The forgotten king — less than 5% of world production.
Criollo is the oldest and noblest variety of the cacao tree. Worked below 42°C, it preserves its polyphenols, theobromine, magnesium, iron, and anandamide — the molecule of happiness. Unroasted, it becomes a medicine of the heart.
Reishi, cordyceps, chaga — the immune system of the forest.
Adaptogenic mushrooms are the living pharmacies of the forest. Reishi for deep calm and the immune system, cordyceps for cellular oxygenation and endurance, chaga for antioxidants (SOD). A 5,000-year-old medicine that regulates without forcing.
Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) is a filamentous cyanobacterium containing 60 to 70% complete protein, highly bioavailable iron, bioactive B12 and the full set of essential amino acids. Consumed by the Aztecs and the Kanembou for several centuries.
OriginAlkaline lakes (Chad, Mexico), artisanal cultivation
Phycocyanin is the blue protein-pigment extracted from spirulina. Its tetrapyrrole structure is identical to haemoglobin, but with a central magnesium atom instead of iron. Targeted anti-inflammatory (COX-2 inhibition with no effect on COX-1), powerful antioxidant, hepatoprotective.
OriginExtracted from spirulina by cold membrane filtration
Nori, wakame, dulse, kombu — the salty garden of the oceans.
Sea vegetables are the most mineral-rich food on the planet. Iodine for the thyroid, marine calcium, magnesium, iron, and the famed phyco-nutrients unique to aquatic plants. One mouthful = a week of minerals.
OriginJapanese coasts, Brittany, the Basque Country
Long fermentation — a living paste two years in the making.
True miso, unpasteurised, is fermented for two to three years in cedar casks. It brims with active enzymes, probiotics, free amino acids and molecules welcome to the microbiome. Morning miso soup was held by the samurai to be the finest way to begin a day.
Living shoyu & tamari — the umami of intact enzymes.
Industrial soy sauce is pasteurised and lifeless. Traditional unpasteurised soy sauce (shoyu, tamari) holds living enzymes, probiotics and a deep umami that bears no resemblance to supermarket versions. Fermented for at least two years.
Acacia, lavender, linden, chestnut — each flower is a remedy.
Raw honey, neither heated nor filtered, keeps all its enzymes, its pollens, its traces of propolis. Each monofloral has its signature: acacia as a neutral base, lavender for serenity, chestnut for iron and drive, linden for evening calm. Infused or fermented, it becomes an augmented honey — a vehicle (anupana) that carries plants' active principles into our depths.
OriginArtisanal hives — France, Greece, New Zealand
Enzymes vivantes (diastase)
Levures sauvages qui rendent la fermentation possible
Medjool, Deglet Noor, Barhi — the fruit of the prophets.
Dates are the oldest sweet fruit cultivated by humankind. Rich in potassium, magnesium, fibre, and natural sugars with slow absorption when paired with fat (nuts, cacao). A concentrate of stable energy.
The Incas' gold — caramel sweetness without the sugar spike.
A sacred fruit of the Andes, lucuma is a natural sweetener with a low glycaemic index. Its caramel-maple taste flavours everything without disturbing blood sugar. Rich in beta-carotene, zinc, iron and B vitamins.
Kala namak, blue, pink, smoked, fleur de sel — each salt, a flavour.
True salt is not refined sodium chloride — it is a living crystal of minerals. Rather than a single salt, we work with a selection: each one amplifies a different flavour and signs a dish with its character.
Timut from Nepal, Kampot from Cambodia, long pepper from Java.
Rare peppers are geographies in a single grain. Timut evokes grapefruit, Kampot is floral and complex, Java long pepper is smoky and peppery. Each one amplifies the bioavailability of nutrients (piperine).
Untoasted sesame seeds, raw tahini — king of plant calcium.
Raw sesame holds more calcium than milk pound for pound, alongside lignans (sesamin, sesamolin) with major antioxidant properties. Raw artisanal tahini is a liquid medicine — for the bones, the nervous system, energy.
The only edible orchid fruit — 250 molecules in a single pod.
Vanilla is a wondrous anomaly: the only edible fruit in the whole orchid family. The world's second most precious spice after saffron, it demands hand-pollination, flower by flower. Where synthetic vanillin offers a single note, the living pod unfolds over two hundred and fifty — it is what rounds out a preparation and makes it taste sweeter without adding sugar.
The sun-spice — 150 flowers for a single gram, picked by hand.
Saffron is the world's most precious spice, and the most demanding: it takes nearly one hundred and fifty crocus flowers to yield a single gram of dried stigmas, each gathered by hand, at dawn, on the day it blooms. Three pigments concentrate a sun within it: crocin for the deep gold, picrocrocin for the noble bitterness, safranal for the aroma. A pinch is enough to dye and perfume a whole dish.
The flower of the heart — floral freshness, from gulkand to golden milk.
The Damask rose is not only a perfume: it is a subtle food. As floral water, candied petals, or Ayurvedic gulkand, it brings a flowery freshness that soothes and quenches. It takes thousands of petals for a few drops of essence — a concentration of sweetness that Persian, Indian and Levantine cuisines have cultivated for centuries.
OriginIran, Bulgaria (the Rose Valley), Turkey, Grasse
Rose de Damas — la plus parfumée
Fraîcheur florale qui apaise (Ayurveda : rafraîchit Pitta)
The sun of the garrigue — three Lamiaceae, one family of aromas.
Thyme, rosemary, sage: three plants of the Mediterranean garrigue and — a little-known fact — one and the same botanical family, the Lamiaceae. All concentrate, in their leathery leaves, powerful aromatic oils to withstand drought and sun. What the plant makes to survive, it offers us: antioxidants so stable they serve as natural preservatives, and a scent that wakes any dish.
The activator — the second highest vitamin C content in the world.
A small Amazonian berry, camu camu concentrates 2,400 to 3,000 mg of vitamin C per 100 g — within its native plant matrix, rich in bioflavonoids, so better absorbed and more lasting than synthetic ascorbic acid. Its very tart taste makes it an ideal potentiator: a pinch wakes a drink, a smoothie, or amplifies the action of functional mushrooms.
OriginThe flooded banks of the Amazon — Peru, Brazil
The regenerator — the highest known concentration of delphinidins.
A dark Patagonian berry, maqui holds the highest known concentration of delphinidins of any berry — those deep-violet anthocyanins that protect collagen, support tear production (precious for those who work on a screen) and accompany blood-sugar balance. Its fruity, sweet-tart and pleasant taste slips into smoothies, bowls and flavoured waters.
The shield — the undisputed champion of anthocyanins.
Aronia, or American black chokeberry, is the undisputed champion of anthocyanins: three to five times more than blueberry (1,480 to 1,752 mg per 100 g). A natural acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, it helps preserve acetylcholine in the brain, and carries soothing properties for the mood. Its astringent, deep taste blends wonderfully into cacao preparations.
OriginNorth America — cultivated in Eastern Europe
The thousand-year-old tree — polyphenols and omega-9.
The olive is one of the most sacred fruits of the Mediterranean. Its first cold-pressed oil holds oleocanthal (a natural anti-inflammatory as powerful as low-dose ibuprofen), polyphenols, and the monounsaturated fatty acids that protect the brain and the heart.
A whole tree folded into a seed — almonds, walnuts, cashews, and the art of awakening them.
A nut is not just a snack: it is a whole tree in reserve, the concentrate of fat, minerals and life that a seed keeps for its rebirth. Almond, walnut, hazelnut, cashew, pine nut, macadamia, Brazil nut, pecan, pumpkin, sunflower, tiger nut: each has its genius. And all answer the same ancestral gesture — soaking, activation, which disarms their defences and awakens the sleeping seed. To know nuts and seeds is to hold one of the finest toolkits of living cuisine.
OriginOrchards and scrublands of the world — the Mediterranean, the Andes, Amazonia, Asia
Vitamine E, magnésium, zinc, cuivre, sélénium
Noix du Brésil — la source n°1 de sélénium au monde
Activation (trempage) — minéraux plus disponibles, plus digestes
The seed that gives itself unconditionally — more protein than an egg, without a single barrier.
Where almost every seed raises defences — phytates, enzyme inhibitors, oligosaccharides — that must be disarmed by soaking or cooking, hemp offers itself as it is. No trypsin inhibitors, no flatulent sugars: a 'clean' protein, directly assimilable. A 30 g portion delivers nearly 10 g of complete protein — more than an egg — carried by edestin and albumin, two high-quality, particularly digestible proteins. It is the 'plug and play' of plant nutrition.
OriginFood-hemp cultivation — France, Canada, Northern Europe
Protéine complète — les 9 acides aminés essentiels
≈ 10 g de protéines pour 30 g (plus qu'un œuf)
Édestine & albumine — très digestes, sans anti-nutriments
The brain mushroom — a direct neuronal regenerator.
Lion's mane is the only known food able to stimulate the production of NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) — the neurons' growth factor. It regenerates myelin, supports working memory and protects against cognitive decline. It is the most powerful nootropic of the fungal kingdom.
OriginTemperate forests — Asia, Europe, North America
Ayurveda's king adaptogen — the cortisol regulator.
Used for 3,000 years in Ayurvedic medicine, ashwagandha lowers cortisol (the stress hormone) by an average of 30% according to clinical studies. It supports sleep quality, muscular recovery and resilience to chronic stress. Its name means 'strength of the horse'.
The golden root — mental stamina without stimulation.
Rhodiola is the adaptogen of the Vikings and Soviet cosmonauts. It raises resistance to mental and physical fatigue with no stimulating effect. Its mechanism acts on the HPA axis (hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal), regulating the stress response at its source.
OriginArctic regions — Siberia, Scandinavia, high plateaus
Brahmi is the classic nootropic of Ayurveda. The bacosides it holds cross the blood-brain barrier and support synaptic transmission. Clinical studies: a 20% improvement in episodic memory after 12 weeks. Vedic scholars used it to memorise entire texts.
OriginWetlands of India, Southeast Asia
Bacosides — traverse la barrière hémato-encéphalique
The Andean ginseng — energy, libido, hormonal balance.
Grown at 4,000 m altitude in the Peruvian Andes, maca is a hormonal adaptogen. It contains no hormones but regulates the hypothalamic axis, naturally balancing the production of testosterone, oestrogens and thyroid. Stable energy without caffeine.
OriginThe high Peruvian plateaus — 4,000 m altitude
The umami medicine — the highest guanylate content of any food.
A pillar of East Asian cooking and medicine, dried shiitake concentrates the highest guanylate content of any food — the molecule that, paired with the glutamate of kombu or miso, multiplies the umami sensation up to fifteenfold. Beyond taste, its beta-glucans support immunity. It is the heart of dashi, the clear Japanese broth.
The king of tonics — energy that rebuilds itself, no spike or crash.
The queen root of Chinese herbal tradition, ginseng is the adaptogen par excellence: it does not whip the body, it rebuilds the Qi with patience. Foundational energy, stress resilience, mental clarity — without the spike or crash of stimulants. It belongs to the long lineage of Eastern tonics, alongside astragalus, goji and jujube.
The protein of the earth — lentils, chickpeas, beans, fava: the larder of civilisations.
Within the word 'legume' sleeps one half of every complete protein. Lentils (red, green Puy, blond, beluga), split peas, beans (red, white, black, azuki, mung, flageolet), garden peas, fava, chickpeas, lupin, soy: a single family, the Fabaceae, that fixes nitrogen from the air and returns it to the soil as to our table. Rich in protein, fibre and minerals, it asks only one gesture — soaking, cooking — to yield its whole treasure.
OriginFertile Crescent, the Andes, Asia, Africa — wherever humankind settled
Protéine végétale — complète avec une céréale ou du sésame
Fibres & amidon résistant — le festin du microbiote
Fer, magnésium, potassium, folates (B9)
Index glycémique bas — une énergie longue et stable
The grain that carries the day — from the dawn porridge to the evening pilaf.
From the quinoa of the Andes to the amaranth of the Aztecs, from Breton buckwheat to the rice of Asia, grain is the foundation of energy. The pseudo-cereals — quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat — are complete proteins without gluten; the true cereals — rice, barley, einkorn, oats, millet — bring the slow carbohydrates that hold the day. Soaked, sprouted, cooked with care, they move from the gentle morning porridge to the fragrant evening pilaf.
OriginThe Andes, Mesoamerica, the Fertile Crescent, monsoon Asia
Glucides complexes — une énergie longue et stable
Quinoa, amarante, sarrasin — protéine complète sans gluten
Amarante — riche en fer, calcium et lysine
Trempage & germination — plus digestes, minéraux libérés
Du salé au porridge — un grain pour chaque heure du jour
