PIERRE Gagnaire French chef in Paris is named as a king of the kitchen. A magician with food, who centres his food artistry around, taste, smell and texture. He felt French cuisine was at a dead end so he went on a search for lost and forgotten ingredients. He recognised early that he had a talent for taste, as he said it was no gastronomic revolution it just gave him the twist to improve flavours in his food preparation. Gagnaire draws from 1700 fruit and vegetables grown at the nearby market garden of Joel Thiebault, an historian of obscure and forgotten varieties. Recently Thiebault has written a book about those vegetables, which is only available in French.