. Spurred on by food scares, Guy launched one of the early doorstep organic veggie box schemes. Okay, so we'll jump out and look at some lettuces. Great. So that's a cos lettuce. That is fantastic, isn't it? Look at this, do they? Really beautiful. They just don't look as kind of full and open and glowing as that. I don't think I've ever seen anything. Oh, don't overdo it. It's a lettuce. The outer leaves are the most nutritious, where it's green. Really got flavour. It makes me feel like I've never properly tasted a lettuce before. So we cut them this morning and they'd be packed today, delivered the day after. This is a handsome crop of leeks, I say it myself. Oh yeah, very good, give him a job. Nice one. That's perfect, Brid. We take off the leaf, strip off a couple of howder leaves. Ready to go. So, these are our tomatoes, cherry tomatoes. I've never had such a nice tomato. Oh my God. You could just sort of rub it all over yourself. It is, if you're that way inclined. Between 1993 and 2000, the number of vegetarians in the country doubled. Just all the vegetables were just so much different to what I'm used to. Oh my God, it's amazing. I want to live there. I want to be there. I want to work there. When you taste a lettuce in the field or you look at a leek, it just makes you think, why on earth are we eating processed food? Subtitles by the Amara.org community It's a new day, but while 1997 saw the birth of a new era, it also sounded the death knell for the family breakfast. Since the start of the experiment, the Robshaws have sat down together to eat each morning. Be that bread and dripping in the early 50s, breakfast cereals in the 60s, or healthy grapefruit in the 1980s. But in the 90s, manufacturers replaced the sit-down breakfast with products that could be eaten on the go. Wheat, whole grain, oats and fruit. Today over 40% of us grab breakfast on the way to work. This wasn't the only meal where quick and easy food was in demand. By the end of the 90s, 30% of our spending on food and drink was outside the home. Rochelle and her colleague are investigating the latest fast food import. Now available in any supermarket, the idea of eating raw fish would have been totally alien at the start of the experiment. And now you finally get it. It's a motivate, broad, that is really, I don't know what I think of that. It's like going from one extreme to the other. Sushi first surfaced as a canapé at city lunches in the early 80s, reflecting Britain's growing business links with Japan. A decade later, it had transferred to the high street. In Japan there are two and a half thousand of these, and I'm constantly amazed that nobody's really done it on a big scale before. Back at home, Brandon's cooking dinner, and I sent wine writer Malcolm Gluckround to help with his 90s wine choice. Hello! Hello! You must be... I'm Brandon! I'm Brandon. Welcome to my... Hello! Welcome to my... Do you know what I've read your column in? No, no. It's a hat! It's a hat! Gluck helped 90s consumers make sense of the dizzying variety of wine now available in supermarkets, with selections three times bigger than they had been in the 1980s. In that decade, we stopped in the UK being... the beer islands right yeah we became for the first time a wine island in the sense that white wine became the number one drink that most people 70 percent of us were taking home and drinking regularly this is the 100 chardonnay oh yes oh christ is a zinger he's vibrant we're going to get some frying action going and so suddenly in the in the 90s it all came together supermarkets were actually staffed by mostly female wine buyers who were tremendously knowledgeable and enthusiastic and open to all sorts of ideas. Best of all, those wines from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Cameroon, South America, they went, all of the new cuisines that we were experimenting with, these wines were just perfect for Spudging. Right on cue, they're cooking up a 90s classic, Thai green chicken curry. Thai chicken curry. Yeah, I like it. You like it. Everyone likes it. They eat it in restaurants. But how many people do it at home? It is so simple. With exotic ingredients available in many supermarkets, you could now cook your way around the world with ease. Thai curry was very easy to do, actually. It was very simple. It was slightly cheaty because it did involve a jar of Thai green curry paste. This is a very different dish from what I... Cooked. Well, so when first we started going out, the first time I invited her around for dinner. Oh, I see. So I cooked her tofu in Guinness, which was... What are you... You're kidding. This would have been better. I see that with hindsight now. Perhaps he was drunk. Oh, hi. Have a good day at the office, dear. And I had a visitor today. He told me all about wine. We did a little tasting. Just have a little swoosh around and then sniff it. You swirl it, oh I can swirl it and smell it already. You can smell it already can't you? Yeah, Rochelle and I drank a lot of wine back in the 90s. We sometimes thought that we were drinking too much, but it's interesting and reassuring to learn that everybody was at it. Yeah, the box cutlery, Charles and I on the table, and off we go. I do feel that Brandon is getting much closer to his contemporary role in the kitchen. He's happy to be there. I tell you what, that's really nice. Really nice, yeah. I think this is the best meal you could. Probably it was a better choice than the tofu and Guinness. Although, well I haven't said that, you know, the tofu and Guinness. went down quite well in 95. It's really simple. It's really kind of cheaty. I don't know if anybody could do it. But you did it. You did it. You unscrewed the bottle. I did. I did. Yeah. Oh, what is that? It looks like angry. If it isn't mangled, I'm going to kill myself. After eight years of convenience, food and eating out, the Robshaws are about to rediscover the joy of cooking from scratch. Oh, I know what it is, I know what it is, I know what it is. Pasta machine! Pasta machine, pasta machine, pasta machine. In the early years of the experiment, Rochelle prepared every meal from basic ingredients. Chopping vegetables, whisking, creaming and stirring each meal by hand. As the decades moved on, new innovations in food technology made cooking easier. In the 70s, as encouraged by Delia Smith's How to Cheat at Cooking, Rochelle prepared an entire dinner party using tins and packets. While the arrival of the microwave in the 80s made cooking dinner as easy as pressing a button. Here we go, look, Delia's How to Cook, book one. So, we're looking at classic fresh tomato sauce. Nice. In 1998, Delia's back with another book, riding the crest of an emerging wave. This time, she wanted to teach people how to cook again. If you don't want to cook, you don't have to cook because you can buy ready meals, ready prepared vegetables and salads. But I think we might be in danger of losing something. And that's something very precious. A reverence for food in its simple form and all the joy and pleasure it can bring. Good night, team. Who's going first? Beautiful. This is the first time in a long time that we're actually touching food again, being encouraged by TV cooks. Is it just me that finds it weird how just like egg and flour makes like... It is weird. It's completely different. I don't understand it. Oh, this is getting silky. Is it getting silky? It's not silky but it's getting silky. That makes a bit of a mess, doesn't it? Well, it's all about getting your hands dirty. Delia's cookbook was a publishing sensation, selling a million copies. Her classic tomato sauce needs to simmer for an hour and a half, leaving plenty of time to perfect their pasta-making technique. How many? Starting to... It's an awfully long time, 42 times! We'll have to repeat this whole process for the other bit. 84 times, rolling. More than that? Yeah, at least, because that's not even half the dough. Can you see yourself doing this on a sort of daily basis? It would be nice if you were like wanting to have like a party or something and you wanted to make pasta, you could be like, I made this myself. Yeah. With convenience food freeing households from the need to cook from scratch every day, cooking had become a leisure activity, reserved for the weekend or special occasions. Oh, that's wonderful! Hang it up on the tree! Hang it up on the tree, baby! What are you going to call it? You have to call pasta a name, don't you? Do you? That looks a bit like a doily, doesn't it? A doily teller. That is gorgeous. Nice, hang it up on the tree. It's really good isn't it? Yeah. That looks good. That looks like your shop. That's the ultimate praise isn't it? It looks like it's from a shop. Next time you make this, you get them all one length. How can I manage this? Thank you. Towards the end of the night, you've got this completely different style. It's sort of homely, rustic food. The emphasis is more on quality ingredients than fussy preparation. Really nice. I think it's the best pasta I've ever had. I think this is a really nice way to cook with everybody pitching in and all fresh ingredients. It was just like nice fresh pasta. And I guess it was like doubly nice because we made it. It's the final year of the millennium, and after six weeks of eating in the past, the Robshaws have reached the last day of their time-travelling experiment. As Britain's countdown to the millennium continues, final preparations are now being made for a night of unprecedented partying. The Robshaws are getting ready for a celebration of their own, guided by the very latest TV chef. I like the way he uses these really sort of active, energetic sort of verbs. Smash up the chilli, he says. Rip the steaks in half. It's a bit violent, isn't it? Jamie Oliver couldn't have been more different to Delia, but he joined her in encouraging us to rediscover the joy of home cooking. Just squeeze that in there. just mush it up in your hands and again the first thing we're going to do is get a big handful and rub it all over the meat so straight away the skin's going to be tasty, lovely jubbly chuck it all in, just chuck it in, bish bosh, in they go rip em, tear em, chuck em in, shove em in Polly and I are invited to the party ready to toast the end of the experiment We did an experiment to talk about food and it's ended up talking about all sorts of other things. Well I think that's what I'd hoped the experiment would do. Food can be a sort of lens on a whole set of other aspects of social life. Hi, good to see you. Haven't seen you for ages. Come in. Let me see you. I apologise. I'll tell you what, you could snap each one of those in half. Would that be really helpful? Yeah. So how was the 90s for you this time around? So informal. The way that I'm doing a good deal of the cooking now, which didn't happen at all in the 50s, the whole layout of the house has changed to make it sort of more open plan and sort of reflecting the way we live, I suppose. When the experiment started, I actually did want to get back into the kitchen because it was a place I haven't ever really sort of dominated. That domination will never come to pass. So now the space is actually open for everybody. I actually feel better now I've realised that and accepted that. In the 50s you were thinking about food a lot in your 50s because you were in a food experiment. Because we were bloody starving. But in the 50s food wasn't fun was it for most people and then it's become a recreation. That's right. It's time to raise a celebratory glass to the conclusion of the Robshaws 50 year journey. To the 90s and the end of everything. And now with fewer than three minutes to go before the start of the new millennium. In all parts of these islands people are waiting in their own ways. Here outside Cardiff City Hall, Belfast and in Birmingham Centenary Square. We're watching as the last year of the last century of the old millennium slouches off stage to make way for the youthful entry of the new. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Well it is now 2000 today, and to mark the birth of the new century, they've got fire on the Thames fireworks all over the country. I have learned that as time has gone on you need to become less of something that you have to eat and more pleasure. During these past 50 years of time travel I think I am more willing to try new things now. I think that's a good life skill to have. I definitely have enjoyed my time travelling experience. I'll probably miss the most the excitement about new things coming in. I think the experiment as a whole has made me realise how important it is to eat together as a family, what fun it can be and how good that is for the family down there. I've realised we just don't sit still enough to really think about what it is we are eating. I think that's the most and where it comes from and how it's grown. I even sort of think what we've got, we are lucky to have. Just by changing the layout of a family's kitchen, by changing some of the things in their larder and the way they eat, you can change their whole experience of the world. You can change their whole life experience. Food is that central to who we are and what we do. Next week, I'll be giving the Robshaws a sneak preview of what the future might look like. The more fat there is in it, the more you're going to have to pay. I am kind of repulsed.