If you don’t know what the bouillabaisse is, please allow me to make it simple: it’s the fish soup from heaven!
But it’s more than a fish soup. It’s an institution, it’s a legend for the French (and foreigners who know best).
The closest thing to the bouillabaisse would probably be the Cioppino stew you can get in San Francisco, but different because we don’t use any of the fish used in the Cioppino. Plus the Cioppino was invented "only" in 1880 while our bouillabaisse goes back to the Greeks who founded the town of Marseille (then called Massalia) in the 6th century BC (no less)!
The Bouillabaisse was originally a stew made by the fishermen who used the bony rockfish which remained at
the bottom of their baskets and which they were unable to sell to restaurants or markets. When Julius Cesar conquered the city in the first century BC, the Romans not only renamed the Greek Gods with Roman names, they also integrated Greek institutions like the bouillabaisse into their own culture: it then supposedly became the soup that Venus gives to her husband, Vulcan, so that he goes to sleep and she can then go fool around with Mars…
On this painting, Vulcan (bottom left) woke-up in a bad mood as he's yelling at Mars and Venus who apparently couldn't care less. Vulcan will get his revenge in due time... You will hear about it (and a lot more!) if you sign-up
for my "LATL" tour. And I do have a lot to tell you about this painting as this is just a small detail of a much bigger painting which you can see completely if you click here.
Now, back to the "bouillabaisse". What is funny is that since the Antiquity the bouillabaisse underwent a Cinderella metamorphosis: the recipe has been improved and this dish originally made by the poor for the poor has become a dish for the rich (around 50€ per person due to the numerous fish which are now catched specially for the occasion, the recipe therefore imposes to make the bouillabaisse for a minimum of ten people). It has also become a dish with an elaborate ritual and service (which has to be done properly, and do I know some of the perfect places!). There are easily 5 to 8 different kinds of fish used to make the bouillabaisse, but the most important ones are the rascasse (a bony rockfish which lives in the calanques near-by), congre (European conger) and grondin (sea robin).
One of the peculiarities of the bouillabaisse (compared to similar dishes in other countries) is that the broth is traditionally served firstly and seperately from the fish and vegetables. One is supposed to add some "rouille" (a kind of mayonnaise made with olive oil, potatoes or breadcrumbs, tomatoes, garlic, saffron and quite often a tad of Cayenne pepper) that you spread on small slices of grilled bread and you then let them float in your soup and you eat them at your own pace (depending if you like them crusty or soft).
Aren’t you drooling yet?
Otherwise, the picture on this page doesn't do the dish justice but it was the only one free of right I could find.
But I'll take a better picture next time I go eat one...
"Parnassus" (detail) - Andrea Mantegna (1497) - Louvre museum, Paris.