A taste of M. Blanc's life

It apparently all came down to a pinch or two of salt, at a time when M Blanc's culinary advice was not in such great demand.

Taken on as a restaurant runner whose job was to carry silver dishes with bell-shaped lids, he relished the opportunity to watch the fiery head chef in action and sample his sauces.

While they were mainly superb, the young Blanc would occasionally point out that the sauce was too rich or might just benefit from spice.

"When I voiced my opinions about his food I believed I was doing nothing more than simply sharing my thoughts with a colleague," he recalls. Big mistake, particularly one busy lunchtime when the over-enthusiastic runner inquired whether chef's sauce might be a little too salty.

"His look darkened and his moustache bristled. His frying pan, which was an extension of his fist, hit me hard on the jaw, leaving me dizzy. Luckily it was not a hot pan or it would have left me with an odd shaped scar, as you can imagine. I can still feel it now if I think too hard about the episode."

These days a young staff member subjected to such a kitchen assault could look forward to a hefty award from an employment tribunal.

But when the restaurant owner's son sought out Raymond, it was not to apologise, but to inform him he had been sacked for upsetting Le Palais's great creative force.

In fact, it was suggested that it might be better if Raymond left France altogether.

But at least a job was found for him at the Rose Revived pub near the Oxfordshire village of Standlake.

And so, 36 years ago, in a battered Renault Gordini with a twisted axle, began Raymond's journey to gastronomical superstardom and television fame as the entrepreneurial guru at the heart of BBC's The Restaurant.

This most driven of Frenchmen normally affords himself little time to reflect on his conquest of the culinary world and the personal price he has paid.

But he has finally decided to write about the people, events and, of course, the dishes, that have shaped his life in his new book A Taste of My Life.

Not so much an autobiography, he insisted when we met at his two Michelin-starred Le Manoir, as a "foodography".

And a book all the aspiring restaurateurs in the BBC series (now being shown on Wednesday and Thursday nights) would do well to read, as he points out the pitfalls of being obsessed with the artistic side of food.

"It's my life story through food, going right back to the wild forests where I played as a boy. It aims to go to the core of food."

But it is also a tribute to the amazing little woman who will be joining him in London at the end of this month, when he goes to Buckingham Palace to collect his OBE.

His mother, Maman Blanc, is now 87.

"She is an amazing character. When I grew up, the women were the home-makers. They gave their whole lives to nurturing children, cleaning the house and cooking their hearts out. And Maman Blanc was a bloody good cook.

"She established the foundations of my simple philosophy — not just about food but also towards people."

Now the son believes the world is catching up with her philosophy, with the combination of rocketing food prices and concern about the nutritional value of what we put down our throats, bringing about a back-to-basics approach to home cooking.

"People have been manipulated and made to believe they could eat cheap food with no consequences. We now know the damage, cost and misery of this culture. It's been all about design; never mind taste, texture, flavour and nutritional value."

Three years before Jamie Oliver embarked on his crusade to change the eating habits of the nation's children, Raymond Blanc had gone to the BBC with a series designed to show how easy it is change our way of eating.

"I proposed going into schools, universities and old people's homes with my casserole dish."

The BBC's lack of enthusiasm for the project still rankles.

But then Raymond came to recognise long ago that changing attitudes in England about food is no easy task.

He had an early glimpse of what lay ahead on his journey into exile when he twice tried fish and chips.

The memory has remained with him.

"In all my life I had never seen a square fish. It was so battered you couldn't recognise it as fish."

When he arrived at the riverside Oxfordshire pub that was to change his life, at least its beautiful appearance fully lived up to his expectations of what an English inn should be like.

But more shocks awaited once he began work as a waiter.

"In France, I had been proud to be a waiter. It was a profession that was by and large respected by the customer. In England you had no status. You were merely a servant."

Nevertheless the relationship he formed with the owner's daughter, Jenny Colbeck, who he was to marry, ultimately allowed him to realise his ambition to become a chef and give Oxfordshire diners a taste of Maman Blanc food.

"My mother did not teach me how to cook. I was a minion," he says.

As a boy in post-war France, his job was to peel, kill and skin rabbits and, yes, catch frogs to cut off their legs. Sometimes the pike he caught were kept in the bath, a process designed to clean them.

At the Rose Revived, so keen was he to ensure that his speciality dish quenelle of pike was perfect, he ended up fishing next to the pub himself.

His enthusiasm was not always appreciated.

When the upper body of a mouse was found in a curry, it was to be months before he found out it was from a disgruntled member of staff, jealous that the Frenchman had married the boss's daughter.

To secure their first restaurant, Les Quat' Saisons, which opened in 1977 shortly before his 28th birthday, the couple had to mortgage themselves up to the hilt. "It was hidden away in the most hideous sixties concrete shopping parade in Summertown," he remembers.

On one side stood an underwear shop (not Agent Provocateur, more big pants and knitted knickers), on the other Oxfam offices.

Another dead rat was to rear its ugly head, this time discovered in the fridge. There were many more to remove before the first paying customers arrived.

Totally untrained, he insists that he had to learn all the basic techniques as he went along.

To begin with, it was food inspired by Maman Blanc and the pan-wielding chef at Le Palais, but then he began to experiment.

With the average cost per head a la carte being £18 it was little wonder locals flooded in.

When it was awarded its first Michelin star in 1979 and named restaurant of the year by Egon Ronay, the serious foodies headed for the Summertown bistro that had ended up becoming a gastronomic landmark.

He describes his first year as a chef patron as "absolute hell".

The pressure of being the cook, washer up, cleaner and accountant was to take its toll on his marriage.

Together they were to acquire Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons at Great Milton, but the relentless work load led to divorce, with Jenny now running a successful design company.

He readily admits the split devastated him, typically reaching for a food analogy: "I realised only through hindsight that a relationship needs as much love and care and nurturing as a beautiful dish, garden or hotel. So the cost of Le Manoir was high, for it affected my family and early relationship with my sons. It took many years to rebuild the confidence I had lost.

"I worked hard for years to gain back the love and trust of both my sons. Today I stand as a very proud man as my sons, Olivier and Sebastien, are my two best friends."

Ironically, his intention had been to find a "home sweet home restaurant" until he saw the manor house of Great Milton while flicking through a copy of Country Life.

His ambition was simple.

"I wanted to create a level of excellence you couldn't find in Britain."

And he was not just thinking of the cuisine. There should be a magnificent garden, a hotel and cookery school.

His fiancée Natalia, who is half Russian, frequently reminds him that the way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans. But Raymond remains obsessed with detail, labelling himself "a micro-idiot".

"Every morning I look at myself in the mirror and say, 'Raymond, you are a control freak'. Detail matters to me. It is the secret of success," he says.

As if to prove it, for the next three minutes he explained how if he had an hour to spare he might teach me to peel a carrot. "You would know everything about that carrot," he concluded.

When it comes to spotting celebrities who travel up to Great Milton, he is less sharp.

Recently, Kylie Minogue booked the cookery school for herself and a friend and Raymond was heard asking a member of staff "Do you know who Coulis Minogue is?".

He now confesses: "For some reason or other, I was the only person on Earth who did not know of her."

Yet by the end of the day the Led Zeppelin- loving Frenchman had recovered sufficiently to put on some music in the school's kitchen and show Kylie some of his best dance moves.

The story must have reached the BBC and he was later invited to do Strictly Come Dancing.

"I turned it down," he says with a wave of his hand, "I do not want to be remembered as a ballerina."

Instead, he is planning to get to grips once more with Maison Blanc, the boulangerie and pâtisserie that he created in 1979 serving speciality breads and savouries, from which he has been disconnected for years.

He is now busily rebranding the Maison Blanc chain, including the original shop next to Brown's in Oxford. "It has gone full circle."

Except that he now believes he is living in a country that is beginning to respect food, along with its celebrity chefs.