'The first day of spring. That's a good one (!)'
'The weather gods must be appeased before my voyage can begin.'
'And so a double baptism - first me, then my boat.'
'God bless the Bain Marie, and all who eat in her.'
'The plan is to soothe my soul on the water, but also to fill my belly.'
'I'm counting on the new season to provide for my kitchen and my karma.'
'My route into rural tranquillity...
..is the inland waterways of Britain, a slow zig-zag across the country,...
..drifting gently towards summer.'
But I'd find it easier to wax lyrical
about the changing season if spring would get a move on.
There's a nasty nip in the air...
..and for all the young vegetation I see, it might as well be Christmas.
It gives you that scary feeling that, maybe this year,...
..Mother Nature's decided to pack it in, and there won't be any spring.
'The Bain Marie is my new home...
..and my ticket down the aquatic arteries of the English countryside.'
'For further exploration, I've got my go-anywhere gastro-bike.'
'In my search for signs of spring, I'm heading away from the water and deep into the woods.'
# DIDGERIDOO
'I'm no seasonal detective, no expert on the signs of spring, hence the panic.'
'But Ben Law is.'
'His life, or at least the quality of his life, depends on it.'
'Ben has made his home in Prickly Nut Woods.'
'I wanted to live in a way which was less stressful, and in a way which was sustainable.'
'Coppicing is an old technique of forest management.'
'When you cut down a broad-leafed tree during the winter, you don't kill it.'
'The tree will regenerate and send up new shoots,..
..and you harvest those on a regular cycle.'
'I'm cutting the last trees for the year...
..and stockpiling materials for the summer.'
'Charcoal-burning uses up materials left for a year or two to season,...
..and forms part of my outlay in the summer for the charcoal market.'
CHIMES SOUND IN THE WIND
I'm on this journey, Ben,
and I'm hoping spring will give me some interesting ingredients.
Right.
But there's still a nip in the air, and I wonder if we'll ever escape.
There are signs around us, among the trees.
I think I'm missing them.
Have a look at this one, then.
Do you recognise this? The buds breaking?
Is that pussy willow?
That's right, pussy willow. Salix caprea, or goat willow.
Very pretty, but we can't eat it.
It's one of the first bee-fodder crops.
So later, we eat it as honey?
Absolutely. Or ferment it to mead.
'One acid test for spring
is to see if the sap is rising in the silver birch.'
'Ben has the tools to provide the answer.'
At the moment, the sap is rising from the roots of the tree.
We're interrupting the process and taking the sap on its way up.
You see how far spring is on by how fast it flows.
I don't want to go further.
You're just going through the first layer, not into the main wood.
Through the bark?
Yes. You should see the sap now.
Doesn't hang around, does it?
No, it comes through quite fast.
This is your first spring consumable?
Yes. It's hard to know the exact moment to tap the birch.
You can tap it for ten to 15 days at the start of spring.
After that, the sap's too high, too thick, and you can't tap the tree.
Any earlier, you won't get any sap.
It's quite impressive,
though I can see we'd have to wait quite a while
before that demijohn fills up.
Yeah. It's coming through slowly,...
..and that one will take three or four days to get a good amount.
'Luckily, Ben had tapped another birch tree which had given half a gallon of sap'
'After removing the pipe, clay seals the scar,...
..and ensures no permanent damage is done to the tree.'
'Back at Ben's al fresco brewery, he showed me his recipe for birch sap wine.'
'The sap is filtered through muslin, then topped up with hot water.'
'The frothy brewer's yeast goes in,
and the demijohn, with an airtight valve,...
..will be left for three months before bottling.'
That's it? That's it.
Spring essence for future consumption
Yep. I have last year's for present consumption. This is it.
This is the birch sap?
This is the birch sap.
Mmm. It's got much more flavour than I expected.
Mmm.
It's got real depth,
because I tasted the sap. It was slightly insipid.
This has...character. I was going to say oaky,
but I guess it's birchy. Birchy, yeah!
'As the sun set, Ben and I moved to the fire, and settled down to some wine buffery.'
Flowers... and honey... More honeysuckle than urine.
Good colour. Mmm. There's something appley there.
Very young. Last year's crop.
Slightly petillant.
Beetroot and ginger.
Very fruity.
No cough mixture in this one. Benylin, surely!
'Nature's revenge for our premature spring celebration...
..was not just a sore head, but snow.'
'I pulled in among a well-established colony of narrow boats.'
ENGINE STOPS
What sort of boat's that, then?
Bit bright, innit?
It shows up your paint job a bit, doesn't it?
What do you think?
Bit of a lunch box, innit, a fibreglass lunch box.
It's got more class than that, hasn't it? Lunch box?
'Steve Walsh deals in canal-related scrap,...
..and the roof of his boat shows off his magpie instincts.'
'He may have a harsh turn of phrase, but he's a resourceful chap.'
Is this a wind-up?
'He even has a use for chicken carcasses.'
Chuck it over there. Keep it near the edge.
And just sit and watch, and you'll see 'em.
Have they always been here?
No, someone put 'em here
or they escaped from a pond.
They crawl across the land...
Really? and the river is ideal for 'em.
You might feel 'em pulling.
Really? They give a tug?
Quite strong.
You've got one there. See it?
Oh, yeah.
Ease it towards the bank.
I want to be sure he's holding on.
I'll stick the net under.
That's it, we got it.
Watch it, it might pinch ya.
That's a genuine freshwater crayfish.
Yep, American signal.
Really? So these are the American invaders...
Yeah.
..who eat the English ones?
They eat the English ones, the fish, the fish eggs.
Nobody knows yet how much damage they are doing.
'These monsters are so successful, we didn't see an English crayfish.'
'We did our best to redress the balance by eating all we could catch'
'Five minutes in boiling water, and it's time to get cracking.'
They're like giant cockroaches.
Little mini lobsters. Scampi.
What do we do? Break that off.
I won't ask if you washed your hands. We don't worry here.
Take that black vein out of it.
Like on a lobster?
Yeah.
There we go.
That is extremely good.
You can also eat the meat out the claws.
On your own for a couple of weeks?
Mm-hm.
How are you gonna survive?
If I keep running into helpful people like you, I'll be all right.
Then again, with a boat like this...
What's wrong with it?
You're OK as long as the sun shines.
What's wrong with my boat?
You changed its name?
Yeah, to the Bain Marie.
That's bad luck.
You could run into bad luck.
How very reassuring(!)
Thank you, Steve. Just what I need on my maiden voyage(!)
As we head west and actually get some miles under our belt,
the local climate's changing all the time.
It's misty here, but very mild.
I'm hoping that means the hedgerow herb garden will be coming through.
'A search for some budding spring greens...
..is an activity that doubles rather well
with being a canal-side nosy parker.'
There's an old cooks' saying -
"Herbs that grow together, go together."
And here we've got young chervil and wild chives.
Chervil grows up three or four feet in the summer to be cow parsley.
You see it everywhere.
The leaves, when young, have a delicious parsley flavour.
Be careful, because there are things that look like this and are poisonous.
The key is fine hairs you can hardly see,...
..but if you look closely, they tell you this is chervil, and you're OK.
These wild chives are exactly like the chives you get in the supermarket, only better.
Here! Are you picking my chives? Cheeky!
Um... a couple. Sorry, I didn't realise this was your patch.
You can have some.
'Never one to turn down invitations,
..I went in for a taste of canal-side hospitality.'
Coming aboard!
Is there a whole set of lore and culture I need to tap into...
..to be a proper boat-person?
It does do well to follow the British Waterways Boaters' Code.
I'm not talking about...
As long as you know what is expected of you.
I still have trouble with locks...
..but I'm talking about the culture, behaviour.
People who are used to being on boats usually knock before they walk in.
There's not much privacy, so if I'm in the bath and people walk in, it's like, "Hello !"
So boaters wait for you to say, "It's OK to come in now." That's important.
And then they come and see you in your bath?
They'll hopefully wait!
I have already made one aquatic faux pas.
I met a guy called Steve down near Oxford.
He said it was bad luck to change the name of my boat.
Which, of course, I've done.
What can I do to reverse the effect?
I'd adopt a positive mental attitude.
You're as doomed as you want to be.
'Beatrice suggested improving my waterborne vibrations
with lucky horseshoes.'
'She did one for the Bain Marie, and I did mine for her former incarnation, Silver Mist.'
With these, I should have luck coming out of my ears.
Talking of ears, I think it's time for my first piece of terrestrial protein.
'A fine sight of the season, and a sign that winter is on the way out,
..is hares with a touch of spring fever.'
'The killing of hares is a contentious issue.'
'I met a man who knows more than most about these creatures.'
'He practises the art of long-netting,
usually done at night.'
'Hares in Britain are not endangered,
but are scarce in some areas.'
'These days, long-netters like Chris Smith, as well as killing them,...
..capture live hares for re-stocking.'
Now, this is an absolute classic, look at this.
There's a run here. The hares use it.
You can see bits of hares' fur here.
I'm going to run right the way through.
This is the traditional method from the 1880s when I was a boy!
There we go. That should do it.
It's getting the tension right, so I want to go about there.
The hares are out on the field.
I'm making too much noise for night-time practice,...
..but since I know where they are, we're OK.
I was speaking to an old lady about countryside ways.
She said, "We called it shushing."
"Shh! My dad took us when I was young, and all he said was 'Shh'!"
That's the game, one man against the beast.
You have to get on close quarters. You can't stride up to them.
We need the wind to our advantage.
WHISTLES
'Long-netting by day is a team game.'
'Chris and I keep a watchful eye on the nets,...
..while beaters spread across several fields walk the hares towards them.'
Hares often stop on the close side of the hedge and leap over the top.
That's a one. Keep down, here's another.
Now he's gone back again, look!
Now, watch this.
Just watch this.
No! Bugger me, he wasn't having any of that.
There's one coming over the top.
He's coming down...
He's going for it.
He's going... There he goes!
'Only a hypocrite would argue the death of hunted hares is without pain
..but bear in mind hares are mortal,
..and deaths offered by nature are none too pleasant.'
'The ability to deliver a swift dispatch is important,
'and Chris didn't need help.'
Right. That's broken his neck nice and clean.
Now we need to get him out.
Often they chew through the net.
If you ain't on 'em fairly quick, you get big holes.
That will feed seven or eight.
'For flavour, the hare should be hung for several days.'
'We swapped yesterday's for a week-old beast from Chris' larder.'
If you're going to take a hare from the field to the table,...
..there are various intermediate tasks to be done.
One of them is getting the skin off.
First get a little bit of skin close to the belly...
..and start your slit.
Get your blade under the skin...
..work it up towards the chest of the hare...
..always taking care
not to pierce that membrane that keeps in the stomach contents.
You want them to come out nice and easy at the end, quickly,...
..cos they're pretty smelly.
Once you can get your hand between the skin and body, it gets easier.
You can just pop the back legs out.
And then you can just pull the whole thing off like one big jersey.
'Beheaded and jointed, the hare is ready for the pot.'
'First, the meat is quickly browned in a little hot oil.'
'A splash of Ben's elderberry wine is perfect for de-glazing the pan.'
'The rest of the bottle goes in.
The pan is topped up with boiling water.'
'Canal-side herbs are popped in,...
..and the lid goes on for three hours of very slow simmering -
..plenty of time to swab down the deck...
..and feed the rest of the crew.'
Now we get to the ever so slightly risky bit.
We're going to thicken the sauce using the blood from the hare.
The important thing is that we put a bit of hot liquid
into the blood, stirring it,
to warm it before we put it in the sauce,
otherwise it's going to coagulate.
Then the blood can go straight in.
That's already starting to thicken.
The meat goes back in.
The lid goes on.
Dumpling time.
Dumplings are a great tradition of English cookery.
There's no better way to put starch in a stew
than a good old-fashioned dumpling.
My dumplings are made very special with my hedgerow herbs -
chives and chervil.
It's very important that a dumpling puffs up and gets nice and plump...
..so always use self-raising flour.
To stop them being very doughy, you mix it 50-50 with breadcrumbs.
Same quantity of suet.
One egg yolk.
Mix it up.
Get ready to get sticky hands.
Just coming together very nicely now.
It's basically pastry, little doughballs popped in the pot.
That's all there is to it.
One big dumpling which I'm going to make into six small ones.
'After 25 minutes, the dumplings will be plumplings,
and the stew is ready for the table.'
This is new.
Did your mother put dumplings in?
Not with a hare.
We got our own recipe, marinade 'em in scrumpy, and basically roast 'em.
That's the southern way?
It's our way.
Don't forget the gravy.
That's interesting with the blood. I'll have to remember that one.
You eat a lot of hare?
Quite a few.
I like it about twice a year.
That richness, it's a rare treat.
That's nice.
It's rich.
I've never known why it's called "jugged".
I think they used to cook it in a jug. I don't know.
A theory - jugged meant pissed,
and you put booze in - it's a drunk hare.
Who knows the originations of this?
Subtitles by Red Bee Media