RAYMOND BLANC: TO THE MANOIR BORN

Raymond Blanc is a talker. He can hold your ear for two hours straight and, in fact, is pretty likely to do so, because he is that rarity among chefs: a man burning with ideas.

Not ideas about what to cook next, that is, but long-range, theoretical ideas about cookery itself. For years he’s carried on an intense correspondence with Harold Magee, the American writer on the chemistry and physics of food.

“A typical letter from Raymond,” says Magee, “ends with five questions, of which I can answer about 1 1/2.” (Example: Can freezing ever have the same effect as cooking?) Blanc is expected to present a paper at next year’s Oxford Symposium on Food.

Once upon a time, he was a college chemistry major, but that appears to have had little to do with this interest. Within a year, he quit college and decided that what he wanted to be was a chef. In France, however, restaurants don’t take on 19-year-old apprentices, and he had to work his way into the kitchen as a waiter. His big break came in England, where he arranged to cook one dish every Sunday morning at the restaurant where he waited and made that the most popular meal of the week.

This led ultimately to his present situation, a magnificent country house just outside of Oxford called Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, which is an inn with dining rooms open to non-guests. Denied the traditional French chef’s apprenticeship, however, he had to learn everything for himself and never developed the usual unquestioning attitude toward cooking tradition.

“Out of pride, I guess,” he says, “I wanted to do things my way. I made a lot of mistakes, but I am very persistent.” For instance, he had trouble with souffles when he first tried them, so at times his menus have had souffles all over the place, out of pride.

Le Manoir is a 15th-Century stone manor house that could be a set for a “Masterpiece Theatre” historical series, though the two pink-and-tan dining rooms are definitely modern. Its 27-acre property includes lawns, water gardens (that is, ponds), parkland (that is, woods) and four acres of herbs and vegetables. The “four seasons” of the inn’s name are no idle slogan. Blanc employs six full-time gardeners and raises virtually all his own produce.

The menus may not look exotic, but his dishes are interesting not just for their flavor combinations but for their physical composition. Terrine de bouillabaisse is a remarkable textural thrill, a sort of fish pate held together with fish gelatin. The delicate, lemony gelatin melts in the mouth in about three seconds. Tartare de saumon sauvage is raw salmon in a loose sort of timbale, but its texture is slightly thickened, the flavor subtly altered.

It turns out to be Blanc’s theoretical researches bearing fruit. The gelatin in the terrine was laboriously made from fish bones. Half the salmon was rubbed with herbs and salt, the whole thing bound with sour cream with enough acidity to produce a little of the ceviche texture.

At the moment, Blanc seems to be making a lot of sabayon sauces. On one lunch menu, there was lamb in rosemary sabayon, salmon in Gewurztraminer sabayon with a fascinating vodka and egg mousse, and an appetizer of zucchini blossoms stuffed with zucchini mousse in a truffle sabayon . They’re remarkable sauces of an unearthly lightness and delicacy. Blanc has concluded that conventional chefly wisdom is wrong and in making sabayon sauce, the egg whites must be whipped before applying heat.

Of course, the garden helps. Picking your cucumbers two hours before lunch makes it easy to have a memorable garnish of thin-sliced cucumbers in a sharp vinaigrette. Blanc also happens to get his bread and pastries in his own bakery in Oxford and shrewdly selects a wine list emphasizing little-known wines such as Bourgueuil. He has a particular (and, in England, unusual) interest in Gewurztraminer.

The end of the meal might be a selection of English and French farmhouse cheese from the English foodies’ favorite cheese specialist, or an obsessive tribute to the apple, pomme soufflee au calvados , a souffle flavored with Calvados, baked in an apple, served with cider sabayon sauce and an apple sorbet.

On the other hand, it might be a quaint island of passion fruit souffle with a banana tree of choux paste in a sabayon sea of old rum sauce. “One time I told myself I needed a vacation and I went to the Caribbean,” says Blanc, with a faint sheepishness, “and there I had this idea.” One is a scientist, but one cannot always be serious.

Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons, Great Milton, OX9 7PD. Telephone (08446) 8881/2/3. Open for lunch Wednesday to Sunday, for dinner Tuesday to Saturday. Closed late December and all of January. All major credit cards accepted. Dinner for two, food only, 60-120.