French Provincial Cooking (70 page)

(2) The fish must be spanking fresh from the sea, and of diverse kinds. The
rascasse
is essential, and the fish is always served with its head. If
langouste
is included, this is cut in half lengthways and served in its shell. Mussels, if part of the bouillabaisse, are likewise left in their shells.

(3) Olive oil and saffron are equally essential.

(4) Furious boiling, so that the olive oil and water (or wine if you are a heretic) amalgamate, is another absolute essential of the success of the dish.

(6) The Toulonnais sometimes add potatoes (a practice which appals a Marseillais). The potatoes are best cut (raw) into thin rounds and added at the same time as the soft fish.

(7) A bouillabaisse is not intended to be a
soup
. There should merely be enough of the broth, fused with the olive oil by the very rapid boiling, to produce a generous amount of moistening for the slices of bread.

From all the writers who have poured out such eloquent words (very often in verse) on the subject of the bouillabaisse, I have chosen two descriptions to quote and both of these include splendid recipes. But what, I cannot help wondering, would be the consequences if any of these people should chance to see what I with my own eyes have seen—tins, yes,
tins,
pint tins of something called Danish bouillabaisse actually on sale, proudly displayed in our most expensive food stores. What unhappy man can have had such a terrible, sad idea? Who are the people who can be induced to buy such concentrated effrontery?

Austin de Croze, who gives the following recipe in
Les Plats Régionaux de France
, says he considers it the best there is. It was contributed by a Marseillais, M. Etienne Fauché, one-time Mayor of Cassis, and subsequently President of the Syndicat d’Initiative of La Sainte Baume, in the Var.

 

‘The secret of a successful bouillabaisse may be summed up as follows: live fish in large variety; good olive oil and top quality saffron. The only difficulty in executing the dish consists in bringing it to the boil rapidly and fiercely.

‘Every locality in Provence has, of course, its claim to the genuine bouillabaisse. But the true one comes from Marseille. For is it not in the waters of the beautiful bay of Marseille that all the requisite varieties of brilliant-hued rock fish, which go to make up the excellence of a bouillabaisse, are to be found?

‘Those who have attempted to complicate the simple recipe for a bouillabaisse have succeeded only in spoiling its character; it is a mistake to cook the fish in a previously prepared broth of small fry; it is a culinary heresy to add white wine to a bouillabaisse (although it is indispensable on the table with it). It is superfluous to thicken the sauce, even with a purée of sea-urchins. All such elaborations are simply a fashion of disguising the poverty or lack of freshness of the fish. Bearing these considerations in mind, here is the recipe for bouillabaisse, in its simplicity and integrity.

‘For ten people, take about 5 lb. of different fish, comprising
rascasse,
²¹
angler fish [
baudroie
]
,
weaver [
vive
], John Dory [
St. Pierre
]
,
sea-hen [
galinette
],
²²
whiting and two crawfish [
langoustes
]
.
Scale, gut and wash these fish, in sea-water if possible, and cut them in slices.

‘In a heavy pan, wider than it is high, put 2 onions, 4 tomatoes and 4 cloves of garlic, all coarsely chopped; moisten with a decilitre (5 oz.) of best quality olive oil, add 2 sprigs of fennel leaves, a bay leaf and a good pinch of powdered saffron; season with
oz. of coarse salt and
oz. of pepper. Mix all well together, and add the firm fish, keeping the soft ones (
galinette
, John Dory and whiting) to add 5 minutes later. Pour over boiling water to cover the fish, taking into account those which are to be added. Put the pan over a very fierce flame and give it 12 to 15 minutes at a very rapid boil. It is upon this fast boiling that success depends.

‘In the meantime, cut a long loaf into slices; dry them a few seconds in the oven but without letting them take colour.

‘When the bouillabaisse is ready, arrange the slices of fish carefully in a dish, and through a sieve pour the
bouillon
over the bread arranged in a deep vegetable dish. Sprinkle with parsley.

‘The bouillabaisse should be served when the guests are at table. Which is to say that it must not wait, but be waited for.

‘In a well-cooked bouillabaisse, the particular flavour of each fish should be distinct. The pepper should be slightly dominant; the broth should be naturally thickened by the violent boiling.

‘I should advise that the heads of the fish, with the exception of those of the
rascasses
, should be sacrificed to the broth. Cut them in several pieces and, when the fish has been removed to its serving dish, it will do no harm to the broth to let it boil fiercely another five minutes before straining it over the bread.’

‘I was a child of ten. He was called Bauzan, my fisherman at Canet, our fishing rendezvous on the banks of the
étang de Berre.
And before eating his bouillabaisse, I used to savour the delights of watching him fish for it.

‘Hardly had my grandfather’s creaking but reliable old wagon, dusty from having carried us so far through the scrub, come to a standstill than I, with what alacrity, leap to the ground, and into the arms of my friend the old sea-wolf.

‘ “Quick, let’s get off.”

‘ “The mistral is blowing; we shall dance about a bit.”

‘ “Oh, how lovely—.”

‘The more the little cockleshell danced in the waves, the happier I was. Actually, there was no danger. Bauzan, who had been round the world five times, took the helm, and the “sailor,” his third son (the two eldest were serving in the squadron at Toulon), was at the oars. How I should always have liked to have been “sailor’s” mate—if only my parents had let me have my way!

‘Already, a league out, Bauzan’s still piercing eyes had caught sight of the little indicator buoy. Stop! Sailor pulled towards the buoy. We dropped anchor. Now, round a pulley and across the boat the long rope was coiled in, two metres at a time, and the baskets came out of the waves. After we had drained off the water there was a gurgling inside—sometimes, however, there was nothing.

‘It was I who had the excitement of undoing the catch which closed the lid. And there, in the bottom of the boat, multicoloured and sparkling and smelling good, lay the bouillabaisse;
rascasses
and
canadelles
, red mullet and gurnard and
muggions
[grey mullet] and other rock-fish whose names I no longer remember, but not forgetting the exquisite little
favouilles
[crabs] nor the eels, those viscous and slippery sea-serpents which Bauzan had taught me to catch with three fingers.

‘We returned by sail, in ten minutes, for we were hungry. On the shore, in the wind, Madame Bauzan had lit a great wood fire upon which, in a huge cauldron, a litre of olive oil was coming to the boil, with four sliced onions, as many cloves of garlic with, of course, salt, pepper and saffron, with a few tomatoes in the season, and two or three potatoes, not forgetting, for Parisians, a handful of flour mixed with a glass of water.

‘The mob of little Bauzans and their mother wasted no time in jumping on board, cleaning the fish and throwing it, all fresh as it was, into the saucepan, where the poor eels, cut in slices, went on wriggling in the boiling liquid. No more than a quarter of an hour’s cooking and the divine golden yellow
bouillon
was poured through a strainer over a mountain of large slices of bread, and the fish served separately. And then, my children, our stomachs hollow from the sea-voyage, we stuffed ourselves up to the neck!

‘Nowadays, I still feast sometimes on bouillabaisse—Parisian bouillabaisse. But in Paris, alas, the little crabs have to be replaced by mussels, the
rascasses
and the
canadelles
with a modest
langouste
, and so on. A makeshift, in fact. And it is a long time since I was ten years old, and Canet no longer belongs to us, and what has become of my friend Bauzan?’

AÏOLI

 

‘Provençal
aïoli
—dish of the farmhouse and the
cabanon
²³
—triumph of the Provençal kitchen, is composed of a garlic mayonnaise and an assortment, as varied as possible, of fresh vegetables cooked in salted water, white fish cooked in
court-bouillon
and cold meats.’

EUGÈNE BLANCARD:
Mets de Provence,
1926

Aïoli
is indeed one of the most famous and most beloved of all Provençal dishes. The magnificent shining golden ointment which is the sauce is often affectionately referred to as the ‘butter of Provence.’ With this wonderful sauce are served boiled salt cod, potatoes, beetroot, sweet peppers, either raw or cooked, carrots, a fine boiled fish such as a bream or mullet, hard-boiled eggs, sometimes little inkfish or octopus, French beans, globe artichokes, even little snails and perhaps a salad of chick peas.

The
aïoli garni
is, in fact, a Friday dish as well as one of the traditional Christmas Eve dishes; on non-fasting days the beef from the
pot-au-feu
or even a boiled chicken may form part of the dish: it then becomes
le grand aïoli.
It will be seen, then, that with all these different accompaniments, the
aïoli garni
is essentially a dish for a large family or a party of intimate friends, although personally I could quite well dispense with all the rest provided there were a large bowl of potatoes boiled in their skins and perhaps some raw peppers and celery to go with the
aïoli.
In a small country restaurant in Provence where I once asked, at short notice, if it were possible to produce an
aïoli garni
for dinner, it was too late for the
patron
to go out and buy anything specially, but he produced a handsome dish of ham accompanied by potatoes and the vegetables in season, with the
aïoli
in a bowl in the centre of the dish. It was an excellent demonstration of the sort of impromptu
aïoli
which can be produced with ingredients to hand.

To make the
aïoli
sauce:

Allow roughly 2 large cloves of garlic per person and, for eight people, the yolks of 3 eggs and nearly a pint of very good quality olive oil—failing Provençal olive oil, the best Italian or Spanish will do. Crush the peeled garlic in a mortar until it is reduced absolutely to pulp. Add the yolks and a pinch of salt. Stir with a wooden spoon. When the eggs and garlic are well amalgamated, start adding the oil, very slowly at first, drop by drop, until the
aïoli
begins to thicken. This takes longer than with a straightforward mayonnaise because the garlic has thinned the yolks to a certain extent. When about half the oil has been used, the
aïoli
should be a very thick mass, and the oil can now be added in a slow but steady stream. The sauce gets thicker and thicker, and this is as it should be; a good
aïoli
is practically solid. Add a very little lemon juice at the end, and serve the sauce either in the kitchen mortar in which you have made it or piled up in a small salad bowl. Should the
aïoli
separate through the oil having been added too fast, put a fresh yolk into another bowl and gradually add the curdled mixture to it. The
aïoli
then comes back to life.