A Cook on the Wild Side

Series 2 Episode 1
First Broadcast: Thu 13 March 1997

The Bain Marie is christened and launched in March, when signs of spring are extremely thin on the ground. As Hugh peers over the steering wheel at the dreary, cold landscape, he is soon tempted off the barge and on to his trusty gastro-bike to forage further from the barren banks.

In Prickly Nut Woods he comes upon Ben Law who has traded the rat race for a life of coppicing, charcoal burning and communing with nature. In the absence of anything immediately edible, Ben introduces Hugh to the patient art of country brewing which begins with tapping sap from the stately silver birch. Although the brew must ferment for three months, thankfully Ben has a batch he prepared earlier and Hugh passes an entertaining evening sampling Ben's extensive country wine cellar.

The next morning, Hugh's hangover is accompanied by an ominous sprinkling of snow and the Bain Marie draws up to the canal bank amid an established colony of narrow boats in Oxford. Steve Warn is an experienced boatman and waterway wheeler-dealer, and he shows Hugh how to use a chicken carcass as bait for freshwater crayfish.

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