The small stories behind everyday life

Why the banana you eat isn't the one your grandparents ate. How a Scottish gardener smuggled tea out of China. Who sold ice to the tropics.

Watch on YouTube

What we make

Crumbs of History is a YouTube channel of illustrated documentaries, around half an hour each, about the history of food and ordinary things. Every episode follows one everyday object or ingredient back through the people, places and accidents that brought it to us.

How it's made

Episodes are produced with the help of AI. The narrator, Marie, is an AI voice, and the illustrations are AI-generated paintings. Every fact is checked against at least two sources before an episode is made, and the sources are listed under each video. Videos are marked on YouTube as containing synthetic media.