1990s Back in Time for Dinner

Meet the Robshaws...

Brandon, Rochelle, Miranda, Roz and Fred.

Let's go!

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.

That is just amazing. Look at them!

Britain has gone from meagre rations

to ready meals at the touch of a button in just 50 years.

Blub, blub, blub, blub, blub.

But how has this changed our health...

We've got a pull-out larder!

..our homes and our family dynamics?

Can't do it any more. 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.

Whoa!

-I think that is enough sugar now.

-No, I haven't put hardly any on!

Starting in 1950, their own home will be their time machine...

Oh, my goodness!

This carpet hurts my eyes. Who designed that?

Somebody who was colour-blind.

..fast-forwarding them through a new year every day,

as they experience first-hand

the culinary fads, fashions and gadgets of each age.

GADGET WHIRS

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'd never do it again.

This week, the Robshaws enter the '90s,

a decade of cheap and plentiful food...

There's all different varieties of cheese. It's a wall of cheese.

The Great Wall of Cheese. It's probably visible from space.

..with the nasty aftertaste.

-Is that beef we're eating?

-Yeah. Bit of a gamble, isn't it?

It's the final stage of our time-travelling experiment

and to set the scene for 1990,

we've transformed the Robshaws' brash '80s house

into a vision of calm tranquillity,

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 has 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.

-Really ramming home the message about 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.

Let's 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 meals.

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, it disappears.

-Everything's integrated.

-Yeah, the appliances have all gone.

Whereas, before, 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 something to...

The chance of someone 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 are 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 survey."

It's quite different from the previous decades,

where they were 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

and the ERM crisis of 1992 saw interest rates soar to 15%.

The subsequent property crash

meant many families had to tighten their belts.

And 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. #

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, 1990.

-The beginning, yeah, 24 years ago.

-It's like a long...

-That is a long time.

-..long time ago.

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 you.

And I can remember the birth of these lovely children.

-But I can't remember much about the food.

-Fish.

I've been longing for fish.

But I'd like to grow gills by the end of the '90s!

It's the last time in the experiment

that the Robshaws will see their house transformed.

Oh...!

Oooh.

Ah, this is really nice.

That's inviting you to sit down, isn't it?

I think it's absolutely lovely to have a big family space like this.

-Oh!

-What?

Pop-Tarts.

Oh, my God!

How about that, look?

Pop-Tarts! Got Pop-Tarts!

Oh, my God.

-Mum, look!

-Look! We've got a pull-out larder!

See, before, right, you'd open the cupboard

and there'd be, I don't know, like, five items in there.

Now, there's 500.

That's a lovely fridge. And it's got wine in it, as well.

It's the drinking decade, isn't it, really?

That's why people couldn't be bothered to cook,

because they were too drunk.

Was it the drinking decade?

I think a lot of people took to drinking, including myself.

-We used to drink a lot in the '90s, didn't we?

-We did.

-And we didn't really think it was very bad for us, did we?

-No. No.

In fact, we used to sort of, like, think it was rather good for us.

-We thought it was quite healthy, didn't we?

-Yeah, we did!

-What?

So, it looks as if we're ready for a bit of a booze-up, doesn'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.

-Bye, Rochelle.

-Bye, Brandon.

But throughout the experiment, he's gone out to work,

while Rochelle has been in sole charge of the kitchen.

Brandon'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 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 OK, then.

So, in the National Food Survey,

there's some sort of braising steak

and beefburgers.

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.

I don't think an ordinary family would have had steak for supper,

you know, 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, my God, what is that?

-Oh, goodness me.

-That's like a feature wall, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-Look at this!

-Look at that telly!

-Oh...!

Look at the size of it!

Look at this stupid board game called Supermarket.

-Supermarket Sweep, that is.

-Oh, that is a fantastic game.

You know, supermarkets were obviously big enough

-for trolleys to be wheeled around at high speed.

-Yeah.

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.

-Oh...!

-What you got?

Ah! It's not a normal Nintendo. It's a Super Nintendo.

Now you can get really fat sitting on the sofa.

Yeah, while eating...

..Pop-Tarts for the whole of the decade.

The Robshaws immediately embrace a quintessential '90s pastime.

It's the first MasterChef!

It's the British Grand Prix for amateur chefs.

I didn't know it had been going this long.

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 2½ hours.

First course I'm starting with

filo pastries of goat's cheese with a salad.

-I'd forgotten about the filo parcel.

-It's all coming back.

Very, very well put together.

Very. Extremely well. 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?

-Yes, that's true.

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.

Oh, yeah, here's the onions. How many onions?

Brandon is up for the challenge and I've come to give him a hand.

This is a really seriously complex recipe.

-God, you've got to de-vein the spinach.

-Yeah, yeah.

Well, that doesn't... Where is the spinach?

The nutmeg comes in at the end. The spinach is...

It's not like de-veining a leg of lamb!

I think I'm going to get out of the kitchen.

God, there's just an awful lot of preparation here, isn't it?

An urgent enquiry 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,

it's 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 beefburger,

although his four-year-old daughter, Cordelia, was less enthusiastic.

Right, it goes... It's hot! It's too hot!

Why did you go like that?

Because he's giving his kid that burger.

I mean, that's really shocking at the time.

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.

-Let's 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 making beef?

I'm not sure if they're cooking beef.

I think they might be cooking beef today.

Oh! Maybe it's an experiment.

-Is that beef we're eating?

-Yeah.

This is fillet of beef.

I've just been watching about the beef scandal, mad cow disease.

-Oh, my God.

-That's why it was cheap! That's why it was cheap!

That's why we could afford it. So, it's a bit of a gamble, isn't it?

It's fine, because John Gummer

-fed a beefburger to his child, so it's OK.

-Right.

Yeah, actually, when mad cow disease came along,

I went vegetarian for about a month.

-For a month?

-Yeah, and then I had a burger.

That is funny, because I actually went vegetarian for about five years.

-Really? Same idea.

-Yeah. 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 tian,

which will be layers of spinach, mushroom, tomato and beef.

That's quite a lot of work, isn't it?

And each one will be placed

on top of a little glistening pond of garlic.

More, more, more, more.

Yes!

Christ Almighty!

Good job I was standing back or I'd have lost my eyebrows.

It's a good job 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.

We'll just do this stock.

Here you are, Giles. Do you want 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 was hot, but it wasn't sweaty.

I've got to say, cut 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.

Erm...

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 clash of pots.

Moment of truth...

Not bad!

Who's skipping? Oh, because Roz...

No, she's not skipping.

-One, two, three, four, five. Is it...?

-Where's the other one?

No, well, we've only made five.

-Quick! Another plate. We can make one out of this.

-We've got this.

It's taken two hours to prepare a fancy version of meat and three veg.

Tell you what, see if you can identify what's in it.

-Is there mushrooms?

-Maybe.

Yes, in fact, there are.

But what's on the top?

-Well, beef, obviously.

-Good.

Now we're all going to get mad cow disease, though.

-Don't worry, we'll be all right.

-I think I've got it already.

What do you think, Fred? Are you a bit grumpy about your small portion?

Well, you're lucky you 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!

-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.

-Giles, good morning.

-Good morning.

-Come in.

-Come through.

-Yeah.

-Rochelle, hello.

-Hi.

Have you got a hangover from last night?

No, not at all. I'm fine, thank you very much.

-Finally managed the washing-up?

-Yes, I did.

-The bit they never show on MasterChef.

-Yeah, yeah.

-I always wondered who did it.

-Yeah, it turns out it was you.

-Yeah.

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 housewife from the National Food Survey,

-which is three pages of ingredients for 92 quid, because...

-Wow.

..you know, food - really, really cheap.

And by this time, in the whole experiment, at this point,

it's the lowest percentage of the household income that goes on food.

So, you'll just walk down these massive, brightly-lit aisles

and wow at the range of fizzy drinks you can buy, basically.

-Hoorah!

-Well, come on, then. Let's go!

-Wa-hey!

I've never driven one of these before.

-Get a few hundred people in here, couldn't you?

-It's a people carrier.

-What's that wire, Brandon?

-Don't distract me, darling.

Crunch, crunch, crunch...

Speeded 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.

-No, you want to go that way!

-Well, that's right, isn't it?

Yes. So, why is your indicator pointing left?

It's all right, we're going.

Hand-brake off...

Meeeoooow!

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.

But 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 sort of like 20 meters long,

is all different varieties of cheese. But even just the cheddar,

-it is a wall of cheese.

-The Great 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. They wanted Cos 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 which sells lettuces.

-It is too big.

-It's all water.

-I know. I know, it's amazing.

-Incredible. It's just water.

-It's a lot, isn't it?

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 a supermarket

and restrain yourself from grabbing things

and putting them on the trolley.

I'm starting to feel we've embarked on a marathon.

Well, I feel like I've been sort of, erm...

round the world.

Now, I'm quite fussy about packing.

-So, shall I go down the end and pack?

-Yeah.

I'll 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 fertilizers, 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

that we've been able to produce it and that they have plenty.

Meanwhile, increasingly mechanized 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.

Well, my own memories of the '90s were actually feeling pleased

at seeing all these new ingredients that were appearing in supermarkets.

You could get it 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.

Showing 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, we'll have to...

If we don't eat it soon, we'll have to just chuck it out.

You are going to end up eating more, simply by the fact that it is here.

It's 1992.

And while the nation speculates about

Fergie's French holiday antics...

TV: 'The Duchess topless and Mr Bryan apparently kissing her foot.'

..the Robshaws are enjoying a French affair of their own...

All right, these are nicely warm.

..a continental breakfast.

Cafetiere. 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.

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 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 talking about using this?

That doesn't look exactly sort of very cutting edge, does it?

-Fred? Do you want to come and do some juicing for us?

-No!

Just come and do it, would you?

Look, you see that?

Oh, that's quite good, actually. Look, 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.

Bet 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?

You don't want to be late, Roz.

I'm not going to be late!

-You know what the French say?

-No.

They say, "Il ne faut pas etre en retard."

It's very important.

-What does that mean?

-It means, you mustn't be late.

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.'

KNOCKING ON DOOR

-Morning.

-I have a delivery from Giles.

-Oh, what we got?

I wonder what I 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...

Seems right.

Is that right?

I don't like the way that's sticking out. Is that supposed to do that?

Rochelle returns to her worst kitchen nightmare.

So...

-..you've done it.

-I've done it. What do you think?

-You know what it is, Brandon?

-Yeah?

-It's since you've been in the kitchen...

-Yeah?

-..all my sort of lady things...

-Yeah.

-It does look more masculine now.

-..feminine things.

-All my grassy bits...

-Yeah, yeah, yeah.

-..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.

-And where's the proper chef?

-Me!

Oh, yeah, sorry...

Rochelle's not very pleased about it because she can't see the point.

And I think we had a bit of a disagreement about the GRUNDTAL.

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...

-Oh, gosh. Wow!

But over the '90s, restaurants became increasingly informal,

kick-started, in part, by establishments like The Eagle,

the country's first gastro-pub.

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 kind of informal spirit of it

that just seems really '90s, doesn't it? I mean, it 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 him

and say, "Have you booked a table?"

and, you know, "Would you like an aperitif?"

They don't really want any of that.

That menu, that is 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.

Yes, please.

-That's the chicken.

-Thank you.

-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's really, really fresh and it's really herby.

I would 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!

-To Giles!

And to Michael for inventing the gastro-pub.

It set out the template

for what this kind of establishment was going to be like.

The...

You know, the stripped, scrubbed surfaces, the lack of carpet,

the lack of curtains.

The casual, informal atmosphere.

Those are innovations that... They've really stood the test of time.

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.

Be careful.

Oh, my God, they're burning!

Oh, Mum and Dad!

Oh, it's... They're burnt!

Only we could burn fish and chips!

'93.

It's 1993 and the Robshaws are getting their hands

on the hot new taste sensation that British kids were clamouring for.

What is it?

Pop-Tarts!

They used to come with a warning, didn't they?

Because, like, 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."

# Kellogg's Pop-Tarts

# 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.

They've got icing and sprinkles all over them.

They're really horrible.

Right, I'll just have a bit of coffee, then I'll go.

Well, look, you 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.

-Have a delve in there.

-OK.

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.

In the '50s, I wouldn't have known about rocket, unless I grew it.

Yeah, exactly.

These sort of cushioned bags

remove the oxygen and put in additional carbon dioxide

and that adds life to these products of about sort of 50%.

So, they're really, really convenient

and they're not going to go off quickly.

So, the cherry tomato and then mangetout...

Mangetout.

You know, 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.

Ready-made sauces emphasised authentic ingredients

and suggested a home-made 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.'

# I feel like 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, shall we put this all together and make a meal?

Yeah, great. Cheers! Here's to the '90s.

Mm... Brilliant.

-What are you cooking, anyway?

-Tortellini.

-Oh, that's posh.

-Fresh tortellini...

-Yeah.

-..with a pre-bagged salad.

It just got tipped out of a bag.

-Mm.

-So simple.

-Very simple.

-Yeah.

-Fantastic.

I mean, this is processed

but, somehow, it just feels better, doesn't it?

It feels more like real food.

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 the other meals that we've done.

You can cook for a family in ten minutes here, can't you?

Working longer hours, children out at school for longer

at after-school clubs...

Yeah, 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.

You wouldn't have had...

These things didn't exist, did they, 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?

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...

-No, no, OK.

..so it has been processed in that way.

It's been treated and refrigerated.

But I think this is a home-cooked meal.

Oh, it's home-cooked, but not home-made. That's what it is.

The interesting thing for me 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, I haven't put it in water,

haven't picked it out, haven't spun it, it's just come out of a packet.

'So, in the true spirit of the '90s,

'the meanest, tiddliest, most tight-fisted prices possible.

'Every little helps.'

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, though 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.

Fern Britton... Is that Fern Britton?

Fearne Cotton, Fern Britton.

What's she called? Fern Britton.

Hello, hello, hello and welcome to 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?

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 Robshaws' kitchen.

They'll be competing to cook a delicious two-course meal

with ingredients costing just £3.50.

Can't 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.

-They like the look of it.

-They love it.

-They think it looks great.

-Hello!

-Hello, how are you?

-I'm all right, thank you.

-You must be Rochelle.

-I am. And it's Brian, isn't it?

I've been sent to see you.

Great. You'd better come in, then.

Let me put that there for you.

I haven't had a look.

And then we'll shake hands and say, "Hello, how are you?"

-It's great to meet you.

-And you, too. How's it going?

-How do you do?

It's a budget bag, is this.

It all came together for less than £3.50.

I'm interested to see the minced beef, which is...

-How much does it say? I haven't got my glasses on.

-£1.81. Best Price.

Despite concerns around its safety,

beef was still very much on the menu.

And with prices this low, who could blame us?

Sir?

Well, I'm thinking this is kind of just asking me

to make a chicken curry, isn't it? With a crispy vegetable side dish.

-Right. I think we should give you at least half an hour.

-OK.

Ready,

steady,

cook!

Off you go!

-Nerve-racking, isn't it, eh?

-Paralysed with fear.

See if it works.

So, 200's a kind of moderate.

Now, remember you can always put some more in if there's not enough.

-But you can't take it out...

-You can't take it out.

-..too easily.

I'm going to taste this now...

That sauce is a bit... It is a bit vinegary.

You could put a little hint of sugar in there, if it is too vinegary.

-Do you think that would take the edge off the vinegar?

-I'm not...

-I'm saying it's a possibility.

-Possibility, OK.

Instead of sugar, if I put a bit of sliced banana in there,

-could that work?

-Perfect.

-Great.

He's clearly full of confidence now, isn't he?

I know. I know.

It's erm...putting me off a bit.

Are you happy with that?

As happy as I'm going to be with it, yeah.

I think the curry looks very appetising.

I made a kind of arctic roll, so a home-made arctic roll.

Oh, you've made an arctic roll!

-Fred.

-Fred? I can remember that. Sit yourself there.

The kids, like the Ready Steady Cook audience,

will vote on the best meal, without tasting.

So, this is your mum's.

OK?

It is a bit meatball-ish. There's some fried onion in there, as well.

Could have done with a bit of salt in there.

Right, let's see what your dad did, shall we?

I've called it Chicken Maryland Bon Marche.

And I called it that because Chicken Maryland, I think,

-they put bananas in with the chicken, is that right?

-They do, yes, they do.

You put bananas in it?

There's a few bananas in there and it's called Bon Marche,

which is French for cheap, because they were value ingredients.

Did you make any dessert?

Mm-hm.

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! One each!

So, that gives me the wonderful opportunity to declare the winner...

..your mum.

Sorry, Brandon.

After all that, hey?

Yeah, I'm completely chuffed. I hope it wasn't a sympathy vote, but...

But it is quite amazing, when you look at it,

the amount of stuff on the table for £7

and so much stuff left over there, as well.

And that's 70p each.

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 vCJD -

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, most cases...

..if they don't come from cattle, where do they come from?

For God's sake, 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?

Well, 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.

# When I'm not with you I lose my mind

# Give me a sign

# Hit me, baby, one more time. #

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.

Why is it called mad cow disease?

And we're going to die!

Well, because it's a disease that affects cows' brains.

-Does it make them go mad?

-Yeah.

100% mad?

Total mad. But there's...

-What do they do when they're mad?

-Oh, I don't know.

Perhaps they caper about or fall over, I don't know.

Perhaps, unsurprisingly, sales of British beef plummeted by 90%

to an all-time low.

But if you're thinking about it, like, now,

like, you've just heard that news, would it put you off eating meat?

-Yes.

-Like, say we're in the '90s,

would we actually now not want to eat meat now?

I would not want to eat meat, actually. I wouldn't want to eat it.

One consequence of the scare

was a boom in sales of organic fruit and veg,

which increased 20 to 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 £1,000,000 turnover

'and 2,000 customers, as people's demand for naturally-grown products

'has increased.'

Do you think you'll finish it 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 food.

-Yeah.

You know, abuse of animals, the sort of thing that led to BSE.

All associated with what I would call abuses of our food system.

I mean, feeding a cow, a herbivorous animal,

ground up bits of sheep and beef,

you know, intuitively, you just know that that's all wrong.

Spurred on by food scares,

Guy launched one of the early doorstep organic veggie box schemes.

-OK, so, we're going to jump out and look at some lettuces.

-Great.

-So, that's a Cos lettuce.

-That is fantastic, isn't it?

It's really, 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.

It's 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, though I say it myself.

So, you're doing...

Oh, yeah, very good! Give him a job!

Nice one.

That was perfect, Fred.

Take off the leaf.

Strip off a couple of outer 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.

You could, 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 was 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?

# Things can only get better

# Can only get, can only get

# They get on from me, you know?

# I know that things can only get better. #

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...

-That's enough, Fred.

-He's on his second bowl.

..or healthy grapefruit in the 1980s.

Oh, gosh...

But in the '90s, manufacturers replaced the sit-down breakfast

with products that could be eaten on the go.

"Whole-wheat, wholegrain, oats and fruit."

Well, I need to go!

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.

I hardly had any fish

and it's either been battered or fish fingered

and I've been wanting fish for, like, 50 years!

Now you can finally get it.

Loads of it, raw.

It's like that is really...

I don't know what I think of that.

It's gone from one extreme to the other.

Sushi first surfaced as a canape 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 2,500 of these and I'm constantly amazed

that nobody's really done it on a big scale before.

Just sit here for the whole time, watching it come round and round.

It'd be a whole hour lunch break.

-It kind of sends me into a trance.

-Yeah.

Back at home, Brandon's cooking dinner

and I've sent wine writer Malcolm Gluck round

to help with his '90s wine choice.

Hello.

Hello, you must be Brandon.

-I'm Brandon.

-Malcolm Gluck.

Oh, Malcolm Gluck! Do you know what, I've read your column many times.

-No, no.

-Yes, I have. Yes, I have.

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% of us,

were taking home and drinking regularly.

This is the 100% Chardonnay.

Oh...

Oh!

It's a zinger. It's vibrant.

We're going to get some frying action going.

And so, suddenly, in the '90s, it all came together.

The 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

came along, South America.

They went... All of the new cuisines that we were experimenting with,

these wines were just perfect for.

Right on cue, they're cooking up a '90s classic -

Thai green chicken curry.

Let's get some taste in this one.

-Thai chicken curry.

-Yeah, I 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.

The Thai curry was very easy to do, actually. It was very simple.

It was slightly cheating,

because it did involve a jar of Thai green curry paste.

This is a very different dish from what I cooked Rochelle

when first we started going out.

-The first time I invited her round for dinner...

-Oh, I see.

..I cooked her tofu in Guinness, which was er...

You're kidding?!

This would have been better. I see that with hindsight now.

Perhaps he was drunk.

-Oh, hi.

-Hi.

Did you have a good day at the office, dear?

And I had a visitor today and he told me all about wine.

-Did he?

-We did a little tasting.

Just have a little swoosh around and then sniff it.

You swirl it...

-I can swirl it and smell it already.

-You can smell it already, can't you?

Rochelle and I drank a lot of wine back in the '90s.

And we sometimes thought that we were drinking too much,

but it's interesting and reassuring, really,

to learn that everybody was at it.

Get out the posh cutlery.

Put the Chardonnay 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'll tell you what, that's really nice.

-Is it? Oh, good.

Really nice, yeah.

No, I think this is the best meal you've cooked.

Probably, it was a better choice than the tofu and Guinness.

Although, having said that, you know, the tofu and Guinness...

..went down quite well in '95.

It was really simple. It's kind of cheaty, anybody could do it, but...

-But you did it, Brandon.

-..nice, isn't it?

But I did it.

-You unscrewed the bottle!

-I did, I did and I poured it in.

-Yeah.

-Oh, what is that?

-It looks like a mangle.

-If it is a mangle, 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!

-It's a 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.

That's nice.

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.

-It's more like a nightie!

-Who's going first?

-I will.

Beautiful.

This is the first time for 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 makes something 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.

Makes a bit of a mess, doesn't it?

Yeah, 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.

Is it coming? It's starting.

That's an awfully long time. 42 times?

We have to repeat this whole process for the other bits.

So, that'll be 84 times rolling?

Yeah, at least.

Because that's not even half the dough.

Can you see yourself doing this on a sort of daily basis?

Yeah, 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.

Whoa!

Oh, that's wonderful. Hang it up on the tree.

Hang it on the tree, baby.

What are you going to call it? You have to call pasta a name.

That looks a bit like a doily, doesn't it? So, doilytella.

That is gorgeous.

Nice. Hang it up on the tree.

-It's really good, isn't it?

-Yeah.

That looks good. That looks, like, from a 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 '90s, you've got this completely different style.

It's sort of homely, rustic food,

where the emphasis is more on quality ingredients than fussy preparation.

Really nice. I think it's the best pasta I've ever had.

Blimey!

I think this is a really nice way to cook,

with everybody sort of pitching in and all fresh ingredients.

It's just nice, fresh pasta.

And I guess it was, like, doubly-nice because we made it.

Look at that. 1999.

Millennium Dome.

-What do you think of it?

-I still like it.

Whenever I drive past and see it, I think, wow.

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 the first thing I'm going to do

is get a big handful and rub it all over the meat.

So, straightaway, the skin's going to be tasty, lovely-jubbly.

Chuck it all in the pestle and mortar.

Just chuck it in, bish-bosh, in they go.

Rip them, tear them, chuck them in, shove them in.

Polly and I are invited to the party,

ready to toast the end of the experiment.

We set this up to talk about food,

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.

-Lovely to see you.

-Hello, Giles. Good to see you.

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?

It's so informal.

The way that I'm doing, you know, 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 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 hadn't ever sort of really 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're 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.

Cheers! Cheers, everybody!

'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.'

BIG BEN'S MIDNIGHT CHIMES BEGIN

Five, four, three, two, one!

Oooh!

'Well, it is now 2000 today.

'And to mark the birth of the new century,

'the river of fire on the Thames, fireworks all over the country.'

I have learnt that, as time has gone on,

food has become less of something that you have to eat

and more pleasure.

During these past, you know, 50 years of time travel,

I think I am more willing to try and eat 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

and what fun it can be and how good that is for the family dynamic.

I've realised we just don't sit still enough

to really think about what it is we are eating

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.