| Hugh Fearnley -Whittingstall |
 Spring is in the air, when hairy creatures everywhere come out of hibernation and bask in the warm sunlight. And Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is no exception. He's back with a new series from River Cottage, and here, he reveals exactly what he's got planned. Spring must be a hugely exciting time of year at River Cottage. Is it your favourite season? I love it when the seasons are shifting fast, so that’s spring and autumn. You can see and smell the changes around you. And if you’re a gardener and a cook you can feel and cook them too! June is a particularly exciting month as spring is poised to become summer and so many delicious vegetables start coming good in the garden. I love those lengthening days too, that give us time to stay outside longer and play with the kids after school. It must be an incredibly busy time of year, isn't it? Well it is when you’re making a TV series about it! But in theory much of the hard work in the garden and on the farm should be done by the middle of May. The lambs are born and out in the fields, the veg is planted, and the time to reap the reward is imminent. What's happening at River Cottage at the moment? Frenetic gardening and cooking! The first barbecues of the year. And now that the weather’s really hotting up, quite a lot of very cold cider is being drunk. You're following up on the Chicken Out campaign in this series. How's it going? The response has been incredible. The demand for free range chicken in the UK has more than doubled. It’s nearly six months since the shows went out and the demand for higher welfare poultry is still growing, so it’s not just a flash in the pan. Many poultry farmers are now seeking to adopt the RSPCA Freedom Foods welfare standards. But we still want the supermarkets to show a bigger commitment to selling higher welfare poultry. Tesco have promised us an interview on camera for the series, which is exciting. We’re still waiting for a date though. You're also running a project in Bristol. What's that all about? It’s about a group of families starting up a smallholding in the city. It’s like a co-operative allotment, but with livestock as well as vegetables. What is it meant to prove? There’s a huge amount of land in and around our cities going to waste, that could be used productively to grow food. We hope to show that with a little determination, community groups could easily get it together to make this happen. We’ve discovered an interesting piece of legislation that says that if any group of six or more people approach a city council and ask for land to grow food on, the city is obliged to try and find it for them. Most people don't have access to an acre of land. Will there be information applicable to people with tiny gardens? Well perhaps they could get access to land if they challenge their local council to provide it. But yes, there will be plenty of tips for people who want to grow food in small urban spaces If someone wanted to make one change to incorporate more of a River Cottage lifestyle, what would be the most important one to make? Don’t buy food if you don’t know where it comes from, i.e. shop locally and in tune with the seasons. It’s the next best thing to growing your own. And you've been approached by a vegetarian in need of assistance. What is she up to? Susan wants to start eating meat again but she’s lost her confidence. She can hardly bear to touch it, let alone eat it. Why did you send her on a butchery course? That just sounds plain mean... On the contrary, I’m hoping she will end up understanding more about meat, cooking it well and appreciating it fully – even more so perhaps than your average carnivore. Do you ever get a chance to relax? How do you spend your down time? Just at the moment I don’t seem to get enough time to do all the things I am always suggesting other people should try and do to enjoy their life more: gardening, fishing, foraging etc. And I am aware of the irony of that. But I work at home and am with the family almost every day so I can’t complain. |
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