Raymond Blanc: ‘When I had a vegetarian menu, everyone looked at me like I was weird’

If anyone can be credited for popularising the idea of a restaurant ‘kitchen garden’ it’s Raymond Blanc. The French chef opened world-famous Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons 41 years ago with expansive grounds – and the concept of ‘garden to plate’ was born.

Now, with 250 different organic varieties of fruit and veg growing and 27 acres in total, the gardens aren’t just crucial for the two-Michelin star Oxfordshire restaurant and hotel, but for him personally too.

“The first thing I do often is to have a lovely walk, try to gather the day together,” Blanc says. “I go to the Japanese Tea House Garden [one of 12 individual gardens at Le Manoir] when I’m really highly stressed.

‘It’s the most tranquil and peaceful part of the gardens,’ he writes in his latest cookbook, Simply Raymond Kitchen Garden. It’s where he buried his beloved German Shepherd, Prince, and ‘it’s where I sit when I’m a bit broken’.

“The garden plays a huge role at Le Manoir – and in my life”.

King Charles even once spent “three hours in the battering rain” walking around the grounds of the 15th-century manor house, after Blanc had joked to the then Prince during a visit to his Highgrove estate that the royal gardens were “not quite as magnificent” as Le Manoir’s.

The prolific chef, who has been a mainstay on cooking and food shows during his career, has always championed the humble veg. Even when it opened in 1984, Le Manoir had a vegetarian menu, which seemed almost courageous at the time – “Everyone was looking at me as if I was weird”, Blanc says.

But while the British are traditionally a nation of meat lovers (with vegetables languishing sadly on the side), he’s encouraging us to let them take front and centre for a change.

“Vegetables can produce the most extra ordinary dishes, which are tasty, which are healthy as well,” the 75-year-old says. “The health factor is important, as we know we are the nation who has diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and so on.

“When handled properly, they are absolutely beautiful dishes on their own. But it’s the fact that vegetables are not ‘sexy’ as such. We are a carnivorous nation. It’s interesting to compare to the Mediterranean diet. The national dish in France is pot-au-feu, of grated celeriac, carrots, courgettes, tomatoes, and whatever vegetables are in season. And every Sunday lunch, you’ve got at least 40 million French [people] who are going to eat this pot-au-feu the same way as you will have 40 million British people will eat roast beef on Sundays.”

The sheer volume of food the UK imports “is quite incredible and sad”, he notes. “Seasonality, for me, means so much, because if it’s seasonal, it’s close to home. That means you don’t import your food from millions of miles away. Then that food which is imported is full of pesticides, fertiliser, fungicide.

“When you fly all these vegetables across the world, these strawberries, which have been grown thousands of miles away, don’t have any flavour, no taste, and cost you more than triple, maybe.” Strawberry season is worth waiting for, he says.

Plus, “If you buy locally and you wait for that season, there’s a glut of it, and once there’s a glut of it, the price comes down. And the flavour is 10 times better.

“I think it makes a great deal of sense to grow your own food if you can. Of course, I fully understand that we live in a world where we have very little time. [But] if you can’t grow your own food, then shop seasonally.”

The book celebrates the variety of fruit, herbs and veg we’re able to grow in the UK, and the beauty of it in all its simplicity; from his kitchen garden omelette and courgette galette, to the comté cheese and leek souffle and roasted pork stuffed with prune and herb breadcrumbs, before rhubarb and custard tartlets.

So what home-grown vegetables does he think we should cook more at home?

“Artichoke is one of my favourites,” says Blanc. Plus they’re “so simple” to cook, he argues. “A great, big pot of water, you need a big pot, artichoke, maybe half a lemon sliced, a tiny bit of salt, in the water. Cover it and simmer for 40 minutes, turn it off, let it cool down. It’s so easy, it’s delicious.” The fleshy heart is the delicious part of the vegetable, so he suggests drizzling over a dressing made from a mixture of mustard, butter, a bit of vinegar, a dash of warm water, olive oil, need needs to be emulsified and whisked up.

Then there’s pumpkin, he adds. “It’s hard to peel, it’s a bit of an effort. When you peel it, keep the leaf because that can be a stunning soup – food recycling is so important.

“Keep the leaves of the celery [too]. Which is going to be in season September, October, November. When its homegrown it’s peppery, it’s more delicious. You can grate it to have a beautiful remoulade salad, with a bit of mayonnaise, or simple walnuts on top. You can make celery juice with the skin, the leaves of the celery which are strong and peppery, will give an amazing flavour.”

Even the humble sweet potato (there’s a very simple grilled, spicy sweet potato recipe in the book). “It’s completely not as well rated as it should be. You halve your potato and then simply put it in the oven for 25 minutes. The sweet potato has got the most extraordinary, nutritious ingredients, and very strong antioxidants as well.”

Raymond Blanc’s tips for creating your own kitchen garden

1. “Do raised beds to start with, because it’s a good way to get acquainted. You don’t need a large space. You can start doing it outside on your windowsill.”

2. “Have a good compost as well: good earth will provide some good nutrients.”

3. “Get acquainted with seasonality, with varieties and so on. How deep do I put the seeds? How much water do I put in? There’s so much, it sounds simple. It is not.”

4. “Start with herbs, such as dragon rosemary – it’s very easy. Little seeds are a miracle of their own. Teach your child the extraordinary miracle that sees little seeds, all shrivelled, that they contain something which is going to feed the whole world. That little seed will grow into a beautiful carrot, or beautiful herb.”

5. “Next try spinach, peas, runner beans – things that grow fast. [Do] what’s easy to grow and then you get to learn – and you get hooked. Gardening is extraordinary.”

Simply Raymond Kitchen Garden by Raymond Blanc is published in hardback by Headline Home, priced £26. Available September 11