I’m so very glad that someone decided to put Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on our telly. He’s real ale. He’s locally produced beef. He’s cutting the heads off animals. He’s homely and all broth. In an age which has seen the chef turn celebrity, Hugh is a kick against the norm. Ramsay, Oliver, Rhodes, Harriot, Lawson et al, all have a whiff of sterile disinfectants and precision slicing. Hugh, cracking chef that he quite obviously is, is more grubby hands serving up big fat dumplings in a kitchen that has already got you quite drunk. Guess where I’d rather spend the week?

With that, it’s a joy to be able to see more of The River Cottage Treatment (Channel 4, Tuesday, 8pm). Hugh, not satisfied with sharing his wealth of knowledge with the world, is on a mission to get people putting real goodness into their bodies. We’re not talking Gillian McKeith styled rantings. HFW can glutton it up with the best of ‘em. We’re talking quality food, grown locally and eaten with huge grins… apart from a few queasy types retching at a headless pigeon.

Inviting a group of city types to his marvelous River Cottage headquarters, Hugh gets to scratch a puzzled curly bonce at the takeaway townies who are far too lazy to cook, to lethargic to shop or, worse still, to idle to even think about the food on their plate. Hugh shows these fools that you can eat all your favourite junk, but make it with decent ingredients and, better still, you can rustle it up in next to no time.

As well as being shown the path of culinary righteousness, the group have to all deal with living in the countryside. I’d like to see some out-takes of this show and view the city types crying in the rain like Withnail & I when they first arrive in Penrith. In fact, Hugh should wake them all up with a hare nailed to their bedroom door with the message ‘Here Hare Here’. That sir, would make my bloody year.

The River Cottage Experience is exactly that. It’s an experience. Far more than your average cookery show, Hugh takes the viewer on a journey into food. A lesser chef would resort to preaching, much like Jamie Oliver did with his school dinners show. Hugh however, never once appears to lose his love of grub. Making the participants cook with ingredients they’ve grown, picked, reared and shot, Hugh proudly sits at the head of the table heaping praise on his new flock. Where Ramsay yells at people, Fearnley-Whittingstall puts an encouraging arm ’round and contentedly mops the gravy from his chin. This is what TV is all about.

Sometimes, like in last night’s show, the affect of the River Cottage is profound. One lady, after her stint, completely rejected her fast food past in favour of growing her own and making nettle soups and the like. This is of course what the viewers want to see. However, Hugh is brave enough to keep the footage in of his failures. Some simply have a nice holiday and go back to the pizzas and kebabs. Sadly for us blokes, it’s usually the men who let the side down. In short, this is a thoroughly enjoyable show that tells you a thing or two about the way you should be eating. Brilliant. [Mof Gimmers]