Back in Time for Dinner

Giles Coren and food historian Polly Russell guide a family as they spend a week eating the food of the 1950s. It's goodbye open-plan living and hello formal dining room as the family take on the food, and roles, of the period.

The family and their home are transported to the space-age 60s with a gleaming fitted kitchen and the arrival of a host of new tastes and flavours. Giles and Polly introduce them to the first spaghetti bolognese and Chinese restaurants.

The family and their home strut into the 70s. Mary Berry is on hand to help the family stock up their brand new chest freezer and mum is liberated from the kitchen and gets a job for the first time, discovering how convenience food was a lifesaver.

The family and their home are transported to the high tech 80s with a gadget-filled kitchen including a microwave the size of a small car. Outside the home, novelty comes with the arrival of the pre-packed sandwich and the rise of nouvelle cuisine.

The Robshaw family enter the 90s and initially delight in the vast quantities of food now available, but realise there are downsides to the previous decades' drive towards cheaper food. Giles and Polly introduce them to bagged salads and gastro pubs.

After six weeks of culinary time travel, the Robshaw family are thrown forward as presenter Giles Coren and food historian Polly Russell introduce them to some startling tastes of the future.