I have joy in simple cooking
Raymond Blanc tells ELLA WALKER how contracting Covid and lockdown has influenced his new book
RAYMOND BLANC is in excellent spirits. Outdoor dining is back on the menu, meaning the chef’s Brasserie Blanc restaurants have reopened – and despite “freezing” conditions, the Blanc empire has “created some beautiful open marquees” complete with heaters.
Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, his two-Michelin starred Oxfordshire restaurant, is also 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 amongst our guests”, says Raymond. But he is cautious too. “There’s some reserve because, as you know, you don’t know what’s going to happen next,” he says.
“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 Raymond, 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.”
You would think the shift to hospital food and being unable to fix his own dinners would have added to an already scary situation, but Raymond is pragmatic.
“It was really, really very severe Covid and that means you didn’t think of it,” he says now. “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 from home” – but this was only after three weeks, when Raymond was more “with it” and able to appreciate eating properly again.
He is not remotely scathing about the hospital fare he encountered though.
He says, 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 establish
As a patient, you are not looking for a three-star Michelin meal. I think they do their best with what they have. I was very grateful
Raymond Blanc on hospital food when he was ill with Covid
ments, have tried to change the food in hospitals, but there’s always this issue of cost,” he continues. “I think they do their best with what they have. I was very grateful.”
The flavour of his new book, Simply Raymond, is very much tinged by his and the collective 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 Raymond with real feeling. It is full of “unfussy recipes. They are driven by simplicity, by seasonality, by real values. It’s enjoyable.”
It is also imbued with the love he has for his late mother, Maman Blanc, and his respect for French author and scientist Edouard de Pomiane, whose book, Cooking In 10 Minutes, was the initial blueprint for Simply Raymond.
The need to be able to whip up dinner in 10 minutes became less important once we were all in lockdown though. Cooking suddenly became a source of relaxation, comfort and distraction for lots of us.
“It’s wonderful to see that small revolution,” he says.
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,” he says. “This technique will give you thousands of recipes.”
Many of the practical and logistical aspects 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 Raymond, who grew up in the Franche Comte region of France, and retains his thick, melodic French accent, despite having lived in England for decades.
“My mum was a former farmer, so she really knew all about simple home cooking because she had to feed a family of seven – and every day.”
Simply Raymond he says is “a great tribute to my Maman Blanc. This is my gift to her because her gift to me has been enormous in my life: a foundation and my values towards foods, towards people.”
You can feel it on every page.