My guest on The British Food History Podcast today is Mark Dawson, a food historian specialising in the food and social history of the early modern period, but also on the regional food of the Midlands. Today we are talking about the traditional food and drink of his home county of Derbyshire.
You may remember he was on last season talking about Derbyshire Oatcakes, well, since then he has written a fantastic book called Lumpy Tums: Derbyshire’s Food & Drink published by Amberley and out in the wild from the 15th April 2026.
We talk about oat-based foods like thar cakes, which were traditionally eaten on All Souls Day, thin pudding and savoury pudding, the origins of the Bakewell pudding and Derbyshire’s very high proportion of drinking establishments per head, amongst many other things. The British Food History Podcast is available on all apps, or, if you like, you can stream it via this Spotify embed:
Those listening to the secret podcast get more than a quarter of an hour of bonus material where we talk about Derbyshire cheeses, the return of small-scale breweries to the county, wakes cakes and Ashbourne gingerbread.
Lumpy Tums: Derbyshire’s Food & Drink by Mark Dawson and published by Amberley
Follow Mark on Instagram @lumpytums
Season 10 of the podcast is sponsored by Netherton Foundry, who make high-quality kitchen and outdoor cookware. Netherton Foundry ships to several countries outside of the UK, including the USA and Canada. Visit www.netherton-foundry.co.uk to find out more about their wonderful products – approved not just by me but by folk such as Tom Parker-Bowles, Diana Henry and Nigella Lawson.
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This episode was mixed and engineered by Thomas Ntinas of the Delicious Legacy podcast.
Things mentioned in today’s episode
County Recipes of Old England by Helen Edden (2008)
Good Things in England by Florence White (1932)
Tindall’s of Tideswell – purveyors of Thar Cakes
The English Alehouse by Peter Clarke (1983)
Knead to Know: A History of Baking by Neil Buttery (2024)
Ivan Day’s blog post about the Bakewell pudding
Vegetable Cookery by Martha Brotherton (1833): the page with the potato Bakewell pudding!
Previous pertinent blog posts
Previous pertinent podcast episodes
Derbyshire Oatcakes with Mark Dawson
Traditional Food of Lincolnshire with Rachel Green
Ormskirk Gingerbread with Anouska Lewis
Neil’s blogs and YouTube channel
The British Food History Channel
Neil’s books
Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper
Knead to Know: a History of Baking
Don’t forget, there will be postbag episodes in the future, so if you have any questions or queries about today’s episode, or indeed any episode, or have a question about the history of British food please email me at neil@britishfoodhistory.com, or leave a comment on the blog.
British Food: A History 