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.
Slow simmered beef in a tomato and onion gravy beside a smooth, firm mound of white cornmeal sadza: the meal Zimbabwe sits down to most evenings.
Ask a Zimbabwean what counts as a proper meal and the answer is usually sadza, the stiff white cornmeal porridge that anchors lunch and dinner across the country. It is not a side dish so much as the plate itself. You pinch off a piece with your right hand, roll it into a small ball, press a dent in it with your thumb and use it to scoop up whatever relish is on offer. Tonight the relish is nyama, beef simmered until it gives up and then finished with onion, tomato and a gentle hint of curry powder. Cattle have long been a measure of wealth here, and beef stew is the dish that turns a Sunday or a Christmas into an occasion.
The method is plain on purpose. The beef cooks in its own broth until tender, the broth becomes the gravy, and the sadza is made in a single pot with a wooden spoon and some forearm. Zimbabwe has never staged a Grand Prix, but its drivers, John Love above all, treated the South African Grand Prix as a home race in the 1960s. A plate of sadza ne nyama is the sensible way to watch a race from anywhere: filling, unfussy and eaten with one hand.
The beef stew
Ingredients
2 lb (900 g) boneless beef chuck or stewing beef
2 tablespoons (30 ml) vegetable oil
1 teaspoon fine salt
4 cups (960 ml) water
1 large yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
3 medium ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons beef or oxtail soup powder
Method
Pat the beef chunks dry with paper towels and sprinkle them with the salt.
Heat the oil in the large pot over medium high heat for 2 minutes. Add half the beef in a single layer and leave it alone for 3 minutes, then turn the pieces and cook 3 minutes more. Lift them onto a plate and brown the second batch the same way. Return all the beef to the pot.
Pour in the water and scrape the bottom of the pot with the wooden spoon to lift the brown crust into the liquid. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low, cover and simmer gently for 1 1/2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes and adding a splash of water if the meat is no longer mostly covered.
Carefully pour about 1 cup (240 ml) of the hot broth into the measuring jug and set it aside. Uncover the pot, turn the heat to medium and let the rest of the liquid bubble away for about 10 minutes, stirring now and then.
Add the onion, garlic and curry powder to the beef and fry, stirring, for 3 to 4 minutes.
Stir in the tomatoes and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, pressing them with the spoon now and then.
Stir the soup powder into the reserved broth in the jug until smooth, using the small bowl and a fork to break up any lumps first if needed. Pour it into the pot, stir well, cover and simmer on low for 5 to 8 minutes. Taste and add salt if needed. Keep warm on the lowest heat while you finish the sadza.
The sadza
Ingredients
2 1/2 to 3 cups (400 to 480 g) fine white mealie meal
1 cup (240 ml) cold water
4 cups (960 ml) boiling water
Method
Put 1 cup (160 g) of the mealie meal in the medium saucepan and stir in the cold water until smooth.
Set the pan over medium high heat. Pour in the boiling water in a slow stream, stirring constantly so no lumps form, and keep stirring until it comes back to a boil.
Turn the heat to low, cover and let it simmer for 15 minutes, stirring once halfway. Lift the lid away from you, as steam and spatters escape.
Turn the heat to medium. Sprinkle in the remaining mealie meal a handful at a time, about 1/4 cup (40 g) at a time. After each handful, beat hard with the wooden spoon, pressing the mixture against the side of the pan and folding it over itself to smooth out lumps. Stop adding meal when it is as firm as you like; you may not need it all.
Smooth the top, cover the pan and leave it on the lowest heat for 5 minutes so the last of the raw meal cooks through.
Dip the wooden spoon in the bowl of cold water, then scoop out a large spoonful of sadza. Turn it against the side of the pan a few times to round it into a smooth mound and slide it onto a plate. Wet the spoon again for each portion.
Coming soon
