River Cottage - Cute or Smug?

[begonyabampot]

caught a bit of that Riverside Cottage thing on telly last night. It looked beautiful and i enjoyed the idea and beautiful scenery/cottages etc...but, It left me feeling they were all a bit smug in their thatched cottages, yummy mummies meeting up for a bread making circle (was jealous about this one it looked lovely), yummy mummy building her own pizza oven in garden the size of a football pitch with uninterrupted country views etc.

Isn't this rubbing everyone's noses in it with their smuggery? Even I felt sort of lacking in the end and I live a nice, relatively comfortable lifestyle (not in a thatched cottage though), am happy enough etc - wonder how those at the other end of the scale feel or AIBU?

Nope.

Smuggy McSmug of Smugtown, Smuggshire really gets on my wick. Pompous ass that he is.

It would have a completely different feel though if he was in a grotty 2 bedroom highrise on a council estate where bins get set on fire.

"It's easy to make your own bread!"

It's not as easy as it appears. First time bread always looks like a brick.

I get fed up with him taking it to the max all the time. Doesn't just make stuff with fruit - holds a fruit-themed street party, doesn't just make bread - establishes a bread circle, doesn't just make some winter food - holds a huge party for entire villages. I get fed up with all the jolly peasantry being roped in for ye merrye feasts every week.

ha, ha - you could be right SNF! Would love to see a comedy spoof of this, Imagine Waynetta Slob doing the the bread making circle with her pals - would be worth a laugh!

Smug smug smug.

And Nigel bleedin' Slater - smug smug smug. Did you know some people actually buy pesto? I know! When it's so easy to make!

Smug smug smug.

Aww, I love Hugh! He doesn't really live in the real world though does he? But I think he means well...

He's patronising!

OMG-people make pesto when it´s so easy to buy??!!

SMUG. Can't bear it.
Love Nigel Slater recipes, although that pesto comment has put me right off. Life's too short to make your own pesto.

It is television, of course he ups the ante all the time.

He does go to different kinds of places to do cooking. He started that landshare thing so that more people can do it. He is enthusiastic, not smug. I find him inspirational actually.

I think you are being patronising, assuming that people in high rise blocks have no interest in cooking real food.

I just made my first loaf of bread. It did indeed look like a brick

although we did laugh when watching him make a compote - we just call it stewed fruit in our house.

I'm not saying they have no interest, practicalities mean that it's less likely.

smug

give me nigella any day of the week - she may seem smug but she makes fancy puddings out of crushed bourbon biscuits and thinks marmite is an acceptable pasta sauce so she ain't all that far removed from normal people.

hugh would have you making your own bourbon biscuits from wheat you had personally threshed and milled and butter you had hand-churned at the same time. tw*t

Yeah, stewed fruit for us; don't think I could make a compote!

One of my mates works with the old chap; he doesn't live in the real world but is actually ultra-posh (allegedly) but really does mean well.

It is telly, and as such has to pull the punters in somehow, so cooking for 'ordinary' people - middle class housewives can be included, though I'd rather see him doing it in the circs described by SecretNutella, or in a small kitchen that you can't fit a table into.

Having said that, I am very tempted by the soda bread, and have talked to dd about making some this w/e. Oh dear.

people are so quick to abuse. Why not just say you prefer another tv cook rather than call him a twat?

he is a cook who is passionate about it

it is also his job to make television programmes

I know a guy who lived the the actual River Cottage - it was cold and damp and Hugh never lived there - he lived up the road

My friend has the 'perfect' lifestyle. Huge converted barn in eight acres with chickens, ponies, dogs and a working well. Husband is loaded and I would not swap her life for anything.

He shags around behind her back while she is making jam and hand knitting yoghurt. Sod that.

Not so much smug as an idealised hark-back to days that never existed, set in a chocolate-box visual. Inspirational rather than prescriptive. I think it's an understandable counter-reaction to modern life, fast food and the obsession with manufactured & artificial to go to the other extreme. Lots of people these days queuing up to lease allotments etc. Don't think they can all be 'smug'.

I just can't get interested in the recipes - it's all 'preserve your own lemons' and once you've preserved them can you have a nice lunch? No! It's off to Cornwall to catch a nice turbot.

I can get a bit of inspiration from Jamie and even Nigel (although I may never toast and pound my own pine nuts) but I fear Hugh has little to offer me.

HumphryCobbler - yes probably a bit extreme of me to call him a twat but he really is somebody who rubs me up the wrong way. and i speak as someone who does 95% of my cooking from scratch and has learnt how to butcher a pig so it's not just because i don't like people who make the effort he does... I don't use that word for many people, but I really truly cannot stand him and the way he does his thing. and while his job is to make tv programmes, i really wish he was a boring old accountant instead so i didn't have to be aware of him!

He is Lord SMug

I have eaten at river cottage in his smug barn conversion.

i keep thinking i should watch river cottage but it bores me rigid.

i know it is meant to be aspirational and all that but all those jolly cider making villagers must get sick of each other, every night another fucking hog roast celebration of the seasons. piss off.

ggirl - did you pay for the privilege?

he's always got a cuntry yokel in the mix to try and ward of the smugness though hasn't he

yes, he likes to get some artisan or other in to patronise. 'here is george, he makes sausages from road kill and lives in a tree'

yes paid
was relatively cheap iirc
was for dh's birthday
set meal with starters in the yurt

we sat next to yokel pig farmers who supplied him
they were quietly bemused as well