Harrison Ward, known best as Fell Foodie – a Cumbrian outdoor cook, TV personality and mental health speaker – is getting ready to serve up his debut cookbook.
Cook Out features over 80 recipes and is geared towards outdoor enthusiasts looking to follow in Harrison’s footsteps and turn basic camping food into restaurant-style meals.
Available from tomorrow onwards, the book is full of meals, snacks and desserts designed to be created using only camping equipment.
Harrison said: “It’s a bit of a childhood dream to write a book so it’s definitely a proud moment for me. But it still doesn’t feel real really, it’s like an out of body experience, like I’m looking through a window into a different life.
“It’s not something I ever imagined would happen, but there’s a lot of things I’ve done in the last six or seven years that back in the days when I was stumbling home and falling asleep at the end of bars after a night out I would have laughed you out of the pub if you’d said I would go on to do.”
Born and bred in the county, Harrison is a self-taught cook who developed his love for cooking from an early age and spent years experimenting with different cuisines and cooking for other people.
Sharing his journey on Instagram, he began taking extravagant lunches to the top of mountains and posting pictures of them online before eventually he started to cook full meals whilst there.
Five years on since he started sharing his outdoor cooking, he now has over 22,000 followers and has been featured by the BBC and Channel 5 – and he’s even taken Mary Berry out for food in the fells on camera.
He added: “Vertebrate Publishing got in touch with me last year and said they would like to support me to put a book together and that sparked it all off.
“It’s my first experience of creating a book, so I suppose I was going in blind in some ways. But I imagine a normal cookbook process would involve booking out a nice pristine kitchen and taking photos for weeks with lots of helpers and everyone enjoying the food after.
“But of course with my book being outdoors and being in different locations each time it meant going out and making it the real deal actually cooking on location and just hoping for a good picture for the book!”
Harrison admitted that while he’s seen initial prints of the book and has been signing official copies that he still hasn’t called himself an author just yet.
He said: “I’ve not began calling myself an author just yet, I’m waiting for the exact day it becomes a reality to do that”
“I’m proud of my turnaround and it’s one that many people along the road have helped make into a reality both in the past and even now.”
While the cookbook features everything from breakfast bites to adventure snacks, sandwiches – Harrison said it’s the one pot meals that are his favourite.
He said: “I just love cooking for other people and for people to create these recipes for themselves now is a spread of that joy. But it being done outdoors is the bit that really sings to me, I think cooking and cuisine are really human experiences.
“So the best in the book for that kind of thing are the one pot dishes where everyone can dive in and share, grab their own spoon or ladle or fork. There’s some great chilis, curries and stews and desserts like chocolate fondue that are great for people to come together over.”
While Harrison said he can’t wait to see people recreating his recipes outdoors, he added that he wanted to encourage people to make sure they’re leaving no trace.
He said: “I’m really happy to have the book out there and looking forward to getting some feedback. I’m excited to see things recreated on social media so hopefully it all goes down well.
“I also always endeavour to protect the environment, so not lighting any fires in national parks and always leaving no trace.
“The environment has been very healing for myself and I want that to be the same for the next person, so it’s all about leaving everything exactly as it was found.”
