FAMED East Lancashire fashion designer Wayne Hemingway has launched a fresh assault on British culture, claiming that food is becoming little more than an accessory to designer lifestyles.

Blackburn-raised Wayne, who made his fortune with affordable clothing by setting up fashions firm Red or Dead, and is married to Padiham designer Gerardine Astin, claims that people are being tricked into thinking they are eating well simply because they dine at fancy restaurants.

Wayne made his comments in Channel Four TV Four Posh Meals and a Curry, screened on Thursday, but they have come under fire from top chef Nigel Smith of the Feilden's Arms, Mellor.

In the show, Wayne got a chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant to serve up a meal for a group of London-based, self-proclaimed food aficionados, made entirely from produce brought from cut-price supermarket Lidl.

Products Wayne bought from Lidl included tinned mushrooms, pineapple chunks and boil-in-the-bag salmon. Several of the food-buffs raved about the 'freshness' of the salmon before Wayne came clean.

He said: "It proved that many people have no idea what fresh is, they are just told what it is and believe it.

"We could all have these sorts of meals at home if we put our minds to it, but we don't.

"I have now taught myself how to cook. Not only do we save a lot of money, but it brings the family together. We all take part in the cooking.

"We are being sold a dream by the media, some of the celebrity chefs and by restaurants.

"People sit in front of the TV drooling over Nigella and Jamie's foods while a convenience meal circles menacingly in the microwave in the kitchen."

But chef Nigel hit back, saying that you pay for what you eat, and a trained chef will always be able to serve up a better meal than a home cook. He said: "At the end of the day has everybody at home got a one-star Michelin chef in their kitchen cupboard?

"I've always said as a great chef you don't need to use the most expensive ingredients. To be a great chef you should be able to take any ingredients and make it into a great dish.

"It is also about experience and knowledge. We cook 10 hours a day six days a week so we understand the ingredients.

"How many people at home actually sit down, read books, and actually use the ingredients."

In the show, Wayne showed how some of Britain's most fashionable restaurants are serving up the sort of food which he said his family used to strive to avoid.

He said: "Food like pigs trotters, tripe and chitterling are all foods which we tried to avoid eating, but now they are being served up at some of the trendiest restaurants in London.

"One place even serves marrowbone. We might as well go down to the butchers and ask for some dog bones to cook.

"It is bizarre that the middle class has colonised food that the working class hated, just to look fashionable."

"We are going to end up with a country where people fall into one of two categories. Either they can afford to chase the faddy food fashions and pay a fortune or they just have a bland unhealthy diet, because they don't know any better.

"People need to regain their self-confidence in the kitchen, need to be better educated about food and shouldn't feel that food is an aspirational accessory to a designer life.

"The truth is that they sell you a product, they don't tell you if it is bad for you, you eat too much of it and you get fat. That isn't sexy and seductive, like the product is portrayed as.

"Maybe it is time that the problems caused by some foods were advertised the same way that the pitfalls of smoking tobacco are." But Nigel, who served up the food for the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's recent Pride of East Lancashire Awards night, said that traditional foods were in demand at his restaurant.

He said: "We have braised pig's cheek where we braise the cheek, and we use the brain and we also pan fry the tongue.

"And we sell more oxtail soup than anything, ever! It's down to people actually liking it."