Half a century of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s best bits

The River Cottage star is one of the most charismatic sustainability campaigners in Britain – but Fearnley-Whittingstall is not without his controversies. Here are a few of his most shocking moments over the years.

A dog’s dinner

In 2011, the TV chef said he couldn’t see the problem with eating puppy meat for dinner. As long as the animals are farmed properly, Fearnley-Whittingstall claimed munching on dog was no worse than eating a pork chop. “In principle, but not in practice, I have no objection to a high-welfare organic puppy farm. You can’t object, unless you also object to the farming of pigs,” he told the Radio Times. “It’s an artificial construct of our society, a cultural decision, to make pets out of dogs and meat out of pigs. Both animals could be used the other way round – although pigs probably do make better meat than dogs and dogs better pets than pigs. But it’s not a foregone conclusion.”

Placenta pâté

Back in 1998, Fearnley-Whittingstall caused considerable controversy when he cooked a dish of human placenta on an episode of TV Dinners. Channel 4 was “severely reprimanded” for the program, which showed the placenta being fried with shallots and garlic, flambéed, puréed and served as a pâté alongside focaccia bread. According to a BBC report from the time, the mother and her husband enjoyed 17 helpings, but the other 18 guests were “less enthusiastic”.

Killing pigs

In his best-known program River Cottage, Fearnley-Whittingstall shows us what it takes to be a sustainable farmer, and we watch him feed his family using only meat and vegetables produced on his farm. This upset some viewers, however, who did not like to be reminded where their sausages come from. In one episode, we saw Fearnley-Whittingstall feed his pigs (all of whom were named), pet them, and then happily take them to the abattoir to make some salami.

Roadkill cuisine

Fearnley-Whittingstall introduced us to his penchant for roadkill in a Channel 4 series A Cook on the Wild Side, and we’ve since seen him gaze upon many a slightly-mangled badger or rabbit with a look of relish. His love of foraging for food has earned the TV chef his nickname: Fearlessly-Eatsital.

Tears for chickens

The celebrity chef has campaigned on several sustainability issues, and successfully convinced Tesco to switch to 100% pole-and-line caught fish for its own brand of canned tuna. But Fearnley-Whittingstall is best known for his work on how chickens are farmed. The TV chef devoted an entire series to the subject, Hugh's Chicken Run, and memorably broke down in tears at the sight of battery-farmed chickens.