Page 3 Profile: Clarissa Dickson Wright, TV chef

Ah, one of the Two Fat Ladies? She has been away for a while, right?

Yes, Dickson Wright, 65, was one of the feisty pair of celebrity chefs, along with Jennifer Paterson, who travelled across the country on a motorbike and sidecar for four BBC series from 1996 to 1999, until Paterson's death. Never lost for an opinion, Dickson Wright has angered badger activists by claiming that people should eat those animals lost to culling, as she enjoyed eating them in her youth.

It's a bit out of the blue, isn't it?

Not entirely. Dickson Wright had a book published this month called Clarissa's England and is also a defender of country pursuits, so her entering the fray was only a matter of time. Expanding on badgers, a protected species, she said: "It would solve the problem. There's going to be a cull, so rather than just throw them in the landfill site, why not eat them?" Having stated that badger hams were a bar snack in her youth, she suggested cooking methods, believing that people should "make a ham or treat it like pork".

So it hasn't gone down well?

No. A staunch defender of the animal has been Queen's Brian May, who has opposed the cull, granted over fears badgers may spread tuberculosis to cattle. He dismissed Dickson Wright's views: "I think we should seriously consider eating senseless people like this Clarissa whoever-she-is."