Bouillabaisse an antique dish
You must get back to history of very old times to find any trace of recipes of the soups from which the well-known dish was elaborated. First, to make a dish, you need a basic toolkit: ancient Greeks from Phocea already had the cauldron; then, some ingredients: fish becomes a common dish in Persia (450 B.C.).
Apicius (Ist Century), a author for gastronomy whose work was preserved, tells us in his treaty of cuisine that there did be a famous stew along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that fishermen cooked up by the little beaches. Nothing so fancy -really not-: fishermen at that times found it convenient to make some seawater boil and throw into it some chunks of shredded fish that couldn't be sold.
From the Calanques to Paris
The dish reaches the Parisian tables in 1786, as two men from Marseille open a restaurant in Paris: 'Frères Provençaux'. Goodbye seawater: they cook it in a bouillon, which of course brings up some refinement to the bouillabaisse. During the XIXth Century, French gastronomy picks in a large way from local cuisines. In his famous work'Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine', Alexandre Dumas quotes a recipe of 'roubion' from Marseille: coast fish thrown into a bouillon. Jean Reboul, author of 'La Cuisine Provençale', makes a list of 40 species of fish that may improve the recipe. Glory wouldn't wait much longer! Poet Frederic Mistral's spirit gave an authentic celebration to it -basically, still, a very common dish... At the same time, Mistral provides his own explanation of the Provencal word designing it: 'boui abaisso', meaning "When it boils, turn down the fire."
A recipe for gourmets
So he gave the key to a successful recipe: a fast cooking of fish in a boiling bouillon. Still, of course, every cook has his/her own way of making it up, composing the bouillon, adding various fish, seasoning the 'rouille'. There are as many different recipes, as many interpretations. As summer holidays brought to the coast millions of tourists, the bouillabaisse happened to be often poorly prepared, mostly served as an oily court-bouillon. In ordre to avoid abusive denominations and preserve its well-deserved nobility, chefs introduced a Charte in 1980. According to it, the dish can't be considered as bouillabaisse with less than 4 different species of fish, all from Mediterranea: scorpionfish, white scorpionfish, spiderfish, mullet, John Dory, sea-devil, conger,... The bouillon is served first. Then come the fish already picked out of it and potatoes with rouille and croutons rubbed with garlic, in two distinct dishes. Tasting the bouillabaisse: what a great time!
Renée Lauster for Plus-Shopping
Apicius (Ist Century), a author for gastronomy whose work was preserved, tells us in his treaty of cuisine that there did be a famous stew along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that fishermen cooked up by the little beaches. Nothing so fancy -really not-: fishermen at that times found it convenient to make some seawater boil and throw into it some chunks of shredded fish that couldn't be sold.
From the Calanques to Paris
The dish reaches the Parisian tables in 1786, as two men from Marseille open a restaurant in Paris: 'Frères Provençaux'. Goodbye seawater: they cook it in a bouillon, which of course brings up some refinement to the bouillabaisse. During the XIXth Century, French gastronomy picks in a large way from local cuisines. In his famous work'Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine', Alexandre Dumas quotes a recipe of 'roubion' from Marseille: coast fish thrown into a bouillon. Jean Reboul, author of 'La Cuisine Provençale', makes a list of 40 species of fish that may improve the recipe. Glory wouldn't wait much longer! Poet Frederic Mistral's spirit gave an authentic celebration to it -basically, still, a very common dish... At the same time, Mistral provides his own explanation of the Provencal word designing it: 'boui abaisso', meaning "When it boils, turn down the fire."
A recipe for gourmets
So he gave the key to a successful recipe: a fast cooking of fish in a boiling bouillon. Still, of course, every cook has his/her own way of making it up, composing the bouillon, adding various fish, seasoning the 'rouille'. There are as many different recipes, as many interpretations. As summer holidays brought to the coast millions of tourists, the bouillabaisse happened to be often poorly prepared, mostly served as an oily court-bouillon. In ordre to avoid abusive denominations and preserve its well-deserved nobility, chefs introduced a Charte in 1980. According to it, the dish can't be considered as bouillabaisse with less than 4 different species of fish, all from Mediterranea: scorpionfish, white scorpionfish, spiderfish, mullet, John Dory, sea-devil, conger,... The bouillon is served first. Then come the fish already picked out of it and potatoes with rouille and croutons rubbed with garlic, in two distinct dishes. Tasting the bouillabaisse: what a great time!
Renée Lauster for Plus-Shopping
fr/bouillabaisse-marseille-histoire.htm
