My first food memory is from the age of about four. I'm one of five children from a working-class family in a village called Saône, in eastern France, and we didn't have much money. I was shopping with my mother and saw the most beautiful Easter egg: big, frosted and filled with coloured eggs. She saw me looking at it but I knew she couldn't afford it. We then had an Easter egg hunt and I found that very egg. My mother had bought it for me. It was the first great food moment of my life.
My mother did all the cooking. I was the apprentice, the young commis, doing the peeling and chopping as well as the killing of rabbits and chickens. Although our garden wasn't that big, it played a huge part in our diet and could feed the whole family for nine months of the year. Aged six onwards, I worked there, weeding and hoeing, then harvesting and podding tons of beans, while my friends were playing football, having fun.
The cellar at home was the most extraordinary place. It was filled with hundreds of different pots of girolles, beans, beetroots and everything else - all preserved for the winter by my mother. On the floor were layers of fresh beetroot, onions and potatoes, covered in jute. And there was always a big barrel of cheap wine, which would drip. I'd sit at the top of the staircase and gaze at this incredible still life. The smell was quite extraordinary.
We were great hunter-gatherers. Franche-Comté, the region where I grew up, had the biggest forests in Europe. My father gave me a map with all the best places to collect wild mushrooms, asparagus, hazelnuts and berries. We'd leave very early so nobody could follow us. Part of our haul would go to my mother; the rest was sold directly to chefs. They would always give you the best prices. That's where I learned about the seasons - the very basis of my knowledge - and that's why I called my first restaurant, in Oxford, Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons.
Le Manoir Aux Quat'Saisons
To get to school we had to walk four miles each way and it took two hours. In winter, there’d be 50 centimetres of snow. When we arrived we’d be given good bread with butter and jam and a cup of hot chocolate. School food was simple but healthy and very good.
When I first arrived here in 1972, English food was quite frightening. I remember ordering fish and chips on the ferry over and could smell the vinegar five metres away. It actually made me cough. The chips were grey and bent and I was amazed by the fish. It was rectangular, which I’d never seen before.
I said I’d never touch brown sauce. I thought it sounded disgusting. But when I tried it in a bacon butty it was incredible - all natural, too. Now I make a version at my restaurant Le Manoir.
My comfort food is poule au pot. Henry IV declared that his subjects should eat it every week. If all kings were like him, we’d still have a French monarchy.
After a long day cooking very sophisticated food, I crave simplicity. Some soup or broad beans with garlic and olive oil.
I always have smoked salmon in the fridge as well as chicken, eggs, tomato purée and homemade mayonnaise.
The last meal I cooked was pork chops, fried in foaming butter, then deglazed with water to make an emulsion. It takes minutes.
My perfect hangover food is a purée of potatoes, or noodles. Something starchy, which heals.
My last meal would be an apple tart 'Maman Blanc'. It's full of memories, apples and happiness.
Simply Raymond: Recipes from Home (Headline, £25) is out now.