‘Have a walk around the farm, say hello to the pigs and, if the garden is looking a bit dry, do some watering. Although I don’t think that will be necessary this weekend,” says Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I’ve arrived at the River Cottage HQ in Axminster on the eastern Devon border while it’s raining, but it’s still going to take a lot to dampen my spirits. Tonight I’ll be staying in the 17th-century farmhouse that was home to Fearnley-Whittingstall’s famous television series from 2006 to 2011.
I’m here to do the River Cottage Experience, a day-long extravaganza that involves foraging, cooking and feasting. And while courses have been popular at River Cottage for years, only recently has there been the option to stay overnight.
A tour of the farmhouse reveals its sensitive restoration: the kitchen’s inglenook fireplace and bread oven is a familiar backdrop to many of Fearnley-Whittingstall’s televised cooking demonstrations, the three bedrooms upstairs are subtly contemporary in design.
Yet this renovation is not without quirks. The farmhouse was built in the early 1600s, so the practicalities of a conversion in a treasured building are limited. I’d already been warned about bumping my head on low beams, but it’s the gently sloping nature of the floors that, once you stop questioning your sobriety, adds an almost childish element of fun to the stay.
As darkness falls, the wind whips up, the sitting-room fire crackles and, with the farmhouse to myself, I get down to the tough decisions: Bramley bath salts with lavender flowers, geranium and spearmint, or the Bramley bubble bath with geranium, lavender and sweet orange? River Cottage organic lager or an organic Italian sangiovese?
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As dawn breaks, the views from bedrooms towards the flourishing kitchen garden are inspirational. “Our guests can wake up and not only see what’s in season,” Fearnley-Whittingstall says, “but what’s for lunch and dinner too.” And breakfast. I select the cooked farmhouse option: two plump sausages made in-house, eggs from the hens, Coombe Farm bacon, wilted chard, beans, heritage tomatoes and toast.
Yet the main event is to come. I meet my fellow cooks near the cottage and we hop aboard a tractor that chugs down to the classroom. We kick off with a tour of the 100-acre farm led by the head gardener, Helen Musgrave, who explains the River Cottage’s organic ethos.
We’re encouraged to pick tomatoes, basil and chillies for our lunch, then take a quick trip to the kitchen garden to gather lemon verbena that the head chef, Dominik Moldenhauer, has requested.
Moldenhauer proves a patient cooking teacher. We make a farmhouse loaf from scratch, then puff pastry for a tarte Tatin, then flatbread. We cure pork belly with demerara sugar, black peppercorns, juniper and sage, which will turn the meat into a marvellous bacon a few days later.
We dice lambs’ hearts and marinate them with more oil, garlic, shallots, chilli and thyme. At a fire pit we fry our flatbreads and lambs’ hearts atop open flames, before enjoying the fruits of our labours over a glass of wine.
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Seafood is the main afternoon focus. My fish-filleting and scallop-shucking efforts could be improved, but it’s extremely satisfying to unwrap my steaming parcel of fennel, garlic and lemon verbena- infused fish a few hours later as we sit down to a dinner with sparkling River Cottage elderflower wine in an 18th-century threshing barn.
“The tractor will struggle to get us out of here,” says my cooking buddy Mandy, and it dawns on me that I’ve been eating all day, not forgetting an afternoon snack of scallops with butter and homemade chorizo scoffed hot from their shells at the fire pit.
But the tractor is one passenger light tonight: I gratefully totter the few steps back to the farmhouse, pop my leftover tarte Tatin, farmhouse loaf and pork belly in the kitchen fridge and pass out in an exhausted but happy food coma.
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Karyn Noble was a guest of River Cottage (01297 630300, rivercottage.net). Lasting from 10am to 8pm, the River Cottage Experience costs from £195pp, including meals and drinks. It next runs on September 11. B&B doubles cost from £150 a night