Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
HOW MANY SONS CAN NAME AN APPLE TART AFTER THEIR MOTHER?
The RSPB launches its Big Garden Birdwatch this week – last year the humble house sparrow topped the charts, as it has done for the past 17 years, despite a population decline of 53 per cent since 1979 When Raymond Blanc lost his mother during lockdown, h
My mother was tiny – less than 5ft tall – but she never let her height get in the way of a good meal. I have so many memories of her leaping across her kitchen counters as she reached for a certain spice at the back of a cupboard.
She was still climbing for food in her nineties. When she was 94 I found her up a cherry tree, at the top of a ladder, picking the fruit. But that was Maman Blanc. Unstoppable. My sons used to call her Mother Teresa on speed.
Our mothers often shape our lives and are always with us, even when they are not. My mother lived her whole life in Franchecomté, the region of France where I was born. Since my late twenties I have lived in Britain. It means for most of my life we were separated, geographically. We could sometimes go for months without seeing each other.
To say she was a constant presence in my life, though, is to put it mildly. I would phone her every day, and my mind would be at rest after two minutes if I knew she was OK. At the beginning of lockdown, in my flat in London, I found myself craving childhood meals – tartiflette, a plate of crudités, a Morteau sausage salad, an onion or tomato soup, and the one that my mother made with the season’s vegetables and chervil.
Three months into lockdown, I received the phone call that I had dreaded. Death is in all of our lives. None of us can escape it. My Maman had died. She had coronavirus, although it was not the disease that caused her death. Instead, she died after a fall while trying to get out of her bed. She could have called for help to leave the bed but did not want to disturb the nurses. At the age of 97, her final act was one of characteristic thoughtfulness. Others always came first, be it family or a stranger. I was desperately sad not to have been there at her side. She had been at mine throughout my life.
Anyone who has eaten in my restaurants, or read my books, knows that my mother was a huge influence on me. There is a statue of her in the grounds of Le Manoir aux Quat’saisons – not a new addition, it has been there for years. And how many sons are in a position where they can name an apple tart after their mother? I still maintain that she made the best apple tart in the world!
How exactly did she influence me? Where to start? I have four siblings and we grew up near Besançon, between Burgundy and the Jura mountains. Growing up in post-war France was both the best of times and the worst of times. Best, because our village was a tight-knit, loving community and the forests that surrounded it were full of adventures. Worst, because money was hard to come by, especially enough to support a family of seven.
My parents achieved the impossible, though. My father, a watchmaker by trade, built our house – literally, with his bare hands – and grew vegetables which my mother would then cook. We were all put to work early. Five days a week I would toil in the garden, or chop down trees and haul them back for firewood. My childhood furnished me with my work ethic, and my understanding of the importance of the seasons.
It also put food – and the love of making food for others – at the centre of my life. Maman Blanc was, quite simply, a genius in the kitchen. At the time I grew up, the women were the home-makers. They gave their whole lives to nurturing children, cleaning the house and cooking day and night. And
Maman Blanc was a bloody good cook. She never in her life presented a bill to her guests, but she should – and could – have
‘I found her up a cherry tree when she was 94’
done. I remember feasting on her Comté cheese soufflé, a truly lovely little dish that rose to order. It totally amazed me how one could create such a spectacular dish from eggs and cheese.
The kitchen was the heart of the home. It represented conviviality and a time to celebrate the food we had worked so hard to grow and harvest. And, of course, as a family we would have heated discussions too. Remember we were no less than seven people at each meal, and at holiday time that number grew and grew.
The things I learned from being her young helper and runner too! Family meals would begin with me being sent from the house to my father’s potager. Maman would say, ‘Mon petit, go into the garden and get me...’ Mon petit is something I often call my chefs now, a term of endearment that
reminds me of the past. Her instructions would be precise, too. She’d never tell me, ‘Get some potatoes’. It would be, ‘Get some Rattes’. It was the same for lettuce or carrots. Different varieties would have a different role: best for baking, best for frying, best for salads.
We grew two types of tomato, the Coeur de Boeuf and the Marmande, which was perfect for my mother’s tomato salad. She would cut them into thick slices and put some salad leaves underneath and very fine slices of purple onion on top. She seasoned the salad with a bit of salt and vinegar, and then there was a huge pause: after an hour the salt and acid had extracted the juices from the tomatoes and you had a wonderful pool of juice at the bottom. Then she served itwithamustard dressing.
In those days I also learned to forage, to fish – still a passion, to this day. I remember catching my first fish – a tench, almost as big as me. I was so proud and thrilled that I kissed the fish on the lips. At home, Maman slow-roasted it in a silky sauce of butter and lemon. I can see her too, at the dining table at home, as we ate lapin à la moutarde, in which the rabbit is braised with white wine and mustard. Maman sat with a fork in hand, a smile on her lips, and tears on her cheeks. The smile was because she loved the taste. The tears because she adored the rabbits that we kept. Suchisthefrenchparadox.
Lapin à la moutarde was among the main courses I cooked at my first restaurant. I’ve included a recipe in my new cookbook, which was largely inspired by Maman. But with her in mind (and for those who love rabbits!) I have used le poulet – chicken – as a substitute. I think she would like that.
The book has been joined by my forthcoming ITV series called Simply Raymond Blanc, which will showcase some of the dishes. I had the idea for the book a couple of decades ago, maybe even longer. I was playing around with the idea of a homage to two of my biggest influences. One was a fellow Frenchman, a scientist, author and connoisseur I had never met. Édouard de Pomiane’s book La Cuisine En Dix Minutes – or, in English, Cooking In Ten Minutes – was published in 1930 but was far ahead of its time. I adored its witty, conversational style. Pomiane was quirky, confident and maybe a bit over the top (I confess I may have seen something of myself in him) but I was in awe of his ability to demystify food, to break through elitist barriers.
Then there was my mother, who every single day made lunch and dinner for her husband and the five of us. She had a genuine passion for pleasing people by feeding them. I felt encouraged, compelled to cook, because of her. Her values were ingrained in me – they provided the foundations of a career and a life.
Chez Blanc, she had no brigades of chefs, fancy gadgets and high-tech
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‘Lockdown will help us reconnect with food’
gastronomic equipment. Maman relied on her senses as a guide, although she had an electric hand whisk and a cocotte-minute, the French pressure-cooker loved by a nation’s mamans. I implore all cooks to use their sense more often. Taste, taste, taste and let it guide you to the finish. Listen out for the difference in culinary sounds, be it the gentlest simmer or the rapid, rolling boil.
I was still learning from her until the end. My son – who also has a career in the food world – once said that while I am boss in my professional kitchen, Maman Blanc was boss in the kitchen at home. She was.
That first lockdown last year was a catalyst for thought. We paused, took stock and reassessed our lives. Before Covid, it seemed that people did not have the time to cook. However, as the weeks of solitude progressed, it was as if we had been ‘given’ more time. We devoted this time to the garden (the weather was glorious), to yoga, puzzles, TV boxsets. And the cooks among us spent that extra time in the kitchen and considering the forthcoming meals.
The fast, fast world in which we lived had stopped zooming along, and was in slow motion. The hurried bowl of cornflakes
made way for the deep, rich scents of freshly baked banana loaf. The cheap burger on the hop was replaced by the cheerful barbecue in the garden. People spoke of finding positives in the new climate of negatives and, for those of us who love to cook, we did not need to search too far for pleasure.
I started to wonder about my book, and how it might be affected by the way you and I were cooking. More importantly, I began to understand how this pandemic would affect our lifestyles and the food we eat. We will seriously tackle food waste, and we will be closer to our farmers, butchers, fishmongers, cheesemakers and other food producers. We will reconnect more with seasonality and the provenance and authenticity of food. We will dig into the past to find our futures. Yes, maybe I am just an old romantic, but I do think, truly from my heart, that this will happen.