1940s

The Robshaw family are experienced time travellers, but this time they are going further back than they have ever been before - to the turn of the 20th century, to discover how the food we ate and the way we ate it helped shape the modern family. An ordinary house in south London is their time machine, transporting them through five decades and two world wars. Guided by presenters Giles Coren and social historian Polly Russell, they trace the incredible changes to Britain's diet and the extraordinary social transformation they reveal.

In their final decade of time travel, the Robshaws enter the 1940s and experience a decade overshadowed by war and entirely fuelled by rations. In their second world war of the experiment, the Robshaws get used to a diet of duty and determination. Gone are the treats of the 20s and 30s and the Edwardian excess is a distant memory. Now it is powdered egg, nettles on toast and imitation brawn at the dining room table, and they are even one family member down as Fred is evacuated to the countryside.

But the war brings them together too as they share a woolton pie in their very own Anderson shelter, the girls go dancing with Debbie and some GIs, and the whole family start to recognise the power of the family meal to bring them together in the good and bad times.