Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14821 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-09-06
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 2
• Formats: Closed-captioned, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 168 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's easy to be cynical about Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's adventures as a downshifted smallholder in Escape to River Cottage; after all, given his fame and fortune, he could upshift again faster than a BMW sports gearbox whenever he chose. "Why don't you give it a go?", he asks us. Because we don't all have fat media contracts to fall back on, we roll our eyes and reply.

However, despite HF-W's seeming like a Posy Simmonds character, the fact remains that no TV chef has come close when it comes to reminding the supermarket generation about where food really comes from, or indeed where it should come from, as well as the values of indigenous produce (also a largely overlooked aspect of macrobiotics, incidentally). In this well-stuffed double DVD set Weirdly-Eatingall does alarming things with a goose, smokes fish in his chimney, eats his rather cute pigs, monitors the movements of mice by marking them with lipstick (why does he just happen to have some lippy lying around?) and, almost in passing, cooks up some wonderful dishes with his home-grown ingredients.

On the DVD: Escape to River Cottage two-disc set includes six episodes, plus a bonus in the form of the Christmas special. Extras are on-screen recipes, F-W's biography and some outtakes, which are deeply unfunny except when various things decide to bite the presenter, which they do fairly often. The extras are duplicated on both discs, which is pointless and/or a bit of a swizz. --Roger Thomas

Special Features

• The Christmas Special
  
• Recipes
  
• Out-takes
  
• Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall biography
  
• Scene indexing
  
• Interactive menus

DVD Technical Information:

• Colour PAL
  
• Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  
• Total running time: 168 mins approx. (2 discs)

Synopsis
Some may think of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as slightly eccentric. After all his books feature chapters on the best way to catch and eat the likes of garden pigeons and squirrels. However, amongst the slightly less practical features he provides a wealth of information on sensible ways to escape the urban sprawl and live off the land. This series follows Hugh and his family as they set about turning River Cottage into a self sufficient paradise with flowers, vegetables and their own livestock and includes advice on recipes that use ingredients that can be grown and caught.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant...
This series is amazing, I first watched an episode of River Cottage on Sky, was at home with a friend zapping through numerous channels and landed on this, my friend insisted it was a brilliant TV show and we should watch the episode.

My friend is not into cooking that much so it got me interested!

Anyhow the stories, the recipes and the adventure got me hooked, i had to buy them.

I have watched the two first seasons and i love it, kind of makes me dream of a house in the coutryside, although i guess a lot of aspects of self-sufficiency are not covered he looks at the food side of things with a lot of attention.

The only negative i have about his show is that he uses railway sleepers in his vegetable garden, most of those are full of chemicals and really should not be used for that purpose!

Anyway I highly recommend this DVD Boxset, watch it, love it and live it! :-)

river cottage all 3 dvds
this is a most excellent set of dvds they give you a real insight into self serficency and is a real insperation even if you can't go the whole way at least it will help you think about the food we eat and where it comes from. Hugh fearnley-whittingstall is very entertaining and very a passionate about what he is doing!!!

Downscaling in a grand way...
This must be the ultimate series on living a simple but enjoyable live. Hugh shows his struggles and victories whileliving from the "fat of the land" . The only disadvantage of this DVD is that one starts looking for smallholdings in Dorset!