Hungry
like the
Hask
Diet is important for elite
athletes, especially after jungle
rations. RUPERT BATES talks
to James Haskell about rugby,
fitness and eating for England
In the Australian jungle James Haskell
was hungry and at times ‘hangry.’
Hardly surprising; an 18 stone, 6ft 4in
rugby international is not meant to
survive on a diet of rice and beans,
supplemented by the odd extremity of
an Antipodean animal.
One of the sport’s great characters,
Haskell won 77 caps in the back-row for
England and played club rugby for Wasps
and Northampton, as well as in France,
Japan and New Zealand.
He likes to eat a lot, but eat well and,
post-rugby, Haskell is carving out a career in
the commercial world of health and fitness.
16 | Spring 2020 | BBQ
However all that nutrition was put on
hold when, last year, he stepped into the
jungle for ITV’s hit reality show I’m a
Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!
Haskell normally consumes around 4000
calories a day, so if there was a scrap of
meat off a wallaby’s toe going spare in the
camp he would gnaw on it.
He is a great lover of a barbecue with his
live fire skills developing fast. “In the jungle
I dreamt about getting home and firing up
the BBQ with some mouth-watering cook
ups. We talked about it a lot.”
With his wife Chloe Madeley usually
doing the cooking at home, Haskell
decided it was time to pull his culinary
weight and a passion was born.
(A digression, but I was once a guest on
the Richard & Judy (Haskell’s in-laws) chat
show, talking about living and eating
abroad and, while describing the essence
of live fire cooking in the remotest of
Spanish villages, I ended up with a sliver of
smoked chorizo stuck in my teeth on live
television.)
“I found barbecuing using Traeger very
simple and it turned me from an average
cook to a good one overnight,” says Haskell.
“I love the process of preparing the
food, trying recipes and watching
awesome results.”
Haskell relishes the challenge of getting
the balance right cooking over coals, or
using his Traeger grill. “I get a real buzz
from the different flavours and textures you
can create. My favourite BBQ food is
buffalo chicken wings.”
Haskell uses the Traeger Timberline 850
for slow cooking; the Thuros T1 for
cooking over charcoal and the Traeger
Ranger for travel.
Haskell says there has been a big rise in
the popularity of outdoor cooking and
entertaining in the UK, fuelled by social
media and “the ease of sharing ideas and
recipes”.
“When it comes to barbecue cooking at
home, Chloe and I don’t fight for the
tongs. She’s happy to let me do it and
we’re planning to create an outdoor
cooking and decking area.”
Haskell accepts there will always be
arguments and conflicting opinions around
meat – be it consumption, production and
provenance, or its effect on climate change
– and that education is key.
“Most importantly, meat needs to be
responsibly sourced, organic and ideally
British.”
Haskell’s Health & Fitness business
includes a Cooking for Fitness book. The
easy stereotype is that big rugby types