Chef Raymond Blanc puts the joy back into cooking
Raymond Blanc is in excellent spirits. Dining is back on the menu, meaning the chef’s Brasserie Blanc restaurants have reopened and the Blanc empire has “created some beautiful open marquees” complete, of course, with heaters.
Le Manoir aux Quat’saisons, his two-michelin starred Oxfordshire restaurant, is fully booked for the next six months.
It is cause for “a bit of joy in our team and of course a lot of laughter and celebration among our guests”, says Blanc. But he is cautious, too.“there’s some reserve because you don’t know what’s going to happen next.
“We all pray on the wing, so to speak. We pray we’re going to learn to live with Covid and it’s not going to destroy people’s lives nor businesses anymore.”
If you’re in the restaurant game, the pandemic has been particularly brutal, and for Blanc, 71, it took a directly personal toll too. Following a cough and a positive Covid test result, he found himself admitted to the Covid high-dependency unit at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, and was there for a month.
“The first two weeks I was completely out, it was extraordinary,” he recalls.“you didn’t know which way it would go.”
Having spent much of the pandemic up until that point “cooking my heart out”, you’d think the shift to hospital food and being unable to fix his own dinners would have added to an already scary and difficult situation, but Blanc is pragmatic.
“It was very severe Covid and that means you didn’t think of it,” he says.“hospital food reminded me maybe that I missed my own cooking, but Natalia (Traxel, his long-time partner) would always bring me some lovely food” – but this was only after three weeks, when Blanc was more “with it” and able to appreciate eating properly again.
He is not remotely scathing about the hospital fare he encountered though. It is “not renowned and I can understand it, there is so little budget,” he notes, but as a patient,“you’re not looking for a three-star Michelin meal, you just eat whatever is in front of you. And I must say, some of it was very, very good, especially the desserts.
“Many chefs, many establishments, have tried to change the food in hospitals, but there’s always the issue of cost,” he continues.“they do their best with what they have. I’m amazed actually, the food always came piping hot. I was very grateful.”
However, when he “started to regain a bit of colour on my cheeks”, he did begin to rather miss a nice glass of wine.“it took me two-and-a-half months before I could drink any wine, because I couldn’t enjoy it! It was like vinegar.”this was less to do with Covid, he says (“I never lost my taste, that’s one of the most remarkable things”), and more due to “all sorts of medicines they give you; your tongue is like a cheese grater.”
The flavour of his new book,
Simply Raymond, is very much tinged by the experiences of pandemic life – be it how many of us have become increasingly connected with what we’re eating, where it’s come from and who grew it, or just the fact we’ve done so much more cooking than before.
“This little book is really all about the joyful experience of cooking – it’s my cooking, from my home to yours,” explains Blanc.“it is full of unfussy recipes. They are driven by simplicity, by seasonality, by real values. And you don’t need expensive gadgets, no sous vide machines or anything like that. It’s enjoyable.”
It is also imbued with the love he has for his late mother,
Maman, and his respect for French author and scientist Edouard de Pomiane, whose book, Cooking In 10 Minutes, was the blueprint for Simply Raymond.“he was a genius, in so much he understood that the world was changing,” says Blanc. “He had already noticed in his time that people didn’t take the time to eat properly.”
The need to be able to whip up dinner in 10 minutes became less important once we were all in lockdown though. Cooking became a source of relaxation, comfort and distraction.“it’s wonderful to see that small revolution,” says Blanc.
So rather than a place for swift recipes, Simply Raymond became a book that instead
“demystifies cooking, it simplifies it. It makes it accessible. It gives you confidence.” And technique is key.“once you can pan fry a steak, you can pan fry anything,” says Blanc.“this technique will give you thousands of recipes.”
Many of the practical and logistical aspects – from relying on water instead of stock, to the mantra “You shalt not waste” – come courtesy of his mother, who died in 2020 aged 97.
“I come from a working background, and we didn’t have very much money,” says Blanc, who grew up in the FrancheComté region of France, and retains his thick, melodic French accent.
“We had a huge garden. My mum was a former farmer, so
she really knew all about simple home cooking as she had to feed a family of seven every day.
“Maman would feed the rabbits and talk to them,” he says, a smile curving round his words. “Sunday was a big dilemma.” Because of course, family dinner on Sunday was a big deal, and rabbit was in the offing – braised with white wine and mustard.
“She would eat her rabbit, and at the same time she was smiling, she was crying,” remembers Blanc with a laugh.“she loved the taste of the rabbit.”
Simply Raymond he says is “my gift to her because her gift to me has been enormous in my life: a foundation and my values toward food, toward people.”
You can feel it on every page.