The Lost Orchard

Book excerpt: Now with added material about the gardens at Le Manoir. 'Blanc set about the most thorough apple-tasting and cooking project I have heard of . . . [The Lost Orchard] condenses the highlights, his love letters to the forgotten apple breeds.' The Times 'I began to dream about an orchard filled with thousands of fruit trees... Today we have an orchard with over 150 ancient varieties of apple. Each one has its heritage in a village or a county that used to thrive on that particular variety. They tell the story not only of what we have lost in Britain but also what we could regain.' Over the past eleven years, Raymond Blanc has planted an orchard of 2,500 trees in the grounds of his hotel-restaurant in Oxfordshire. Yielding about 30 tonnes of fruit for his kitchen each year, it is full of ancient and forgotten varieties of British apples and pears, along with walnut trees, quince, medlars, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, damsons and cherries. A further 600 heritage fruit trees have been added from Raymond's home region of Franche-Comté in France. The Lost Orchard is a love letter to each of these varieties, complete with beautiful black and white drawings, photographs of Belmond Le Manoir and fascinating information and anecdotes about each fruit, along with recipes and stories.