Researcher uses 1980s audio to map city food history
A researcher is looking into eating habits in Birmingham over the past 100 years by going through archived interviews covering everything from dripping sandwiches to curries.
Sophie Beckett, a public health researcher at the Birmingham Museums Trust, is using the trust’s collection of oral histories to learn about food in the city.
“I think it’s pretty common to think that history isn’t relevant anymore, but there’s lots that we can learn [from] the practices of our ancestors,” she said.
Ms Beckett is also digitising the interviews so people can listen to them online for free, and also plans to record new interviews with modern-day Brummies to add to the collection.
Ms Beckett is listening to more than 90 hours of interviews which were recorded in the 1980s and chart eating habits going back to the turn of the 20th Century.
These oral histories include interviews with inner-city restaurant workers, butchers and health inspectors.
The research project is a partnership between the trust and city council and the researcher hopes the findings could help to inform the council's public health policies.
“They knew lots about eating locally and eating frugally, and we can apply these practices to some of the challenges facing the UK today,” Ms Beckett told BBC Radio WM.
Chocolate concrete
The recordings suggest the range of cultures that had shaped Birmingham, with references to dishes such as spaghetti bolognese and moussaka.
Ms Beckett's project will run until May 2025 and she hopes to play the recordings in community groups and schools. They will also be available on the trust's website.
The researcher, who is from Bristol, said she was initially confused by some dishes and had to look up “chocolate concrete”, a shortbread that was a staple of Birmingham school canteens, when she first heard it in an interview.
She added she soon realised Brummies “can’t stop talking about it”.
Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: newsonline.westmidlands@bbc.co.uk
