This year’s Borderlines Film Festival — the UK's largest rural film festival — offered a rarebit treat: two short films from the BBC archives that reframed local food through a 50 year lens, and documented the role of food in local culture and identity.
Back in the 1970's, Herefordshire filmmaker Andrew Snell, captured food producers, farmers, and the regional food traditions at risk of being lost across Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Commissioned by the BBC as part of A Taste of Britain, documentary series, the films were, even then, quietly radical. Andrew Snell set out to highlight the importance of regional foods and to celebrate what he describes as the “real celebrities” of rural communities — the farmers, fishermen and the artisan producers whose knowledge and livelihoods were under pressure from the rapid industrialisation of the food sector at the time.
Watching these documentaries, five decades later, is a vivid window back in time, full of nostalgic charm, but more than that - a little piece of social history brought back to life. The films featured fishing for lampreys on the Severn, poignant scenes of big salmon still migrating in sufficient numbers to be caught by fishermen wading with lave nets on the Severn Estuary, the revival of traditional Double Gloucester cheese - when there were just 68 Gloucester cattle remaining , asparagus growing in Evesham, and farmhouse cider-making. Herefordshire farmers speak with unmistakable pride about the eponymous Hereford cattle — a defining aspect of our region’s agricultural identity and heritage.
But more than processes of raising, growing and making, the audience was engaged by the individuals involved — and the time capsule of their thoughts and perspectives. So, the film festival audience wasn't just consuming a food documentary, we were observing local and regional culture of 50 years ago. Food culture is one of the most accessible expressions of 'culture', and arguably the original human culture. Long before anything was written down, knowledge had to be passed on about how to find food, then how to grow it, and always how to process and prepare it. Human groups have probably always defined themselves by their taste preferences and distinctive food rituals.
The films are full of characters: groups of seasoned cider-house locals, taking a break from their pints to hold court on camera with strong opinions and irreverent humour. But when they speak of “proper” Gloucester cheese, lamenting factory-made versions that, when toasted on the fire, “went black before they even shed a tear” there was sudden poetry in their words as well as humour.
These moments underline something essential: food is social glue. Whether in a cider house, at a market, or around a table, food and drink create spaces where people gather, debate, joke and belong. It offers a shared language in an increasingly fragmented world.
The screening in Hereford was followed by an engaged panel discussion with Andrew Snell the film maker together with local producers, including Vernon Amor of Wye Valley Brewery, cider maker and farmer Denis Gwatkin, and artisan cheesemaker Charles Martell who described how the documentary gave him a push onto his cheesemaking path. Their conversation echoed the films’ central idea: that food is not simply a product, but a relationship — between land, people, skill and time.
Panel discussions returned to the importance of place. Beer brewed with local hops. Cheese made from the milk of rare native cattle. Cider pressed from heritage apple and perry pear varieties only found locally. Creating foods with the character of their landscape.
The discussion did not shy away from harder truths. There was clear-eyed acknowledgment of environmental loss — polluted rivers, declining species, changing landscapes. For these producers, the health of the land is not separable from the food it yields. Care for one demands care for the other.
Looking back on these stories, filmed over 50 years ago, also raises the question for today's food movements: what stories should we be capturing today? The passion, dedication and quiet determination of current sustainble food producers — those connected through our own food alliance and beyond — are just as vital, and important. What should we take the time to notice, listen to and record now, that will have such value and charm for a future audience in 50 years?
Overall, the films and conversation, reminded me of one simple but powerful truth: food is culture. Not metaphorically, but literally. It is how we express place, how we connect with each other, and it requires knowledge passing through generations. And now, more than ever, a culture for good food, made and sourced with care for the environment, widely available for all to share in, is something we need to prioritise and nuture.