Started in 1871, Maison Bertaux still survives in its original premises.  Such is the devotion to this wonderful pastisserie that one ex-Soho resident has been going there for over 60 years - even though he moved out of London 25 years ago.

Everyone has a memory of their school dinner - and it's not always about the dreaded tapioca pudding! There are some people who actually liked them.

"Scholarly, playful, idiosyncratic and witty, Aldo Buzzi's The Perfect Egg is an excursion into the food that has obsessed, provoked and intrigued the author through his life."

Originally from the north of China, hand-made noodles can be found on street corners across the whole country.  Watch the awesome skill of this noodle-puller as he makes two of the most popular types, Lamian (pulled noodles) and Daoxiao Mian (knife-cut noodles).

Willie Fowler's Countryman's Cooking was written for men.

W.M.W. Fowler joined Bomber Command in WW2, flew Lancasters, was shot down by the Germans and ended up in Stalag Luft 3.  When he returned to Cumbria after his release in 1945,  he took to farming mink, then daffodils, while rediscovering the delights of hunting, shooting and fishing, not to mention cooking, eating and womanising.  We have three extracts read by Rupert Baker to whet the appetite...

Every morning in Xiamen in China, you find people selling breakfast foods from barrows to people on their way to work. The project was set up by the government about 8 years ago to provide employment for the jobless and to ensure that everyone could have a good breakfast.

A man with a dark passion. At Phil Neal's Theobroma Cacao in London's Turnham Green can be found some of the best chocolate in town. His ambition is to change people's habits, to get them to understand what great chocolate tastes like and eventually to open the best chocolate lounge in the country. He explains both his passion and his dreams.

Peter Boizot, MBE, is a Soho legend.  In 1965 he introduced the pizza to Londoners when he imported an Italian oven into the first ever Pizza Express in Wardour Street.  The popularity of the jazz club below his Dean Street pizzeria lead to the founding of the Soho Jazz Festival.  He fought the very successful Save Piccadilly campaign, was a founder member of the Soho Society and the Soho Restaurateurs Association and supported in no small measure Soho Housing Association.

We interviewed him about those pioneering days at his home in Peterborough.

Xi'an, long the capital of China from the time of Qin Shihuangdi, the first emperor, is not only famous for its history, but also for its dumplings;  one restaurant in particular offering some 120 varieties.

The Chinese are great 'snackers'.  Throughout China, in the evenings in particular, street markets offer a huge range of foods.  These snacks from a night market in Beijing prove once again that, to the Chinese, anything is a potential food...