Travel the Formula 1 calendar from your own kitchen. Search any driver, circuit, country or race since 1950, then bring that place to your table. No passport required, though an apron helps.
Every driver leads to a country, every country to a circuit, and every circuit, eventually, to dinner.
Where it began
My mom and I.
Every race, a seat at our table.
For almost a decade, my mom and I have kept one tradition. Wherever Formula 1 races that weekend, that is where dinner comes from. Melbourne sends us to the Australian coast. Suzuka brings Japan into our kitchen. Monza means Italy, and a very long lunch.
What began as a way to watch together became the best part of our week. A country we have never visited. An ingredient we have never bought. An hour side by side at the stove before the lights go out. Somewhere between the first course and the checkered flag, it stopped being dinner and became ours.
For years we joked that it should be a cookbook. Now we are writing it, together, one race at a time.
Podium Plates is more than a book to us. It is a reason to keep building something side by side, to keep learning the places we have only seen on a screen, and to follow this sport a little closer with every season. Support it, and you are not only backing a cookbook. You are pulling up a chair at our table, and coming along for whatever comes next.
Every contribution goes toward researching, writing and printing the first edition.
An illustration of our race weekend table. Photos from our own kitchen are on the way.
Our tradition
Wherever the race goes, dinner goes too.
MELBOURNE Barramundi with lemon myrtle butterSHANGHAI Red braised short ribsSUZUKA Teriyaki salmonMONACO BarbajuanMONZA Risotto alla milaneseMEXICO CITY Tacos al pastor
A World, A Menu, A Race Weekend.
Every round opens a new country to taste. In our house, the formation lap doubles as the dinner bell.
The race weekend ritual
Five things, every round.
Discover the destination
Find out where the race is, what surrounds the circuit, and what the locals eat when nobody is filming.
Choose one dish
Pick something that belongs to that place. If you cannot pronounce it yet, even better.
Share the table
Sit down together. The meal is the reason, the company is the reward, and the leftovers are the bonus.
Watch the race
Lights out, plate in hand. Years later, one bite will bring the whole race back, including the parts you would rather forget.
Repeat next round
Next round, a new country. By the finale you have eaten your way around the world without queuing at a single airport.
The first cookbook
The Founders Edition
One chapter for every round of the season. Each one carries you to the host city and home again, with dishes made for an ordinary kitchen and stories worth telling over them.
One thousand copies, numbered and signed by hand. Five hundred hardback, five hundred paperback, and a digital edition for everyone else.
Every dish belongs to the place the race visits, and we research it in the culture it comes from. When a recipe is our own take, we say so, rather than inventing a grandmother we never had.
Written for any kitchen
Every recipe is written so a first time cook can follow it from the chopping board to the plate, with swaps for hard to find ingredients and versions for every kind of diet.
Every fact traced to a source
Dates, results and history are checked against more than one source before they reach a page. The stewards would approve.
Independent and unofficial
We are fans of food and racing. Podium Plates is not connected to Formula 1, the FIA or any team, though we would happily feed all three.
Where the book is todayFirst three chapters drafted
Australia, China and Japan are written. The rest of the season is being researched now.
Be part of it
Pull up a chair with us.
Founders Edition
Buy the cookbook
One thousand numbered and signed copies, from $49.99, and a digital edition at $19.99. Leave your email and you will hear the moment orders open, well before the lights go out.
Pull up a chair with our community of cooks and race fans, and unlock the whole archive back to 1950, for $3 a month.
Every season since 1950, with its story and full results
Every recipe, with its full method, swaps and dietary versions
A race weekend menu with one combined shopping list
Printable recipes and every result for every search
New member features as we add them
Join at $3 and keep that price for as long as you keep your seat. Cancel anytime.
A yearly seat, $99 a year. Everything above, plus each new Podium Plates cookbook sent to you every year, with early access before anyone else. Coming soon
Support our journey
Help a mother and son turn a family tradition into a book worth keeping. Every contribution goes toward researching each chapter and printing the first edition.
One time, from $1
PayPal, Venmo or card
Support is not a preorder or a donation, and is not tax deductible.
Questions
Before you pull up a chair.
What is the Founders Edition?
Our first cookbook, limited to one thousand printed copies: five hundred hardback at $79.99 and five hundred paperback at $49.99, plus shipping. Every printed copy is numbered and signed by both of us, so it comes to us first and then travels on to you, which takes a little longer than an ordinary parcel. The digital edition, at $19.99, is unlimited.
When can I buy the cookbook?
We are writing it now, one chapter per race weekend, which is roughly the pace of the sport itself. Join the list above and you will hear first when orders open.
What is The Podium Table?
The Podium Table is our community of cooks and race fans, and a seat is $3 a month. It opens every season back to 1950, with its story and full results, every recipe with its swaps, dietary versions and shopping list, and every result for every search. Join at $3 and you keep that price for as long as you stay. A yearly seat, coming soon at $99, adds each new cookbook sent to you every year, with early access.
What can I see for free?
Something from everything. Every season has its calendar, its winners and the opening of its story; every race has its top five; every driver, circuit, country and team has its profile; and every country has a signature recipe. The last five seasons and five landmark years are free in full. A seat at The Podium Table adds the rest.
Do I need to follow Formula 1 to use it?
Not at all. The calendar is simply our excuse to travel by plate. Every recipe works perfectly well on a Tuesday, no safety car required.
Where does the race history come from?
The archive is built from Wikidata, a free public database, and checked against the season and race results published on Wikipedia. Every page shows what it was checked against.
Is this an official Formula 1 product?
No. Podium Plates is an independent, unofficial cookbook made by a mother and son. It is not associated with Formula 1, the FIA or any team. We simply cook, very enthusiastically, in their direction.
The race weekend newsletter
Every Grand Prix, in your inbox.
One email a few days before every race: what to cook, the story of the place, the history of the circuit and the drivers who called it home. Free, and as easy to leave as it is to join.
Your next race weekend starts at the table.
Start with this weekend's Grand Prix, or wander any season since 1950. Bring an appetite; we will bring the history.
Sorghum malt and maize soured, simmered and slowly fermented over three days into a thick, tangy, gently alcoholic opaque beer, shared from one vessel.
Long before bottled lager, beer in Zimbabwe meant doro: a thick, pinkish brown, sour opaque beer brewed from sorghum or millet malt and maize, drunk while still fermenting and passed around in a shared pot. It is brewed for weddings, communal work parties, rainmaking and ancestral ceremonies, and for the simple pleasure of neighbors gathering. The traditional process runs across about a week, from sprouting and sun drying the grain to souring, long boiling and a final fermentation, and a busy brewer rarely has spare minutes in any of them. Modern Zimbabwe also buys opaque beer ready made in cartons that are shaken before drinking, which tells you how much of a meal this drink is.
Our home version keeps the stages and the character but shortens the timeline to about three days, using sorghum malt bought ready made. It tastes nothing like lager: soured like sourdough, faintly sweet, with a texture somewhere between a thin porridge and a smoothie, and usually only about 3 to 4 percent alcohol. It is a project, not a cocktail, and the reward is a pot of something genuinely old to share on race day. For a sweet, alcohol free version, the zero proof variation makes masvusvu, the unfermented malt drink at the start of the process.
Day one: the soured mash
Ingredients
2 cups (320 g) fine white mealie meal
1 cup (120 g) sorghum malt
12 cups (3 liters) cold water
2 tablespoons sorghum malt
Method
Put the mealie meal and the 1 cup (120 g) sorghum malt in the large pot. Pour in the cold water a little at a time, whisking constantly, until smooth.
Set the pot over medium low heat. Stir with the wooden spoon every few minutes, scraping the bottom, for about 40 minutes until it comes slowly to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Take the pot off the heat and let it cool, stirring now and then, until it drops below 100°F (38°C), about 2 hours. Stir in the 2 tablespoons uncooked sorghum malt.
Pour into the crock, cover with the cloth tied down with string, and leave at warm room temperature, 75°F to 85°F (24°C to 29°C), for about 24 hours.
Day two: cooking and fermenting
Ingredients
4 cups (960 ml) water
1 1/2 cups (180 g) sorghum malt
1/2 teaspoon dried bread yeast
Method
Pour the soured mash back into the clean pot with the water. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring often, then turn the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour, stirring and scraping the bottom every 5 minutes, as it catches easily.
Take the pot off the heat, cover with the cloth and leave to cool until it is below 90°F (32°C), about 3 to 4 hours. Stir now and then to stop a skin forming.
Stir in the 1 1/2 cups (180 g) sorghum malt and the yeast, if using, until evenly mixed. Pour back into the clean crock, cover with the cloth and tie it down.
Leave at warm room temperature for 24 to 36 hours, stirring once or twice a day with a clean spoon.
Day three: straining and serving
Ingredients
2 cups (480 ml) cool water
Method
Stir the beer well, then pour it through the coarse sieve into the serving jug or pot, pressing the solids lightly with the spoon. Throw away the husks left in the sieve. If it is thicker than you like, stir in some of the cool water.
Serve at once at room temperature or lightly cool, stirring before every pour, as it settles quickly.
Coming soon
