When we arrived in Marseille, it was already dusk and we were hungry for dinner. I picked a place that seemed to be a favorite with the locals and ordered bouillabaisse . It may have been the excitement of actually seeing Marseille for the first time mingled with hunger but the dish was a excellent. I wish I could remember what about it made it so special and different from other times I had tried the dish other places. Reading this ode to Marseille's cuisine and why it may not feature in guidebooks and not be Provencal and fancy enough brought back the warmest memories:
Such people aren’t too crazy about aïoli, bouillabaisse or anchovy purée. They don’t know anything about the pleasure of fried chickpea cakes. They’ve never tasted snails in spicy sauce, or sea urchins, or lambs’ feet and tripe, or cod in a tomato and red wine sauce, or eggplant ratatouille or fresh bean stew, and they don’t know the joy of feasting on slightly warm vegetable soup with basil and garlic in the shade of a pine. I haven’t plucked these dishes out of the air. The cuisine of Marseilles has always rested on the art of using fish and vegetables disdained by the local ship-owning upper classes, who were kept supplied with refined produce like game and poultry, lamb, truffles, cheese and fruit by the farms of the Aix region.
We did not get to stay long enough in Marseille to try much of the food Izzo refers to but I went looking for (and found) recipes for several of the dishes so will be trying them at home and reliving the memories. While I was at it, found a recipe for the first dish I ever ate there.
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