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August 4, 2009

Origin of BouillabaisseReturn to topics »

The most famous fish stew of the Mediterranean is bouillabaisse, and its home is considered to beMarseilles, although it is made in every little port throughout the coastal regions of Provence. Theapocryphal story of the origin of bouillabaisse told by the Marseillais is that Venus servedbouillabaisse to her husband Vulcan in order to lull him to sleep while she consorted with Mars.

Greek food writers have laid claim to inventing the precursor of bouillabaisse. They argue that whenthe Phocaeans, Greeks from Asia Minor, founded Marseilles in about 600 B.C. they brought withthem a fish soup known as kakavia that was the basis to the future bouillabaisse. This can be said tobe true only in the most general (and meaningless) sense. In fact, we have no idea whether such asoup was “brought” to the western Mediterranean. In the culinary writings of the ancient Greeks,especially as represented by Athenaeus (A.D. 170-230), there are many mentions of boiled fish,cooked in unspecified ways, as well as one fish stew made with grayfish, herbs, oil, caraway seeds,and salt.

The most likely precursor to the Provençal bouillabaisse is likely to be an Italian fish stew and, in fact,the closest thing to a bouillabaisse that I have found in a medieval text is the brodecto de li dicti piscithat appears in an anonymous fifteenth-century Italian cookery book from southern Italy wheresardines and anchovies are boiled in vino greco (a strong Neapolitan wine) with black pepper,saffron, and sugar with a little olive oil. There is also the matellotte du poisson recipe found inJourdain Le Cointe's La cuisine de santé published in 1790 that Alan Davidson, author of Oxford

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Companion to Food believes is a relevant precursor. But given the obviousness and simplicity ofboiling fish one cannot point to one location as a place of origin.

On the other hand, the most distinguishing characteristic of a bouillabaisse is not the fish, because allfish stews and soups have fish, but the unique flavoring derived from saffron, fennel seeds, andorange zest. A famous Provençal food writer, Jean-Noël Escudier, called bouillabaisse the “magicalsynthesis.” Another famous French epicure, Curnonsky, called it soupe d'or, soup of gold. The originof the word bouillabaisse has been attributed to the abbess of a Marseilles convent (a pun on bouille-abbesse, the abbess' boil?) and, most credibly, to bouillon abaissé “to reduce by evaporation.”

One of the earliest uses of the word bouillabaisse was in the 1830s as a term expressing the rapidity ofthe cooking. Stendhal mentioned bouille-à-baisses, perhaps referring to a fish stew, in his travelsfrom 1806. But the famous French chef Raymond Oliver, writing in the Gastronomy of France,makes some extraordinary claims about bouillabaisse. He tells us that it is first mentioned in adictionary from 1785, that its heritage is Phoenician via Greek Sicily, and that the rules for themaking of bouillabaisse were laid down in the sixteenth century. I agree with his estimation that “in'bouillabaisse'..., it is essential to retain all the delicacy of the fish and never to debase through toomuch zeal a symphony of tastes which is so hard to achieve.” The dictionary Oliver must have beenlooking at from 1785 was pointed out by Daniel Young in a response to a letter to the editor from mepublished in the Los Angeles Times on October 6 and 29, 2004.

He tells us that in Claude François Achard'sDictionnaire de la Provence et Comté-Venasissin the word bouilhe-baisso is defined as"a fisherman's term, a sort of ragout consistingof boiling some fish in seawater." This may beso, but this is a far cry from the bouillabaisse weknow of today with its saffron, fennel, orangezest, and Pernod and expensive fish such asrascasse (scorpionfish).

(Photo: Waiter displaying the fish forbouillabaisse at Clifford Wright's favoriterestaurant in Marseilles, the Miramar. AFPphoto Gerard Julien)

Strong opinions about the proper bouillabaisseare typical from its proponents such as theFrench writer and gourmet August de Croze whosaid it is a culinary heresy to use white wine in abouillabaisse because wine only changes thenature of the fish. Others, including myself,disagree; it is natural. But I agree witheverything else he has to say: live fish in greatvariety, good olive oil, saffron, and furiouslyboiling water (the most critical step) are allessential for a successful bouillabaisse. So how did bouillabaisse originate? I mean here the fancyversion, not the fishermen's fish boil. My guess is that, given all the hallmarks, it was the invention ofa nineteenth-century restaurateur of Marseilles. Because of its expense it most certainly was not aninvention of the fishermen although it was the fishermen's fish boil, with the name after all, that wasthe precursor.

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Did You Know: Food History - Origin of Bouillabaisse http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/id/70/

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