Tag Archives: Serve it Forth

19/11/2025 · 3:17 pm

Serve it Forth Presents: A Christmas Feast of the Uncanny, online & on 11 December

Hello everyone.

I thought you might be interested in getting tickets for this special Serve it Forth Christmas event on 11 December called A Christmas Feast of the Uncanny. Tickets are just £5 (plus Eventbrite booking fee) and the event runs from 7:00pm to 8:45pm.

If you can’t make the whole event, the evening will be recorded and shared soon after.

In case you didn’t know, but Sam Bilton, Alessandra Pino and me are all big horror fans, and Christmas is associated with spooky, ghostly tales. We would love to see you there.

Serve it Forth Food History Festival invites you to an evening exploring the eerie side of Yuletide food traditions.

Step beyond the cozy glow of twinkling holiday lights and into a Christmas world where the shadows tell their own tales. A Christmas Feast of the Uncanny is an immersive online event that explores the eerie, strange, and deliciously dark side of Yuletide traditions through the lens of food.

Join the Serve It Forth team at this live virtual gathering to discover:

  • Why ghost stories are so popular at Christmas as we explore the food references in some of the lesser-known ghoulish tales from Charles Dickens and his like.
  • The significance of otherworldly beings like elves, witches and monsters at this time of the year and their relationship to food.
  • The origins of traditional Christmas foods and the old customs that linked them to fortune-telling and other forms of the supernatural.

Book your ticket via Eventbrite: click here.

Visit the Serve it Forth website for more details: click here.

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11/10/2025 · 4:38 pm

Serve it Forth Food History Festival: 1 week to go!

Hello everyone – I do hope you are all having a great weekend.

This is just a super-short post just to remind you that the first Serve it Forth Food History Festival is just one week away – it’s online and on Saturday 18 October!

We are all very thankful to the fantastic Netherton Foundry and Steenbergs Spices for sponsoring the day.

If you want to get hold of a ticket, visit the Eventbrite page, but remember to use the offer code SERVE25 at the checkout to get 25% off the ticket price.

So, come and join my and my cohosts – Sam Bilton, Thomas Ntinas and Alessandra Pino for an educational and fun day with guests such as Tudor food expert and author Brigitte Webster and food writer, journalist and author Tom Parker Bowles. Check out the full Bill of Fare here.

If you didn’t catch it, here’s a podcast episode we made to let you know more about the day, but also to get to know us all a little better.

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06/09/2025 · 3:38 pm

BONUS PODCAST EPISODE: Serve it Forth Food History Festival Special!

Hello there everyone!

Here’s a quick special bonus episode of the podcast for you – the lowdown on the Serve it Forth Food History Festival 2025, sponsored by the excellent Netherton Foundry. It’s available on all podcast apps, but if you like, listen via this Spotify embed:

My fellow festival coordinators Sam Bilton, Thomas Ntinas and Alessandra Pino and I are here to tell you more about it: how the day will work, what the sessions will be like, the topics and the guests – including my guest Tom Parker Bowles.

We have a brief discussion about our own interests and how we all got into food history. We also talk about our biggest/most embarrassing disasters.

Most important headlines are: it’s online on 18 October. It’s £16, but there’s 25% off ticket price until September 14th. Don’t worry if you miss some, or even all of the day, we will be making every recording available to all ticket holders.

NB: If you want to get 25% off the ticket price after the early bird has finished, use the offer code SERVE25 at the Eventbrite checkout.

Serve it Forth website

The Serve it Forth Eventbrite page

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27/08/2025 · 10:04 am

Serve it Forth Food History Festival 18 October 2025

Tickets are now available for the inaugural Serve it Forth Food History Festival, sponsored by the excellent Netherton Foundry, on Saturday 18 October.

Tickets are available via Eventbrite. They are £16, but there is an early bird special of 25% off the ticket price until 14 September, so be quick!

The day is being sponsored by Netherton Foundry

I have teamed up with fellow food historians Sam Bilton, Thomas Ntinas and Alessandra Pino to bring you this new food history festival. It’s online – though in future years we hope to be able to do it as an in-person event – and it’s on 18 October 2025. One benefit of it being online of course is that anyone can come. If you cannot make the whole day, don’t worry all ticket holders will be sent links to recordings of each event.

Your hosts for the day (L to R): Sam Bilton, Alessandra Pino, Neil Buttery and Thomas Ntinas

We are all hosting a session, and I am kicking off the day in conversation with a very special guest, Tom Parker Bowles, about his love of traditional and classic British cooking and how we can keep it alive and relevant today. We’ll also be taking a peek at the food cooked and enjoyed by British Monarchs, from Queen Victoria to Charles III.

My guest will be none other than Tom Parker Bowles

Thomas Ntinas will be presenting A Life of Luxury: The famous chefs of the Ancient Greek world. Dr Alessandra Pino The River Remembers: A Journey Through London’s Lost Larder. Sam Bilton’s section is entitled Gourmand or Glutton? Feeding Falstaff.

There will also be food demos and short interviews in between sessions. The day begins at 10.30 am and finishes at 4.30 pm click this link to see a full breakdown of the day.

We’re all really excited about this event, and we would love it if you can join us for the first of (hopefully) many more Serve it Forth food history festivals in the future!

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