“Grate the Cheese & add to it one egg, & a teaspoonful of Mustard, & a little Butter,” advises Martha Lloyd, a close friend of Jane Austen, in her recipe for one of the author’s favourite meals, “Toasted Cheese”. “Send it up on a toast or in paper Trays.”

This recipe is part of the “household book” written between 1798 and 1830 by Lloyd, who lived with Austen, her sister Cassandra and their mother (also called Cassandra) for years. The four women lived together in a cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane wrote, revised and had published all of her novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.

Lloyd’s handwritten book, in all its blotched and crumbling glory, is set to be published in a colour facsimile for the first time, giving readers a new glimpse into Austen’s home life. Bodleian Library Publishing is releasing it in June, under the title Martha Lloyd’s Household Book.

The French schooner De Gallant docked in Falmouth harbour at the end of May, three months after leaving the port of Santa Marta in Colombia laden with tonnes of sustainably sourced coffee beans.

This wind-powered sail cargo of carbon-neutral coffee was worth the wait, according to Yallah Coffee, a single-origin coffee roastery only a few miles away in the Cornish port town.

Yallah’s special Colombian coffee grounds and beans are finding their way into coffee shops and restaurants across the country. Using a sailboat to import the beans into the UK made the first leg of their voyage almost entirely carbon neutral.

For Richard Blake, the owner of Yallah Coffee, the delivery was the culmination of almost five years developing the idea for a sustainably sourced coffee without the huge carbon footprint of most imported beans. 

A stall selling mushy peas and pies is celebrating 70 years of trading by selling peas at 1949 prices of 5p.

The Mushy Pea stall has been on Norwich market since it was first set up in 1949.

Third generation owner, Anita Adcock from Hellesdon, Norwich, described her food as “wholesome” but declined to reveal what went into her mushy peas.

She said the peas were traditionally served with mint sauce and should be eaten with a pie and not chips.

She has customers in their 90s who first came to the stall when it was run by her husband’s grandmother, she said

Ivan Tisdall-Downes, who runs the restaurant Native in London’s Borough Market, makes a squirrel ragu by slow cooking the meat from its hind legs. His wild boar supplier happens to help with grey squirrel culling, and sends the carcasses down to the restaurant.

He said that customers are increasingly interested in eating cruelty-free wild meat and minimising their carbon footprint, which makes squirrel a popular choice.

He told The Sunday Telegraph: “Squirrel is one of the most sustainable proteins you can cook really. It is almost exactly the same in taste as rabbit.

“It’s tasty, it’s not as gamey as rabbit, it’s nice white meat. It’s good to cook down slowly and make stews from and ragus for lasagne.

“It’s very good for you, it’s quite lean.

“There are 5 million gray squirrels and only about 150,000 red squirrels at the moment, a record low. Because there aren’t really any predators left for the gray squirrels the population is booming and they are taking over the red squirrel habitat.

“I think sustainable eating is becoming more popular now. More and more people are more conscious of their carbon footprint and the damaging additives that get put in their food. I grew up in South East London and hadn’t heard of wild food. Now wild food is everywhere.”

Kevin Tickle, who runs Michelin-starred restaurant The Forest Side in Cumbria, uses the fact he is in a red squirrel conservation area to his advantage.

He has had a “critter fritter”, a grey squirrel croquette, on his acclaimed tasting menu since the restaurant opened in 2016.

Judges for the largest horticultural competition in the UK, hosted by the Royal Horticultural Society, have noticed that a bulk of this year’s 71 finalists have opted to grow fruit and vegetables rather than ornamental blooms.

The contest, now in its 55th year, features gardening communities from all over the country,from tiny Green Moor in Yorkshire with a population of just 90 to the high-rise business district of Canary Wharf in London’s docklands.

The gardens hope to give back to the community, and locals have grown edible goods in public spaces for people to help themselves to, and for donations to food banks.

Notable and impressive examples include the city of Bath’s tiered planters featuring tomatoes, chard and herbs mixed with flowers such as fuchsias and petunias, and the green-fingered contestants in Llandudno, who have recently planted an orchard for the public to help themselves to fresh fruit.

British consumers are facing a hike in food prices of at least 5% as a result of extreme weather this year, economists warn.

Extended spells of frigid and baking weather seen during the winter and summer will likely increase household food bills by an estimated £7.15 a month, the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) says.

The cold snap brought on by the Beast from the East has already been blamed for a slump in the economy at the start of the year, while some industries were adversely affected by heatwave conditions over the summer.

The Cebr said domestic food production has been hit by weather extremes that have put “particular stress on farming costs and yields”.

Between March and July, the wholesale “farm gate” prices of some staples rocketed by up to 80%.

The price of wheat for bread rose by a fifth, strawberries by 28%, carrots by 41% and lettuce by 61%.

The farm gate price of carrots rose by 80%, according to European Commission figures used by the economists.

The Cebr said: “Summer 2018 has been one of the warmest in living memory, with above average temperatures recorded since April and dry spells lasting more than 50 days in parts of the country.

Budget supermarket Lidl is selling 5kg boxes of damaged fruit and vegetables for £1.50 at selected stores.

Part of an ongoing trial called “Too Good to Waste”, the boxes will be available for a limited time across 122 stores, with anything unsold being donated to charity.

Each one will contain a selection of imperfect or slightly damaged fruit and veg, packed by Lidl staff.

And, while customers cannot choose what items are inside, the supermarket says it will ensure the produce is “perfectly good to eat”.

“We know from our data that fresh produce is one of the biggest contributors to food waste in stores, so we’re excited by the difference our initiative will make,” Lidl’s chief executive Christan Hartnagel said.

“Not only will it help customers consider items that they might have previously dismissed, it will also provide an opportunity for them to make further savings.”

The move comes following a pledge by Lidl that it will cut food waste per store by 25 per cent by 2020.

Supermarkets have been urged to halt the trend of packaged vegetables after cashing in on the ‘clean-eating’ craze as the government and campaigners warn of an increase in plastic waste in our seas.

Marks and Spencer was forced to stop the production of its ‘cauliflower steaks’, after there was widespread backlash over the ‘excessive’ plastic packaging and the inflated price.

The shop was criticised on social media after a shocked customer pointed out that their £2.50 cauliflower ‘steaks’ are simply sliced cauliflowers sold in excessive packaging. She commented that at her grocery store, one can buy a cauliflower for a little over 60 pence. Marks and Spencer sells a whole cauliflower for a pound.

A spokesperson confirmed to the Telegraph that the packaged cauliflower will no longer be sold once current stock runs out because of complaints over packaging and price.

Dieters have also been told to prepare their own food instead of choosing the “lazy” pre-prepared vegetable option, especially as stores capitalise on January’s ‘clean eating’ and ‘veganuary’ trends by expanding their packaged vegetable lines.

There were 193 “episodes” of malnutrition in 12 months at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust alone, according to new figures.

Freedom of Information (FOI) figures show a rise of 259 between the 43 trusts compared with three years ago.

The Trussell Trust food bank charity said it feared families were struggling to afford to feed themselves.

The government said that malnutrition was “unacceptable”, but there are warnings that parents are going without food so their children do not go hungry.

The figures were revealed as Tameside Hospital, also in Greater Manchester, became the first NHS hospital in the UK to set up a permanent food bank on site.

Medical staff reported a significant increase in the number of malnourished patients turning up for treatment and care.

Trisha Jarman from Tameside East food bank said: “There are a lot of people out there that are malnourished.

“It’s not just people coming into hospital, it’s across the board. People are struggling to feed themselves and their families, particularly at this time of the year.”

Waitrose has released its annual food report showing how often we shop is changing UK eating habits in 2015. Apparently the fashion for eating dinner while glued to a television screen appears to be fading – at least among the middle-classes. According to the report, the ability to pause and re-wind live TV and access popular shows on-demand has given parents the confidence to switch off during meal times. Just under a third of customers polled by Waitrose said they had cut back on eating in front of a screen since the arrival of BBC iPlayer, Netflix and other digital innovations. Six in 10 parents said they had banned gadgets from the dinner table altogether. Half said they made a conscious effort to eat together each week as they sought to “introduce control in an age when we can have it all”. However, the annual Waitrose “food and drink trends” report found that families had retained an informal feel to their evening meals: the study showed 15 per cent of those with a dining room were using it less often, often preferring to dine in the kitchen. Dining room usage had fallen most dramatically in London and the East Midlands, the study found.

I wonder if there’s a rural factor linked to this story?