eyedropper.co.uk

Andrew Webb is a freelance food journalist and photographer who’s worked for Channel 4 and the BBC.  He combines a friendly nature and ‘gentleman amateur’ approach with an inquisitive mind and natural story telling ability, no matter what the medium.

His photographic background combined with his love of the written word and all things internet stand him in good stead in this multi-platform age.  He’s appeared on UKTV Food’s Market Kitchen and on the German TV show Galileo where he extolled the virtues of the Full English Breakfast.

In January ‘09 he started a new project for Channel 4’s Big British Food Fight season that saw him taking all ten prime cuts of a pig to top chefs around England in an example of nose to tail eating.

From April to November ‘08 Andrew Webb toured the country in search of great British grub. He was guided by the British public via an interactive map on the Channel 4 website.  After seven months, 11,500 miles, and hundreds of visits he finally completed his tour of Britain. The culmination was a ‘little black book’ of the nation’s favourite food places and that is still being added to today.

During his tour he witnessed pride, commitment, passion, tradition and innovation; saw just how fantastically diverse the ethnic and regional make up of this country is; and realised the UK is far more beautiful than we ever give it credit for.

He visited everything from Michelin starred restaurants, fish and chip shops, micro breweries, vineyards, jelly makers, molecular gastronomists, cafes, delis, pubs, farms and lochs. He met famous chefs, famous pigs, farmers, shopkeepers and producers.

However he also witnessed the lasting legacy of foot and mouth; saw crops destroyed by the bad summer of that year and saw shiny city-centre developments offering nothing but bland chain food that became wind-tunnelled ghost towns after dark.

The Big British Food Map was a unique project that tapped into the public knowledge. Armed with no more than a camera, a laptop and a modem this one-man road movie delivered a true portrait of foodie Britain. It is a culinary census that has yet to be bettered.