After Dinner Speakers: Raymond Blanc, Hanan Ashrawi, Nicola Foulston

Raymond Blanc, famous restaurateur, hotelier and businessman, brought brought his talents across the Channel from France in 1972. Since his arrival in the UK, he has been credited with not just witnessing a change in Britain's eating habits, but actually fostering it, putting the emphasis on flavour. "I just want to show the beauty of the flavour and texture . . . even when I peel a carrot, I think how to produce the flavour better," he says. His recipes reveal this emphasis and provide an imaginative and original twist on many French classics. The young Raymond Blanc, son of a clockmaker, grew up in Besancon, near Dijon. With no early desire to become a chef, at the age of 17 he tried to impress his mother with a crępe suzette. Unfortunately he used a glass dish instead of a frying pan for the pancakes. The result was exploded caramel-covered glass. And so, for a while, any desire to cook faded. After trying a number of jobs, including factory worker and nurse, he finally discovered a genuine interest in cooking. He explains that when he was 21 he looked in through a restaurant window and saw a chef flambé sea bass. And that was the beginning. He approached the restaurant owner who made him wash up dishes. While he taught himself about food, he progressed to waiter. He decided the chef's cooking was bad and told him so. The result was a copper pan thrown at him and a broken nose and jaw. While in hospital he heard of a job in England, at the Rose Revived in Newbridge, Oxford, and jumped at the chance. After a year he was made chef. Over the following years he worked all hours to save for his own restaurant. At the age of 28, his dream was realised by the opening of the Les Quat' Saisons in Oxford. The restaurant was soon awarded with Michelin stars and a host of other distinctions. Now Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons, and relocated long ago to a sumptuous small country house in Great Milton, the restaurant thrives, with a cookery school alongside it.