Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall returns to celebrate the selection of fare available over the autumn and winter seasons. After travelling to Gloucestershire for expert advice on making pear cider, he undergoes a crash course in free diving and takes to the open sea to find scallops. He also joins foraging guru John Wright to hunt for mushrooms in the woods, visits a mass tree planting day in the Peak District and uses the offal from his two-year-old steer to make a hearty stew.

Hugh deals with a rabbit invasion in his garden by bringing in two warreners, and takes his children to Devon to look for wild mussels with French teacher Nathalie Arnold and her family. He receives help from his local Women's Institute to get rabbits back on the British menu.

Hugh prepares a chilli and pumpkin party for 200 people. He joins Gill Mellow and Tim Maddams to resurrect a childhood favourite of crispy pancakes using smoked pollack, bacon, cheese and sweetcorn. He travels to Cornwall to meet fishermen who have found a sustainable and lucrative market in catching squid, and visits members of a community who are determined to grow and rear their own Christmas dinners.

Hugh begins his preparations for Christmas, making chocolate brownies to give as gifts and using his slaughtered steer to create canapes of biltong and pastrami for a party. He heads to an Exeter nightclub to continue his mission to get wild rabbits back onto the British menu, hunts for the blewitt mushroom, and tries to catch herring for the first time.

To celebrate a bumper year at River Cottage, Hugh has some of his food heroes round for a fabulous four course dinner including rare mushrooms, ten bird spit roast and the ultimate sponge and crumble