Elisabeth Luard is a much acclaimed food writer with a long list of books, memoirs and journal articles, and a former Trustee Director of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. In 2016 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Guild of Food Writers. Elizabeth started life as a natural history artist. Her interest in landscape and its influence on the cuisine of the area led to the writing of her first book, European Peasant Cookery.

Elizabeth Luard reads an extract from the Introduction to her first book, European Peasant Cookery. First published in 1984, it was republished in the UK in 2007 by Grub Street.

As a child, Roger Phillips discovered that by picking the mushrooms on his grandparents' farm and giving them to the man who collected the milk, the milkman would come back the next day with money earned from the sale of the mushrooms.

Squirrel Pie (and other stories) is the latest in a long list of highly acclaimed publications by artist, journalist and food writer, Elisabeth Luard. Subtitled Adventures in Food Across the Globe, this is indeed an exciting and entertaining journey through forests, over islands and rivers and into deserts, revealing how terrain influences the food we eat as she shares tales and dishes gathered on her travels.

The video series The Rich Tradition, based on Elisabeth Luard's book European Peasant Cookery, was broadcast in the early 1990s. It was directed by Carmelo Musca of CM Film Productions. In Revisiting "The Rich Tradition", Elisabeth Luard gives an updated introduction to the series.

After looking at the fundamentals of peasant cookery and traditions, Elisabeth Luard goes on to describe the cookery and traditions on the Scottish island of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, which was her home for many years.

For a number of years, Elisabeth Luard lived with her young family in Andalucia in Southern Spain.This second episode of "The Rich Tradition" series follows her as she revisited Andalucia, with its traditions of fiestas, dating back in many cases to before the beginning of the Christian Era and its cuisine based on local produce and influenced by the centuries of Moorish rule.

The Ruthines—also spelt Ruthenes—are an ethnic minority originally from the Ukraine who became stranded in north-east Czechoslovakia—in what is now Slovakia—at the time of the break up of the Soviet Union.

 For the whole of human history in Europe, the Mediterranean Sea has been a major source of food for the peoples round its shores. This remains as true today as ever, in spite of the threats of over-fishing and the introduction of alien species. In this episode, Elisabeth Luard visits Mediterranean ports in Italy and France.

 Provence in south-eastern France, where Elizabeth Luard also spent time with her young family is well known for it's local culture and traditions. The region is rightly proud of it's history, traditions, cuisine and wines.

The Netherlands is most famous for its windmills, tulips and Edam and Gouda cheeses, but there is much more to Dutch culture and cuisine as Elisabeth Luard discovers.

Elisabeth Luard travels further north to Sweden, where she finds out about the lives of those living in the forests and on small holdings before finding out about those famous elements of Nordic cuisine, the different ways of using fish and the famous smörgåsbord.

The Slovaks retain their tradition of the senior  matrons of the community educating the young girls through singing and play acting.Elisabeth Luard's time among the Slovaks starts with the ceremony, traditions and foods for welcoming a new baby into the community. She spends time watching a traditional puppet show in a basement theatre in town, before going back to the countryside for a village wedding.

The Black Forest in southern Germany, famous for its gateau and cuckoo clocks, is actually a land of small farmers and foresters. Like traditional rural communities everywhere, nothing is wasted.In this episode, Elisabeth Luard is shown how to make the regional onion tart, apple tart and also spätzle by both the traditional method and a more modern way.

Hungary is associated in people's minds with goulasch, though it is more properly called paprikas. Elisabeth Luard spends time with different ethnic groups, the Magyars—descendents of nomads who still practise their horsemanship—and the Swabians before spending time in Budapest. 

Elisabeth Luard spends time in Friuli among the Friulani, who have preserved their linguistic and cultural identity through centuries of war and invasion as the plateau has provided access to the wealth of the plains of northern Italy to the many forces who have invaded Italy throughout history.

Ireland is famous for its potatoes, which still form a staple part of the diet. Thanks to the potato. the population of Ireland multiplied rapidly in the early 19th Century, but then came the blight in the mid-century and millions died of starvation. Of those who survived, millions emigrated to the US, most of them sailing from Cork.

In this last episode of the broadcast series, Elisabeth follows the traditions and foods marking the end of Lent and the festivities of Easter in the Palóc village of Hollók in Northern Hungary.

As a bonus, Talking of Food is proud to present the pilot episode of The Rich Tradition, which has never been broadcast before. In the episode, entitled Home from the Sea, Elisabeth Luard explores the traditional foods and culture of Tangier in Morocco.