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Great walks to picnic on
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Harrison Ward • Short Stories • Feb 04, 2022 • 10 mins
5 years sober, 7 stone lighter and smoke free. Cooking in the great outdoors has been instrumental in Harrison Ward’s (the Fell Foodie) turnaround, boosting his mental strength and keeping darker thoughts at bay. It’s been truly life changing.
Here’s Harrison’s story of how he took his passion outside and went on to become one of the UKs best known outdoor cooks.
Harrison Ward
A fortnight later, my friend Ryan arrived on my doorstep and said, “We are going hiking up Blencathra”. Under the haze of substance withdrawal, I struggled to take this in. I’d never owned a pair of walking boots, how could I possible climb a mountain? Kindly, Ryan stopped at an outdoor shop en route and bought me a pair. A slow and demanding vertical plod commenced. I was never going to give up despite my struggle and eventually we reached the summit. Whilst descending Ryan said, “Helvellyn next?”.
Harrison Ward
I’m not sure I answered, yet a week later we had parked up at Swirls car park, close to the path up Helvellyn. It was a magnificent day with barely a cloud in the sky. I pulled on my boots once more and began marching up the steep ascent. We finally reached the trig point and with it, something had sparked in me. Looking east over Striding Edge I knew a new addiction had been ignited. Gathering breath, I heard “Scafell Pike?”
Harrison Ward giving a talk
Many other Lakeland fells followed along with the classics; Snowdon, Crib Goch and Ben Nevis etc. Hiking boots were now interchangeable with trainers as slow walks advanced into technical runs. Eleven months on from my dramatic life change, I even completed a marathon in just over 4 hours. It felt like redemption.
Today, the outdoors remains a key component of my lifestyle as I have based myself in the heart of the Lake District. I’ve now ticked off half the Wainwrights, frequently wild camp and I even made the cut to be an Ordnance Survey GetOutside Champion, a far cry from my days propping up the bar!
Harrison Ward's mountain top dishes
What’s more, I’ve taken my longstanding passion for cooking into the outdoors and this is now what I’m known for. Nutrition is important when exercising outdoors and when I first started walking, I would prepare some more extravagant lunches to take up the fells with me as opposed to the generic clingfilmed sandwiches. This, of course, brought some comments from peers and one friend joked that I should “get a stove and cook” my lunch on the hillside. Not one to shirk a challenge, this is exactly what I did and the rest has snowballed from there.
Harrison Ward with Mary Berry
Although I regularly walk and cook alone, I also enjoy cooking for other people. I adore how food makes people gather around a table, a fire or in this case a stove. I love the joy and satisfaction food brings to people and how it can stop people in their busy lives and bring them together. I haven’t cooked with others in the outdoors (I like to have the ‘kitchen’ to myself) but I love sharing my culinary creations on a hilltop with friends.
Harrison Ward cooking for others
People always ask me what my favourite thing to cook outdoors is. It doesn’t matter on the recipe as such, but the enjoyment I get from being outside and cooking. I love Italian and Greek cuisines and I would love to prepare a fresh camp-stove meal outside in a stunning setting in those countries one day.
Closer to home though, my favourite place to cook is in the mountains, but choosing one is as hard as choosing a favourite dish. No location is the same and each is memorable for different reasons. My favourite place to cook is my next summit!
Harrison Ward at the Kendal Mountain Festival
I knocked up a delicious white bean stew recently up in the Greenburn Valley. It’s a nice easy one-pot dish to try outside if you’re new to cooking outdoors.
You’ll need….
Method
Cooking in the Lake District
Cooking responsibly is all about leaving the environment how you found it, leaving no trace, even if it’s just food waste and peelings. An avocado wouldn’t grow in the fells of the Lake District so has no business being left there. I pack everything back out again after I cook. I also don’t wash my pots and pans in the outdoors to avoid contamination in natural water sources. If using a lot of oils or starches this can have a negative impact on small, delicate ecosystems and wildlife, so it’s best to pack out and clean everything at home or on a campsite.
Another thing to consider is the heat from your stove, I don’t light open fires when cooking outside but instead use a controlled camping stove. However, occasionally these can still leave scorch marks so be careful about the placement of your stove and place it on a large rock if you can. When removing pans from the heat, be sure to place them on a heatproof mat or a rock to avoid burning any grass and leaving unsightly marks. The most important thing is to leave everything looking exactly how you found it.
For updates on Harrison’s mental health journey and passion for cooking in the hills, follow @fellfoodie on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
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