'The final leg of my zigzag across Britain
brings me to the Rochdale Canal in Yorkshire.'
Bargeloads of coal and textiles used to go up and down here,
making the fat cats of the Industrial Revolution fatter.
Meanwhile, over-exploited workers couldn't afford to feed themselves -
they turned to hedgerow to avoid starvation.
'I may be just a soft Southerner, but I think I can take several leaves
out of the Yorkshire wild food cookbook.'
'To the south of the Yorkshire town of Hebden Bridge lies one of nature's waterways.'
'Its fast-flowing, crystal waters are a haven for wild brown trout,
but, at the moment, I'm interested in the greenery on its grassy banks.'
This plant has pride of place in the Calder Valley spring hedgerow larder.
It's called bistort, although it's known locally as dock.
It may not look much and, in its raw state...
..it tastes fairly disgusting.
But its arrival in spring is still the cause of excitement,
because it means it's time to cook dock pudding,
which is known, with perhaps a little northern irony,
as the caviar of Calderdale.
'The recipe tends not to be written down
but passed by word of mouth amongst the ladies of the Calder Valley.'
'Whether they'll divulge the secrets to a Southerner is one thing -
whether they'll agree on the recipe is another.'
I hope you've washed them.
You've taken the stems off? Most of them, yeah.
You shouldn't have left that lot in.
I don't take all the stalks out.
There's one there.
Onions. You need nettles.
The stinging nettle. I don't put any.
It makes it slimy. A leek. Herbs and spices?
No! Sage.
Eggs? No.
No. Yes. No. Yes. No.
I don't weigh. Put them in a pan.
Two hours. Not long. Ten minutes.
One and a half hours. One and a half? Pour your water off.
Let it cool. I do it with a knife.
A masher. A liquidiser. And then you add your oatmeal.
Medium oatmeal. Medium. Medium.
Fine? Not chunky.
Stir it well.
Put a bit of liquid back.
I put butter in while I mash it.
Don't want it to look like cow muck on a plate.
Sloppy. Rice pudding. Cow clap.
Cow clap? That is about the right consistency.
It's been fascinating.
My dock pudding research has taken me uphill and downdale,
and all around the houses. I have a mass of information,
most of it conflicting.
I've got to cut through all this and prepare a dock pudding of my own,
because, later, the good ladies of the valley
are coming to judge my first dock pudding.
With comparisons from caviar to cowpat,
if I aim for the cowpat end of the scale, I shouldn't fall far.
'Some would have sneered, but I thought the leek was a sound idea.'
'Nettles were an old friend, so they got a look-in.'
'And I split a dozen cooking times and let it simmer it for 40 minutes.'
'The oatmeal was medium, as prescribed by nine out of ten cooks.
But a knob of butter, which had only one champion, I couldn't resist'
'With the traditional bacon rashers,
my first dock pudding was as ready as it could be.'
I think I've got it looking like a prize cow clap.
So, those who walk through the Calder Valley of dock,
repent ye, for judgment is at hand.
You don't get that dock pudding taste, do you?
No. I don't think you do. No.
Sorry to interrupt, but this is my dock pudding.
It looks like dock pudding. It smells like dock pudding.
It smells like it.
Tell me if it tastes anything like it.
Looks a bit stringy.
Yes, it hasn't been chopped up.
The presentation isn't good at all.
No marks for presentation. Taste it and tell me...
You wonder where't docks are...
Mmm. It's all right. It tastes like dock pudding.
It's short of docks, in't it ?
I like docks in dock pudding!
You said take the stalks out. No. No, YOU said...
Oh, definitely. I said I don't take the stalks out, but people do.
I don't. You do? Definitely. You told me to put an egg in.
No, I didn't tell you to put an egg in. Someone did. No, not an egg. I DIDN'T put an egg in.
You're right.
It wouldn't get far in a pudding competition!
No prizes? Oh, no. It's one of those plates we
look at and say, "What do you think?"
And what do you think?
I think it's rubbish, is that.
It tastes nice. The consistency is not what I do, but everyone to their individual taste.
Thank you.
I'm out of here.
'Not all northern food traditions are as esoteric.'
'Besides hotpot, Lancashire is home to a famous seafood delicacy.'
'At Morecambe Bay, tradition dictates a knee jerk reaction -
reach for the shrimping net.
'20 or 30 years ago, I wouldn't have been alone here.'
'Shrimping was popular and half an hour trawling
would have netted a bucketful to take to the boarding house for tea.'
'But, at the low tide mark, shrimps ain't what they used to be.'
It struck me that gathering nuts in May was an act of sheer optimism,
but freezing them off in pursuit of shrimps,
it's another kind of madness.
I've been trawling here for too long and, so far, I've got two shrimps.
'For any chance of getting a plateful I'll have to upgrade my equipment
to a more industrial scale.'
'The following morning, I met Raymond Edmondson -
the last fisherman in Morecambe Bay to catch and cook his own potted shrimps.'
This is your net. The little one?
Watch it doesn't pull you in.
You've enough rope out.
So this... Oh, I think I've got something!
It's a mermaid!
This tells us if there's any shrimps.
It gives us an idea what might be in't big net.
What do you call this?
A lyre. Because it tells lies!
It doesn't tell the truth.
'While the lyre tested the water, Raymond prepared his boiler.'
You cook them in sea water?
Yeah. That's what gives Morecambe Bay shrimps such a delicate taste.
Shall I pull this in?
Aye, pull that lyre in. See what we've got.
What you got there? It's kicking with them.
Let's have a look.
Oh, hang on, hang on.
You've got to watch that. Here.
A weaver fish. It is.
Nasty poison. Absolutely nasty, yeah.
See how it stuck its spines up then?
You stick one of them, it's like a need. They inject you with a poison.
Yeah. It's terrible stuff.
If you take a fillet off a big one, it's delicious.
'After trawling a mile of coast, it was time to haul in the big net
and see if the lyre had been telling us porkies.'
Pull her round that way and we'll tip it on that cleaning deck.
That's it.
Push it right into that corner. There you go.
You undo that tail end.
Now, then.
Wow!
It's like the lucky dip. You've got a couple of shrimps, anyway.
One or two. I'll show you what we'll do.
Shovel them that way a bit. You'll have to come this way in a minute.
Put a shovelful in there, like that,
ready. In you go.
Like panning for gold. That's it.
I wish we were panning for gold. We'd be all right.
The shrimps have gone through.
All them fish go back over the side so they grow a bit bigger.
'We riddled our way back -
a rough riddle to get rid of fish and crabs,
then a fine riddle to remove the little shrimps.'
'Back at Ray's mooring, we got the boiler going.'
Piping hot.
How long do they need?
Not long. We'll give them a stir with this ladle.
When they boil up, we'll just simmer for a minute, away we go.
30% in the boiler and 70% over the side.
Yeah. Yesterday, they were better again.
Just from day to day, different tides... You just never know.
That's the trouble with this job - you never know.
How's them? Beautiful. They look and smell amazing.
It may not seem a lot to you, but it's more than a couple of mouthfuls to me.
You're getting me worried, just how many you're going to eat.
I'm very hungry.
How's them?
Great. Now, look...
Oh, my God, what's that?
Dipping sauce, give it a whirl.
I know you, you'll polish the whole lot off.
Oh, they're lovely and hot.
Your shrimps are fantastic.
Well, I don't know what weird and wonderful mixture this is.
I'd better not say it's good, otherwise you'll tell me what it is.
What is it?
It's wild garlic with olive oil, a bit of home-made vinegar,
salt and pepper.
Oh, well, that's not too bad. Now you've told me I don't feel so bad.
I've eaten these all my life.
Not bored of them yet? And look at me now.
That's chocolate biscuits! Biscuits and prawns - a good diet. Yeah.
'As spring slips towards summer, the sun is upping its work rate
and life on the water becomes gentle and civilised.'
'The canal banks are green,
'the choice of edible plants reaches a peak
'and the forager is almost spoilt for choice.'
And it's not just greens I'm after -
it's pinks, purples and yellows.
These primroses are not to decorate my boudoir.
I could put them in a salad, I could crystallise them with sugar,
or I can suck out the nectar from the back of the flower
and chew it up, like a spring sweetie.
'There are dozens of edible wild flowers, from violets
and dandelions
to hairy bittercress
and red dead nettles.'
'But a well-kept flowerbed offers a whole bunch more.'
'Cultivated cowslips and primulas,
cherry blossom and forget-me-nots -
colourful reminders that free food can be tame
and that the forager's art begins in your garden -
or somebody else's, as long as you ask.'
To pay proper tribute to my floral feast I've made this batter,
which will become a better batter by adding a whisked egg white.
This has to be the most beautiful cooking I can imagine.
You can dip anything in this batter -
a sliver of carrot, a slice of apple, aubergines.
All you decide is whether you want it salty or sweet,
or, in my case, an indulgent drizzle of honey
and a sprinkling of fresh flower petals.
'Sex or what?' SHEEP BLEATS
'Young rooks squawking in the tree tops is one of the sounds of spring.'
'For many, it's a cheerful chatter,
but it reminds the farmer that the enemy is multiplying.'
'In this part of the world, historically,
it used to mean a new source of protein was on the spring menu.'
'Everything was rationed during the wartime,
and they started making rook pies, they did.'
Was it reckoned to be a last resort?
No, I couldn't tell you. It were just one of those things.
It was a delicacy.
It were a delicacy, it were good.
If you had to get those rooks, would you climb?
Shoot 'em down. I'm not licensed so I thought I'd do it the hard way,
the old way. Are you?
With help from Wally.
Any of you care to join me?
'Mid-May is the traditional time to take the "branches" -
fledglings which are plump enough to eat.'
Have you got a parachute? CHUCKLES
Oh, something went click then. I didn't like the sound of that.
Your knee joint!
'Wally Smith has been up more trees than a squirrel. He climbs rookeries for pest control.'
He'll get up.
Will he get up today?
He'll soon go when he starts...
Sycamore is a good tree for climbing, or not?
It's a little brutal, it cracks easily.
That's very reassuring.
Oh, I'm on a swinger here.
Yes, the tree's moving.
'In the past, the nimble would shin up the trees
and tie chicks to a branch so they couldn't fly the nest.'
'The parents fed them until they were fattened,
then they'd be fetched down again for the pot.'
I'm ready for the final assault.
OK. I'm all right to transfer my weight?
OK. Hold it there. Don't forget it's hooked around your foot.
I'm going to let go.
Good man. I'm right on it.
I'm on twigs here.
Yes, um...
Can I get a leg in there? Yep.
Whoa!
My head is just like...
Don't get poked in the eye if they're...
I can see their tail feathers. I've got to get the pack off.
Don't put your eyes too close to the edge of the nest.
Oh. There!
Careful, they'll jump. You have to be quick.
That's not too clever.
They've jumped on you.
You're not very sneaky.
Hold it.
'This may seem a bizarre way of getting meat,
but all meat is from a killing
and all those who eat it share responsibility for the manner of that killing.'
'I like to know where my meat's from and how it was killed.'
'If that means killing it myself, I'll do it.'
Can you get the branches on?
And snap it off? Yeah. And bend it towards you.
He's holding on tight. Come on over.
Come on over !
Good man! Well done, well done!
That's two. We shouldn't hang around.
'Two rooks are enough for me, but not for four farmers.'
'So we raided two more nests and took seven rooks in all.'
There's not much meat on these,
so there's no point plucking the whole bird as if we were to roast it.
We take a sharp knife as close as possible to the breast bone
and work it down so we waste as little as we can.
And we end up with a collection of chunky little breasts like this.
My farmer friends may be expecting an in-the-bomb-shelter rook pie,
but I didn't want to cook these for upwards of an hour,
so I'm making something else.
I've marinated them in elderberry vinegar for piquancy.
And I'm going to make a horribly fashionable warm salad.
I think my pan is just about up to frying temperature.
'The fried rook breasts go on top of fresh hedgerow greens, mixed leaves.'
'And the salad is dressed with a warm vinaigrette of de-glazed pan juices.'
These are my blackbirds.
There aren't four-and-twenty baked in a pie.
But I think I've made a dish fit to set before a king.
The sight of you gentlemen...
How are we doing? ..is quite terrifying.
Elderberry wine before we start.
I used to... A rook pie.
Cheers.
Like roast beef, in't it?
No, not quite.
It's tender.
Bring back memories? Interesting.
Not as good as my mother-in-law's.
No, it just had a few carrots in it, and onions.
It's all right.
A bit rare, is mine.
A bit pink? That's how we do things these days.
Is it? It's fashionable.
I thought cooking was cooking.
I didn't cook it for too long cos I thought they'd be nice and tender
and they'd only take five minutes in the pan.
Well, I like it well-cooked.
I could put yours back in.
Too late, I've eaten it.