All language subtitles for T.1.S.S01E03.HDTV

MUSIC: 'Set For Glory'
by Richard Myhill

DEBBIE CHAZEN:
Welcome back to the 1980s,

a decade that went super sized.

Everything was big.

Big hair, big clothes, big phones.

Britain was changing
at breakneck speed.

We went from a steel-producing,
coal-mining, struggling nation

to a shoulder-pad-clad,
money-obsessed powerhouse.

It was the era
when technology changed our lives.

My mum had one
of the very first microwaves,

and people came round to look at it.

New foods tempted our palates.
CUCKOO CHEEPS

Nothing says '80s more
than a slice of Viennetta.

And our supermarkets
became enormous.

These were monsters.

Nobody had ever seen
these things before.

Now we're taking
a step back in time...

Oh, wow!

...to discover the products
we loved...

WOMEN GASP

It's magic.
Yes!

...despised...

It's abysmal.

...and ones that caused a stir.

It's not an attractive product,
is it? No.

Much like a kind of artistic vagina.

THEY LAUGH

We'll also lift
the scientific lid on the fun...

Say hello to my little friend.

...and the, quite frankly, bizarre.

This is transglutaminase,
also known as meat glue.

And we'll whip up
some '80s classic dishes

that got our taste buds tingling.

Today,
I'm making French bread pizza.

So, zip up your shell suit,

pour yourself a Cinzano,

and sit back as we reveal

the secrets
of the 1980s supermarket.

SCANNER BEEPS

Piece-za cake. Do you get it?
SHE LAUGHS

I'm not very good,
am I, with jokes?

The late '80s was a tale
of two shopping baskets.

It was the richest of times.
It was the skin test of times.

It was the age of megabucks.
It was the age of the dole queue.

It was the era of fine dining.

And the era of the potato waffle.

But the one thing that united us all
was our desire to appear classy...

...no matter the size of pay packet
at the end of the week.

And nowhere could that be seen more

than in what we liked
to serve for dinner.

For starters,
you might have some deep fried Brie

with a red currant jelly

or some breaded garlic mushrooms.

For a main, a chicken Marbella
or a chicken a la King.

Ancl if you were, you know,
on a date or some special occasion,

you'd push the boat out
and have a steak Diane

or a surf and turf.

HE LAUGHS

And when it came to dessert,

the supermarkets were suddenly
offering us an explosion

of new and decadent options.

You could buy all sorts of gateaux.

Your black cherries,
your coffee and mandarin,

strawberry and cream,
basically any sponge and cream.

But then the Viennetta arrived.

ADVERT: Wall's Viennetta

could leave you
with one small problem...

One slice is never enough.

Although first launched
as a Christmas dessert in 1982

by ice-cream giant Walls,

Viennetta proved so popular

that by 1984, it was stocked
in supermarkets all year round.

It's basically a bar of ice-cream

layered with chocolate,
very thin, crispy chocolate.

It was all sort of frilly,
and you'd slice it,

and you could hear that crunch
and little flakes of chocolate,

and I was really excited to try it.

It cost well under a pound,

but was seen as
the most up-market of desserts.

Nothing was more sophisticated
than a Viennetta at the time.

Nothing tasted like it.

Nothing looked like it,
before or since.

A Viennetta was actually posh.

I know you'd been and bought it
from Sainsbury's,

but it was still posh.

Although in reality, its origins
were a little less glamorous.

It sounded really exotic.
You know, Viennetta.

It's like, "Where did it come from?"
You know?

I was expecting it to be some

mysterious sort of Venetian factory
or something.

But actually, it was made
in a factory in Gloucester.

But no-one seemed to mind

as it became an overnight success
in the freezer aisle.

One of my first memories
of Viennettas

is waking up having nightmares
about the thing

cos I just hadn't ordered enough.

Sales were just huge.

Viennetta may have been
the ultimate slice of sophistication

for the adults of the '80s,

but suddenly, everywhere,
children were rising up

and saying
with a single, clear voice,

"We want classy desserts, too."

The result was Ice Magic,

which was launched in the UK in 1982
by custard kings Bird's.

RUMBLING

ADVERT: Something different
is about to happen.

The most exciting thing
that's ever happened to ice-cream.

New Ice Magic from Bird's.

A rich, smooth, chocolatey topping
like no other.

Ice Magic was a chocolate sauce
that you'd keep in a cupboard,

and it was liquid in the bottle,

but you poured it on your ice cream,

and when it came into contact
with the cold ice cream,

it immediately went solid,
and there was the magic.

You'd have to crack it to get
into the ice cream.

We used to have so much fun
with that.

HE LAUGHS

Sadly, Ice Magic is no longer
available to buy in the UK,

but we've imported some.

Well, ordered it off the internet
all the way from Australia,

where it's still guzzled
by the gallon load

to see what Brits today
make of this magical marvel.

Remember? Do I remember Ice Magic?
Oooh!

Oh! |Ce Magic! Yes!

That was one of my favourite things
in the entire world.

That was pure gold.

Fond memories all round.

But does it still live up
to the hype?

So what do I do with this?
just pour it on?

Ready?
Yeah, yeah.

Look at that.

Do you just wait?
Says it sets hard in seconds. OK.

It's not quite set yet.
Oh, come on! Hurry up, hurry up!

This isn't giving Disneyland.
No.

This has definitely taken longer
than a couple of seconds.

Yeah.
SPOON TAPS

Oh-ho-ho!
GASPS

That's the moment.
Ah!

Yes! It's doing the thing.

Mm!

Yeah, it's pretty good.

This is beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful,
comforting memory.

I miss Ice Magic.

I don't know why they'd ever
discontinue something like that.

But what witchcraft and wizardry

can be used to recreate
a mystical miracle like this?

And is it all that magical?

Well, here's our very own
'80s alchemist Dr Chris Clarke

with his own take on how
he thinks the magic might be made.

So, the magic is fat.
Specifically, these two fats.

Coconut oil and sunflower oil.

Well, that doesn't sound
particularly magical.

Now, these are both oils, ie fats,

but the big difference is

the sunflower oil is a liquid
at room temperature,

whereas the coconut oil
is a solid at room temperature.

Ancl that is the key.

The reason why some fats
are liquid at room temperature,

compared to some which are solid,

is actually down
to the saturated fat content.

If something has
very low saturated fat content,

like sunflower oil, with around 13%,

then it is a liquid
at room temperature.

Whereas something much higher
in saturated fat,

like lard, butter,
or coconut oil in this case,

it has 87% saturated fat,

which means it packs very well and
forms a solid at room temperature.

But how do they come together

to make a magical,
physics-defying chocolate sauce?

To explain, Dr Chris is going
to attempt to make his own version.

So, to get a chocolate sauce
that can be liquid,

but then quickly change
into a solid,

we need to use
the properties of both.

We're gonna mix them together.

So to kick things off,
chocolate sauce needs chocolate.

We've got here a nice milk chocolate

that I've heated up
to keep it nice and liquid.

Now, it looks nice and smooth
and saucy right now,

but as soon as I let that cool down,
it's going back to a solid,

so that's no good for us.

So to stop that from happening,
Chris adds the coconut oil.

In it goes.

Followed by a glug of the sunflower.

Now, we only need a small amount
of the sunflower oil

because its purpose
is to stop the saturated fat

from gathering together
and reforming a solid.

Once it's all mixed and melted,

Chris is left
with a delicious chocolatey sauce.

So obviously, this is nice ancl saucy
because it's been heated up.

But if I was to let it cool
a little bit,

then you get something
a little bit more

like this one I made earlier.

So as you can see,
I've got a nice chocolate sauce here

that's still liquid
at room temperature.

But what will happen
when it touches ice cream?

Well, to answer that,
we're going to need some ice-cream.

Say hello to my little friend.

Wowse rs !

I've heard of a sundae,
but that's a month of sundaes.

So, it's the moment of truth.

Let's see
just how magic this really is.

Oooh!

Getting some nice coverage on there.

No sense in skimping
with a sundae this big.

OK.

And now...

I think we give it a second, but...

..| can already see that
it's going a kind of a matte colour,

which suggests
that it is solidifying.

But there's only one way
to find out for sure.

Oh! Look at that.

Ancl abracadabra,
we have solid chocolate.

Not sauce any more.

Or at least not while it stays cold.

Mm.

Magical.

Who needs Tommy Cooper
when you've got Dr Chris?

Coming up, because you've been very
good and eaten all of your pudding,

we've got a treat for you
in part two.

Yuppies.

I'm a yuppie. Look at my phone.

And then they had posey cars
as we“.

And sun-dried tomatoes.

I mean, you look at it,

and it looked like a tomato
that had gone off, didn't it?

Something that you got out
of the bin in your garden.

DEBBIE CHAZENI It's the late '8OS

in our romp
through the decade supermarkets,

and whilst many were struggling
to make ends meet,

there was one part of the population
who were spending money

like it was going out of fashion.

It was the era of the yuppie.

"Young, urban professional."

It was all about
the power dressing -

showing that you have money
and you plan to make more.

It didn't matter whether
you were a man or a woman.

You had big shoulder pads
and a phone.

"|'m a yuppie, look at my phone!

Ancl then they had posey cars,
as well.

I mean, you should have seen me
in the '80s.

Everything about me was huge,
as well, particularly my hair.

You mean like this, Jonathan?

HE LAUGHS

And with all this extra cash around,

the supermarket soon realised

that there was some serious
money-making potential.

We started to see an array of
higher-end products on the shelves.

Products such as smoked salmon,
terrines, pates.

And a whole host of new and exciting
herbs and condiments.

Basil, coriander, pesto.

Asian-inspired dressings
with chilli, lime, soy,

things that we hadn't really seen
before.

And it was a similar affair
in the wine aisles, too.

The supermarkets
were introducing us

to a world of exciting
and exotic new wines,

and there was one type of plonk
we all went potty for in the '80s -

Chardonnay.

There was nothing more posh
and up-to-date

than a glass of Chardonnay, darling.

I loved Chardonnay.

You felt quite sophisticated
if you're...

"Oh, I'll have a Chardonnay,
please."

For the formerly
Liebfraumilch-obsessed

British public,

Chardonnay offered
something new and exciting,

and we were buying it
by the bucket load.

I think Chardonnay was popular

because it sort of sat
between the two.

It was neither dry,
and it was neither sweet.

And as we quaffed,
swilled, and swigged our way

through Chardonnay by the shed load,

we needed some posh nibbles
to soak it all up.

And the supermarkets
had that covered, too.

In the '80s, sun-dried tomatoes
were all the rage,

the height of sophistication.

You were really posh in the '80s

if you had a sun-dried tomato

and you picked it up
with a cocktail stick

and popped it in your mouth.

Suddenly, it was like,
"Oh yeah, well, you know,

"look at me, I've been to Tuscany,
and I've got a sun-dried tomato.

"How about you?"

But it wasn't the Italians
we had to thank

for them first appearing
on our supermarket shelves

in the late '80s.

The reason they became so popular

is because of Italian restaurants
in California.

California had a very similar
growing climate to parts of Italy,

so they began to make them, too,

but used them
in their restaurants and recipes.

And they were brought to the UK
by an intrepid team

of individuals who scoured the globe

in an arms race aimed
at finding new and exciting tastes

for yuppies to spend their money on.

One of my jobs in the '80s,

as a product developer
with Marks and Spencers,

was to travel
and find new ingredients.

And whilst on a trip in New York,

in one of the delis,
we saw sun-dried tomatoes.

And we thought,

we'll bring them back
and use them as an ingredient.

But back then, it was going
to take some serious convincing

to assure customers and staff

that they were worth forking
out for.

I mean, you look at it,

and it looked like a tomato
that had gone off, didn't it?

Something that you got
out of the bin in your garden.

So we were underwhelmed.
It didn't look great.

We honestly thought,

"This is never gonna sell.
This just doesn't look good."

And look at the price
that we're asking

for a shrivelled-up old tomato.

And then you taste one.

When we brought them back,
people, as soon as they tasted them,

they understood that they
really were very flavoursome

and very different
to anything that we'd tried before.

They may have tickled
our taste buds in the '80s,

but what do today's shoppers
make of these dried delicacies?

I mean, it's not an
attractive-looking food item, is it?

This is like something from Mars.
It's very big.

They do look quite alien,
don't they?

Yeah, they do. They're very veiny.
This one in particular.

It looks like a human ear.
Yeah.

Not the best start.
But what about the taste?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

They taste way better
than they look.

It's not an attractive product,
is it?

Much like a kind of artistic vagina.

This would go on display
in the Tate Modern, wouldn't it?

Absolutely.
Probably win the Turner Prize.

Well, if that's put you off
sun-dried tomatoes for life,

here's a lady who might be able
to turn things around.

It's the Gordon Ramsay of the '80s.

Except with laughing
instead of swearing.

TV's Rustie Lee.

Today, I'm going to be making
a really lovely

sun-dried tomato
and spinach roulade.

Ooh-la-la!
SHE LAUGHS

That's rolled up sponge, by the way.

A bit like a posh,
savoury Swiss roll.

Rustie starts by making a cake mix,
swapping sugar for some spinach.

Yum.

Which she adds to a blender along
with a tablespoon of from age frats.

That goes in.

Plus some self-raising flour
and five egg yolks.

I've kept the egg whites because
I'm going to be using that next.

She then blends it all up
until she has a nice smooth mixture.

I think that's clone.

Oh, I say, look at it.

It looks like something ready
for Halloween, doesn't it?

It looks a bit....

It's going to be lovely.

Before you make any comments!

As if we would, Rustie!

Rustie then sets her gruesome
green mixture to one side

as she whips up the remaining
egg whites into stiff peaks,

ready to be folded
into the cake mixture.

That's nice and stiff now,
as the bishop said to the nun.

We pause this program me

as our HR department
issues Rustie with a final warning

for out-of-date jokes.

And we're back.

Suitably reprimanded,

she next gently folds the egg whites
into the cake mixture.

That's nicely folded in now.

All I need to do is spread it out
on the baking tray.

Spreading complete,

Rustie pops the cake mix in the oven
for about 15 minutes,

taking out one
that was made earlier.

Oh, look at this.
Doesn't it look lovely?

As green as Grotbags,
if you know who Grotbags was.

Moment of truth. The turning out.

Kittens' time.

Oh'.
SHE CACKLES

I've clone it!

It wasn't that funny, Rustie.

There she goes, professional chef.

Whilst it's still warm and pliable,

Rustie rolls up the cook's cake
so it holds its shape

and puts to one side to cool
whilst she starts on the filling,

which is a mix of garlic
and herb cream cheese

and from age frats.

just mixing it all together
so it's nice and smooth,

ready to go into the filling.

I think that should do it.

Oh, it smells lovely.

Next, Rustie unrolls her roulade
and spreads over the mix.

Put the mixture on
and just smooth it out,

like you're doing
some decorating at home.

Now for the most important
ingredient of them all,

the sun-dried tomatoes, and make
sure you put quite a lot in there.

Don't be stingy with it.

Make sure
they're right up to the edge

so when it's rolled,
you're able to see them.

That's it.

Now it's time to roll this roulade.

Here we go.

One false move,
and Rustie's roulade could be toast.

Ah, that looks lovely.

Oh.

Roulade successfully rolled,
all that's left to do is serve up.

What a lovely board to put it on.

Ancl there you have it -

a dinner party treat that will make
all your guests green with envy.

When it came to people's fortunes
in the late '80s,

Britain was a divided place.

Not everyone
was having a great time.

Yes, there were the sort of yuppies
having a ball, drinking Champagne.

But places in North England
and South Wales

were having real trouble

because they'd lost their mining
and their shipping

and their car manufacturing,

and entire communities of skilled
workers were left unemployed.

And whilst Maggie and her boys
thought the answer lay

in controversial policies
like the Youth Training Scheme,

the supermarkets
took a much more pragmatic approach.

Supermarkets recognised

that there were large parts
of the country

that needed cheap and cheerful food,

and they responded to it.

We saw the likes of Fine Fare,

Britain's third-largest supermarket
at the time,

offer the country's
first own-label value range.

It was called Yellow Price Pack,

and as you can imagine, it came
in a yellow pack with black writing,

and it was very, very cheap.

No frills, just a plain yellow label

with a very plain,
clear description on it and a price.

But the ultimate place to go
for a bargain in the '80s

was your local Happy Shopper.

The Happy Shopper was cheap,
it was cheerful,

and it fed a lot of families.

And quite a few students.

Famous for its
bright orange-and-yellow packaging

with that smiley face,

shops that stocked the range offered
an array of household staples

at bargain basement prices.

They sold bleach,
washing-up liquid, cornflakes,

lard and cola.

None of it very glamorous,
but it served a purpose.

It offered a quality range
at an extremely good-value price.

It was very basic,

but what it did do
was give the convenience stores

a price point
that they hadn't had before.

Happy Shopper was really created
for independent grocery stores

to be able to compete
with big supermarket chains.

And by the end of the decade, this
value corner-shop range really was.

It even launched its own TV advert
with an A-list voice-over artist,

although you could argue
that was the only thing about the ad

that was A-list.

CHRIS TARRANT: It's the dawning
of a new era.

The Happy Shopper advert

is cheap and cheerful,
like its products.

Helping you
to keep down the cost of living

with prices like Happy Shopper
back bacon,

a seven-ounce pack for only 99p.

Ancl when you buy ten eggs
for only 79p, you get two free.

You see the sun rising.

You can get loads of eggs
for not very much money,

and you can buy back bacon
for not very much money.

Ancl it's gonna
be available everywhere

in many stores
in your neighbourhood.

You'll find these price-mark packs
at the Happy Shopper shops,

which are springing up here,
there and everywhere.

What I remember most
about the commercial

is Chris Tarrant's voice-over being
really sort of jaunty and upbeat.

You've got Chris...

AS CHRIS TARRANT:
..Tarrant being happy

and telling you to be happy
all the time, and shopping...

IN OWN VOICE: ..and laughing
while he's telling you.

Like, makes you just forget

how depressing
the products actually look.

Happy Shopper,
a brighter way of life.

If I'm truly honest about it,

it would have made me run a mile
from a Happy Shopper.

I'd have got on the nearest bus
and gone to Waitrose.

But every jar has its lid, right?

Coming up, an egg-traordinary crisis
for Britain's supermarkets.

Sales plummeted by 60%,

and the egg aisle
was like a ghost town.

Look at this!

And Rustie gets busy with the fizzy
in the kitchen.

A SodaStream.
My goodness, this is so '80s.

Look at the colours!

MACHINE FIZZES
Oh-ho!

It's the late '80s in our jaunt
through the decade's supermarkets,

and as the economy continued
to boom,

superstores everywhere
started to look for more ways

to make us part
with our new-found cash.

But when it came to selling
household electrical items,

they were still very much
in the dark.

Before the 1980s, you had places
like Be jam and Iceland,

and they might sell white goods -
the fridges and things -

because that's the kind
of market they were in.

But nobody was really selling
electrical items,

brown goods, as they were known.

In fact,
the idea of selling brown goods

like TVs, radios,
record players, and so on,

that was unheard of.

And there was one very clear reason
for that - the price.

TVs, record players and Hi-Fi,

that kind of stuff
was really expensive.

The latest must-have gadget,
a VHS recorder,

could cost you as much
as a whopping £799.

That's over £3,250 in today's money,

and even most colour TVs

cost well over four times
the average weekly wage.

It was almost unheard of

for people to actually own
their television outright.

Most of us just rented them

from places like Radio Rentals
and Rumbelows.

But change was afoot,

and an electronic revolution
was about to take place.

Mass production was becoming
much more of a thing.

Ancl if you're producing
a lot more of an item,

you can bring the price down.

These huge factories sprung up.

There was sort of no unions,
so the workforce was much cheaper.

There were things
like imports happening.

So this brought the cost down.

And as the prices plummeted, the
supermarkets stocked their shelves

with a whole host
of new and exciting gadgets.

You could now buy
from the supermarkets

things like fax machines,
Casio watches.

Boombox.
A Walkman, a Polaroid camera.

There was everything. There
was Hi-Fi, there were computers.

And if you were really lucky,

you'd get
a Breville cheese-sandwich maker.

First invented back in the 1920s,

toasted sandwich makers only really
became popular in the late '70s,

when Australian brand Breville
launched their version in the UK,

and by the '80s, they were selling
like hot, um... toasties.

It had to be white bread,
it had to be butter,

it had to be cheese
and Branston Pickle.

Perfect, I loved it.

Although,
it wasn't without its dangers.

It got really hot.

So when you bit into one,
and the cheese stuck

to the roof of your mouth,
that really could burn.

And once all those toasted
sandwiches were eaten,

we needed something
to wash it all down with.

And there was a gadget for that,
too -

SodaStream.

# Hey, an unexpected scene

# So get busy with the fizzy
With SodaStream. #

It was fantastic because,
for the first time,

you could make your own flavour
of fizzy drinks.

You could sort of take flavours
that were already there,

and like I did in my house,
mix them together

to create something completely new
and horrible.

# Mix a little mixer
Add a little dash... #

It may have been an iconic appliance
in the '80s,

but its origins go way back.

# Busy with the fizzy
SodaStream. #

That's fizzy!

A lot of people think
that SodaStream came from the USA,

but it was actually invented
in England in 1903.

It was originally called
an aerating liquid machine,

and it was very exclusive and
very popular with the aristocracy.

Including the royal family.

But it would take another 70 years
before it became a household name.

The SodaStream's popularity waned
during the 20th century until 1979,

when it was relaunched
in a brown-and-cream colour scheme,

which kind of matched
a lot of the kitchens at the time.

And it became really popular,
and most households had them.

But how exactly
do SodaStreams work,

and what do they taste like?

Well, there's only one lady
to help us find out.

It's TV chef Rustie Lee.

Wow, look at this!

SHE CHUCKLES
A SodaStream.

My goodness, this is so '80s.
Look at the colours.

MACHINE FIZZES
Oh-ho!

Ancl a toasted sandwich maker.

So, what's on the menu?

Today, I'm going to be making
the ultimate '80s treat -

a soda cola float
and a fabulous toasted sandwich.

Ee, it's gonna be lovely!

But if you think health and safety

would let a national treasure
like Rustie Lee

loose on a 40-year-old
SodaStream gas canister,

think again.

No, thank you.
I don't wanna be blown up.

So the fun police have given Rustie

something a little more modern
to work with.

Now, then.
Now, what do I do with this?

I've never made one of these before.

I'm gonna have to figure it out.

This should be interesting...

Rustie starts
by filling up the clear flask

with some plain old tap water.

I think that'll do it, I hope.

Oh, heck.

How'd you connect this?

WATER BUBBLES
Ooh-hoo-hoo!

WATER FIZZES
Whoo-hoo-hoo!

Keep going!

I don't think I've clone it right!

No, Rustie, I don't think you have.

Oh, there's a lever here.

SHE CLEARS THROAT
There we go.

Now we've got it.

Now let's have a go.

Hallelujah.

With the bottle safely fitted,

Rustie pumps in some carbon dioxide
to make the drink fizzy.

RUSTW. CHUCKLES

And then adds some cola syrup.

There we go.

It's bubbling away nicely.
Look at it.

Ooh!

She then puts the cap on,
gives it a good shake,

and has a little taste.

Cheers.

Wow.

Tastes like the real thing!

Cola made, Rustie then sets
the SodaStream aside

to focus on her toasted sandwich.

You might think that making
a toasted sandwich is easy for me,

so I'm going to Rustie it up
by making a tuna crunch melt.

Ooh!

Crunchy tuna - yum.

She starts by adding some tuna
to a bowl,

followed by a good dollop
of mayonnaise.

I'm now going
to add my crunchy bits.

Which, for Rustie,
are chopped-up celery and gherkins,

as well as a pinch of chilli flakes.

Ancl a little bit of salt.

Ancl add a bit more pepper.

Pinch of black pepper.

She then gives it a good stir

before setting to one side
to butter her bread.

Now, a tip is,

I like to butter
both outside and in,

so when it's clone,
it's nice and golden on the outside.

There we are. Here we go.

So, pieces of bread in.

Can you hear that sizzle already?
SIZZLING

She then adds her tuna mix,
followed by some tomatoes.

And some cheese.

Lots of cheese.

Well, it wouldn't be a tuna crunch
melt without a bit of... melt.

She then tops it off
with the remaining slices of bread

and closes the sandwich toaster.

There's quite a lot in there.
Hope it's going to shut.

Ooh! Yes, it is.

All that's left to do
is have a quick clear-up

whilst the sandwich is toasting
and, er, smoking!

It's getting a bit feisty.

Maybe I've put too much in it.

Er, fun police,
should that be happening?

I think it's ready -
the green Light's on.

Ooh, look at that.

just as it looks in the '80s,
with cheese oozing out.

Whilst Rustie
lets the sandwich cool slightly,

she returns to her cola float.

She pour the cola into a glass,
adds two scoops of vanilla ice cream

and pops in a straw.

How easy is that?

My cola float. Look at this!

Oh, that's lovely!

All that's left to do is for Rustie
to plate up her sandwiches.

I think it's time to have a bite.

Oh!

Crunchy.

And mew]!

Delicious.

In true '80s style,
I'm going to take this and these,

curl up on the sofa
and watch Dallas.

Rustie, you're gonna have kittens
when you find out who shotjR.

Gadgets like SodaStreams
and toasted sandwich makers

may have been flying off
the supermarket shelves

in the late '80s...

...but by 1988, there was one
supermarket staple that wasn't -

eggs.

And it was all down
to one individual in particular.

In an interview on ITV News
on the 3rd December, 1988,

a then junior health minister
known as Edwina Currie

made the statement...

Most of the egg production
of this country, sadly,

is now infected with salmonella.

The resulting health scare
hit the British egg industry,

and supermarkets, hard.

So it was headline news.

Everyone was talking about it.

The salmonella scare
was a huge incident,

and it was absolutely catastrophic
for the supermarket industry.

Sales plummeted by 60%,

and the egg aisle
was like a ghost town.

And it wasn't just the sales of eggs
that were affected.

People became scared.

They became scared of eating eggs

or anything connected
or cooked with eggs,

and, literally
everything stopped selling.

it just came to a screaming halt.

Anything that had egg
as an ingredient

had lost the confidence
of the public.

So cakes, Yorkshire pudding mixes.

Sales just declined along with eggs.

For the farmers,
it was catastrophic.

In the end, 400 million eggs
had to be destroyed.

just two weeks
after that fateful news broadcast,

threatened with legal action
from both the British egg industry

and the National Union Of Farmers,

Edwina Currie was forced
to resign her position

as junior health minister.

From that moment on, she was
forever known as "Egg-wina" Currie.

In Edwina's defence,

a government report
over ten years later

said that there had been
a salmonella epidemic,

and she was probably right
to highlight the risk.

Poor old "Egg-wina".

Coming up, an '80s advert
that perked up a nation.

50 million people cared that much

about two characters
in a coffee commercial.

And Dr Chris dresses to impress...

And we're good to go.

...as he reveals the secrets
behind freeze-dried instant coffee.

Ancl this... is the end result.

It's the late '80s in our deep dive
into the decade supermarkets,

and whilst there was
financial hardship for many,

it was economic boom times
for others.

And those who had money to spend

were spending it in all manner
of new and exciting ways.

Trendy restaurants were popping up
all over the place.

Nightclubs were in their heyday,

and coffee shops were hugely
in vogue.

Until then, we were very much known
as a nation of tea drinkers.

But then, suddenly,
coffee became all the rage.

And as the decade progressed,

we saw an explosion
of coffee shops hit the high street.

The first Costa Coffee opened
in 1981.

The first Pret opened
in 1986,

and from there, there was literally
a coffee house on every corner.

And the supermarkets
were in on the act, too.

By the late '80s, plenty of Tesco,
Morrisons, Asda, Sainsbury's

and M&S stores over a certain size
now offered on-site coffee shops.

But it was on
the supermarket shelves themselves

where the real revolution
was taking place.

Tea sales dropped by a staggering
20% over the '70s and '80s,

and by 1986, coffee sales
had outpaced tea for the first time.

Former tea-obsessed Brits everywhere

were swapping their Tetleys
and PG Tips

for instant freeze-dried coffee.

Brands such as Mellow Birds,

Kenco,

and Maxwell House were flying
off the supermarket shelves.

But there was one brand
that outsold all the others

by a country mile -
Nescafe Gold Blend,

thanks to
its iconic advertising campaign.

Hello. I'm sorry to bother you,

but I'm having a dinner party,
and I've run out of coffee.

Nescafe Gold Blend adverts.

We'd never seen anything
like that before.

There's a gorgeous Sharon Maugham
knocking on Anthony Head's door.

She says, "|'ve run out of coffee.
Do you have any?"

He goes and gets his bottle
of Gold Blend and says...

Will Gold Blend
be too good for your guests?

Oh, I think they could get used
to it.

It's a very sophisticated coffee.

They have very sophisticated taste.

Clearly, they fancy each other.
It's very flirtatious.

And you know that there's a great
future ahead for both of them.

It was successful because it really
embodied that '80s decadence -

classy yuppie lifestyle,
quality clothes.

She looks so sophisticated.

She's got a little bit of
the Princess of Wales sort of hair.

Ancl that's why it worked so well.

The casting was fantastic,

and there is absolutely
a lovely chemistry between them,

and you wanted to know
what was coming next.

Which was precisely the point,

as a whole string of equally opulent
adverts followed suit.

You saved my life the other night.

The dinner party?
The coffee.

What was memorable in particular
about these adverts,

is each one moved the story on
a little bit further,

and it was almost
like a soap opera in ad form.

The story just kept evolving,

and these people
almost became part of our life.

The next "episode" of the advert
takes us on a little further,

and we see more tension,
more flirting.

Look, I'm in the middle of something
right now,

but perhaps...
Perhaps.

Ancl by the third episode,

plucks up the courage
to ask us out for dinner.

Are you always this late?
I won't be tomorrow.

What's happening tomorrow?

I'm inviting you for dinner.

Oh, what makes you think
I'll accept?

You can't resist my coffee.

Every single one, however,

always leaves us with
that little bit of a cliff-hanger.

Ancl it strung us out
over a period of time

with this "Will they,
won't they get together?"

Ancl that was, I think, in essence,

the way that they got us hooked
on Gold Blend.

It was a clever campaign,
and just like any good soap opera,

the road to true love
was far from straightforward.

There's other men,
there's other women.

Then there's arguments.

There's the strains
of a long-distance relationship.

I mean, it was a bit like watching
Dynasty or Dallas.

The campaign ran for six years
and featured a total of 12 adverts,

all chronicling the trials
and tribulations of Sharon and Tony.

And the final,
well-crafted instalment,

which saw Tony
finally profess his love for Sharon

was every soap writer's dream.

I don't know why I let you do that.

Because I serve...
You serve better coffee.

Besides...

I love you.

That moment was huge.

30 million people tuned in to watch
Tony declare his love for Sharon.

30 million people cared that much

about two characters
in a coffee commercial.

The Queen's funeral
only got 28 million.

But more importantly, it increased
sales of Nescafe Gold Blend by 70%.

I'd say that is an incredibly
successful ad campaign.

But what exactly is freeze-dried
coffee, and how on Earth is it made?

Back to reveal all
is Dr Chris Clark.

Freeze-drying. It does exactly
what it says on the tin.

It dries food
using very low temperatures.

The idea is, that if you remove
all the moisture from something,

it will last a lot longer.

This is because all the bacteria
that makes food spoil

cannot live without water.

This means a product like coffee,
once freeze-dried,

can be stored for a long period
without going off.

To demonstrate how it all works,

Chris is going to attempt to make
his own instant freeze-dried coffee,

and he starts by making some coffee
the posh way.

You want to put quite a lot in,

because we want to make
as much instant coffee as possible.

He then tops it up with hot water

and leaves to brew
for a few minutes.

Coffee made,
now time to freeze it.

Now, for optimal freezing,
we want a nice, big surface,

so I'm going to pour
all of my coffee...

HE STRAINS
..into my very large tray here.

The larger the surface area,

the thinner the coffee layer is,
and the quicker it freezes.

Ancl we're going to pour that
all over

and try and get a nice thin coating
with a very big surface area.

With the coffee perfectly poured,
it's time to get chilling.

Now, the freeze dryer

is in a strictly controlled part
of the laboratory,

so I'm going to need some
very fashionable accessories.

Ancl we're good to go.
Follow me.

Looking good, Dr Chris.

He then carefully and, er...
elegantly carries the hot coffee

to the freeze-drying lab,

where the process
will take place in two stages,

the first of which
is freezing it very, very quickly.

We've got here a blast freezer,

a very impressive piece of kit

that will freeze my coffee
in about 20 minutes.

So I'm going to open this up
and pop the coffee in.

Here we go.

And, yep, you guessed it -
here's one that was frozen earlier.

You can see it's lovely and solid,

but as you can see, it's still
full of water, albeit as ice.

So we need to now go to the
next stage - the freeze dryer.

And just when you thought
it couldn't get any more

like Stranger Things...

Right.

So, this bad boy
is the freeze dryer.

It's essentially a giant vacuum

which forces
all the little ice crystals

to turn straight into a gas
because of the low pressure.

You might remember
from your school science clays

that water goes from solid
to liquid, to gas,

but, in a freeze dryer
under low pressure,

you can skip the water phase
altogether

and go straight from a solid
to a gas,

which leaves just the coffee
with no moisture in it.

So, we've had some in the
freeze dryer now for about 24 hours,

and this is the end result.

A solid that is completely dry,
all the moisture gone.

Nothing left but coffee.

It doesn't look exactly like
the coffee you'd get in jars

at the moment,
which means we have one last step.

Back to Dr Chris's lab.

Now, you may remember
instant coffee in the '80s

being in larger granules.

However, to get that,

I'd have to compress the coffee
and then break it up.

In my case, I'm going to make
a posher coffee, a fine grind.

Oh, very fancy.
Get that man a Vienetta.

Next, Dr Chris, pops some
of his freeze-dried coffee

into a grinder

and gives it a good blitz.

Voila!

We have a beautiful instant coffee,

which will last infinitely longer
than the fresh stuff.

Impressive! But the proof is in
the highly caffeinated hot beverage.

And you know what?
That's not ha“ bad.

I might call this Platinum Blend.

We you see what you did there,
Chris.

Well, that's all from us, folks.

Our frolic through the decade

that transformed the way
we shopped and ate forever

has come to an end.

From mouthwatering, tasty treats
like potato waffles and Vienetta,

to trailblazing grannies
and irresistible new discounts.

We hope you've enjoyed the ride.

We certainly have.