Ray Mears' Wild Food (BBC2); Green Wing Special (C4): RAY Mears had barely set foot in Australia than he was rummaging around in the dirt looking for food.

He was determined that his companion, Professor Gordon the plant specialist, should have a taste of living off the land.

Mears' quarry was the witchetty grub, which achieved a certain kind of fame on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! as Ant and Dec's answer to Jamie Oliver's Turkey Twizzlers.

These squirming, wriggling creatures - the grubs, not Ant and Dec - are always on the menu when celebs are invited to dine in one of the bushtucker trials.

First Mears had to catch a grub - "the most iconic Aboriginal food and also particularly wriggly". He found them hiding inside twigs. "They're delicious, I like them," he enthused, chewing on a witchetty grub.

If he likes them so much, why does he eat them?, I wondered. Then it was the Professor's turn. He made far less fuss under Mears' instruction - "hold the head and bite the rest off" - than celebrity contestants. He even did a Jilly Goolden, pronouncing that the grub had an egg yolk flavour with a touch of fruitiness.

There was a point to all this. Mears wants to learn all about our ancestors hunting and gathering food. Unable to find much that's survived over here, he went to Australia where the indigenous people still hunt and gather the food they call bushtucker.

I found Mears' shorts more alarming than the prospect of eating a grub as he hung out with Aborigines, learning about traditional methods of gathering food rather than popping down the supermarket.

Along the way, he gave us a few tips on sleeping outdoors. All he needed was a bit of shade and a bedroll. That was a great way to camp, he said, although I could name a few actors who could give him a few lessons in camping.

Bush tomatoes ("cucumbery and very refreshing"), bush potatoes, bush raisins... a pattern was beginning to emerge that anything in the bush was worth two of anything on the supermarket shelf.

Professor Gordon reflected on the diversity of edible things available in the desert. In our part of Europe, we've lost that knowledge, possibly due to a lack of deserts.

The travellers learnt that each food had its own song and dance. "I wonder if, back home in Britain, we had the dance of the burdock or crab apple or hawthorn berry," he wondered.

Water lilies emerged as a staple food although as he declared they too had a "cucumbery flavour" I began wonder if meals wouldn't have been a bit samey.

Mears was also shown how to butcher a cooked iguana using just a stick. You never know when that might come in useful, do you?.

Another outdoor lesson came in the Green Wing Special as Alan and Joanna hit the road in a motor caravan.

"Ah, the smell of the country," he said.

"Don't try that, I know it's you," she said, opening the window wide.