Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s third TV series, his most famous, is River Cottage. There are actually lots of them but so far I have watched the original ones, Escape to River Cottage, Return to River Cottage and River Cottage Forever.
This follows him packing up his life in London and moving to Dorset to live as a smallholder – that is someone who has a small farm, primarily used for self subsistence. Each series follows a year.
He seems to be well versed in rural life already. While he clearly isn’t a livestock expert, he does manage to keep them alive and seems familiar with a lot of activities I would not be, such as diving, butchery, smoking meat and wielding a gun. He also manages the first two years in a soft-top classic sports car, before finally giving in and buying a Land Rover (also a soft-top).
I did wonder how real it was. For example he talks about going to do a farmers market to raise some cash for a little project he has on. But was does the £100 actually cover? Presumably not his rent, his vet’s bills, or the large amount of food he buys in to supplement his own stocks. Fun to watch, but I got the distinct impression that undertaking such a project was not actually in the reach of us plebs, despite Hugh’s assertion that we could all do it.
It’s not really a cooking show. He cooks things obviously, but I did not come away with any recipe ideas. It’s just fun to watch (and it is very entertaining), and possible dream.
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Tags: cooking, hugh fearnley-whittingstall, river cottage, tv
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2015 at 10:35 am and is filed under Distractions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.