Airdate: Back in Time for Dinner

ABC’s upcoming series Back in Time for Dinner, presented by Annabel Crabb, will debut in late May.

The series follows one Australian family as they learn how the post-World War II revolution in the food we eat has transformed the way we live, the fabric of the nation and defined the roles of men and women over the past 60 years.

Sydney family The Ferrones will discover how Australians shopped, cooked, and dined from across 6 decades.

We’ve all heard it at some stage, or even said it … “back in my day things were better…” or “you don’t know how lucky you’ve got it these days…” So, what if you could find out if those statements from your parents or grandparents were true? What if you and your family could go back into the past and ‘live’ those bygone days? Well, that’s exactly what the Ferrone family has agreed to do.

In each of the series’ seven episodes, this food-loving Australian family of five is throwing away their culinary comforts and kitchen appliances, smartphones and snapchat, and turning their back on its 21st Century lifestyle. The Ferrones are embarking on an extraordinary time-travelling adventure from 1950 to the future, to discover how the way we shopped, cooked, and ate has shaped our modern-day lives.

In 60 years, Australians have gone from food being influenced by our British heritage to having the world on our dinner plate. Along the way we’ve been introduced to dehydrated, frozen, microwaved, pre-packaged, and takeaway meals. And, our recipes have gone from being handed down through our mothers to, simply, being downloaded.

But how has this change in what we have eaten, along with innovations in the kitchen, transformed us as a nation? To find out, the Ferrone family home has been turned into a time machine and each week, the family and their home is transported to a different decade, as they take on the dietary habits, lifestyle, cooking fads and fashion of that era.

As Annabel Crabb guides the Ferrones, an everyday Australian family, through the different decades, Back in Time for Dinner offers a unique opportunity to tap into the social, economic, and political imperatives of our times. The family’s own home is meticulously transformed back in time from the 50s all the way to present day and finally into the future. Following carefully researched recipes they’ll source, cook, and eat the same meals as everyday Australian families in each era. The family will live through the highs, lows and challenges that shaped family life in the 20th Century.

With the visually compelling transformation of the house, the soundtrack of the decades, and extraordinary ABC archival material, Back in Time for Dinner is rich with the pleasure of recollection and nostalgia as well as the jaw dropping disbelief at how quite alien the world was not so long ago!

Back in Time for Dinner is a Warner Bros. International Television Production, produced in association with the Australia Broadcasting Corporation. Host: Annabel Crabb, Executive Producer: Fiona Baker, Director: Kieran ‘Spud’ Murphy, ABC Executive Producer: Julie Hanna, ABC Head of Factual: Steve Bibb.

Tuesday 29 May at 8.30pm on ABC.