Raymond Blanc left his country of birth in 1974, aged 22. He was just a junior waiter, but went on to become one of the most famous and successful chefs in the UK from his base at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire.
He left France very early in his career so made no culinary impact there, but his inspiration and love of good food and wine came squarely from his birthplace. He aims to demonstrate this in a new BBC series in which he tours France, taking over a restaurant and cooking a lavish feast in each area he visits.
Franche Comte
In this first episode he returns to the region of his birth, Franche Comte, a mountainous area on the border with Switzerland. Here they use traditional methods such as smoking to preserve food gathered in the summer to sustain the population through the hard winter months. Saucisson smoked sausage and Comte cheese are the area’s most famous produce and they play a prominent part in Blanc’s food memories and plans for his feast.
There are touching scenes as he visits his mother, Mama Blanc, and father, both around ninety years old. The love he feels for his parents is obvious and un-staged. His mother’s small, basic kitchen is the setting for his first meal, a simple sausage and potato salad. The modest nature of this country kitchen and the work done within it contrasts with the thousands of middle-class fancy hi-tech kitchens with recessed lights, soft-closing doors and multitude of gadgets you see in UK home kitchens, where the families ‘cook’ nothing more than ready meals.
So begins Blanc’s forays across the region in his little, battered Citroen CV. Along the way he samples home grown vegetables, freshly-hunted rabbit, and many glasses of local wine but the highlights are the Vin Jaune white wine (unique to the area) and the Comte cheese.
Vin Juane is so special because the producers allow a veil of yeast to form on the top of the wine, and the length that drink is left to mature - anything from at least six years up to a century. The production of Comte cheese is treated almost as a religion in these parts and unusual storage areas such as disused border forts house the vast amount of cheese ‘wheels’, each branded to signify a different village of origin.
The feast
Inviting family, friends and local gourmands, Raymond hosts his feast in the Bistro Port-Lesney. His spread begins with canapés and Comte cheese fondue. He follows with a simple salad of local vegetables, including Swiss chard, which he names after his mother.
Next, it is a Comte cheese soufflé tart, the locals impressed by the lightness of the soufflé. Blanc’s rabbit braised in mustard and Vin Juane is similarly well received, many guests pleasantly surprised by the use of this wine instead of the usual red. The meal concludes with a Cherry Giboulee the guests particularly taken with the quality of the sabayon.
The feast was an all-round success and Raymond had passed his first test. Next week it will be the region of Burgundy he has to impress. Viewers themselves will probably be impressed with this first episode, despite the obvious failings of Blanc as a presenter.
He speaks too quickly, his accent is probably too heavy for easy understanding, and he lost his dashing good looks some years ago. But he makes the programme work, because of his warmth for cooking and the people it brings together.
Although he left France over three decades ago, he shares the reverence for food that allows even those on modest incomes to eat well and place meal-times at the heart of their lives.
The first episode also gave a telling insight into what drives the man and the chef. In his early days of employment as a waiter in the relatively large town of Arbois he went for a walk round the town. With his first wage packet in his pocket he thought he was well off. He came upon the town’s most renowned restaurant. The smells emanating from its interior and the lavish descriptions of the meals on offer beguiled his senses. But the price of the food was beyond his means. He resolved then not only to earn the money to be able to afford those epicurean delights but also to create them himself.
Raymond Blanc: The Very Hungry Frenchman, Thursdays, BBC2
Scott Graham - I've graduated twice from the University of Glasgow, both disciplines majoring in fiction, an MA in Politics and an MLitt in Creative ...
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