T

he recent popularity of cookery schools means that even if your signature dish is beans on toast, there’s a course out there for you. Cooking in a castle might seem a daunting prospect, but at Swinton Park in Yorkshire you’ll soon get used to roasting game in their massive Aga – and stuffing a crab in an airy kitchen.

Courses aren’t just limited to haute cuisine, though; on Wild About Food, instructor Chris Bax will take you on a three-hour forage through the castle’s grounds to find mushrooms, fungi, berries and nuts to take back to the kitchen and prepare.

Nature is top of the agenda at the Green Cuisine Cookery School , too. Head chef Daphne Lambert believes there’s a strong relationship between food and health, and her courses include morning yoga, gardening sessions and afternoon walks – along with instruction on how to prevent common ailments through eating well.

Meanwhile, if you want your cookery lessons to come with some celebrity sparkle, head down to Rick Stein’s Seafood School in Padstow. Fish is the main dish on the menu, and there’s so much you can do with it. Sign up for the Classic Seafood Dishes sessions and you’ll learn how to prepare a lobster for grilling or make the perfect hollandaise sauce. Makes you hungry just thinking about it…