The sea, in three lunches

I. Marseille

The first lunch is bouillabaisse, which is not quite what it has become. What it has become along the Vieux-Port is a composed presentation of multiple fish species, clarified to the point of losing the robust character that made it what it was. This version costs a hundred euros. It is not what bouillabaisse was.

What it was: the fisherman’s soup. The fish that could not be sold — too small, too bony, too unusual for the market — simmered with tomatoes, saffron, fennel, and the bones and heads of other fish into a thick, potent broth. The rouille is the correct accompaniment, spread on stale bread and floated in the soup. Yesterday’s bread soaks the rouille and the broth in the way fresh bread does not.

Lunch took ninety minutes. Nobody was in a hurry.

II. Palermo

The second lunch is at a table in the Capo market, not in a restaurant. A plate of panelle — chickpea fritters — wrapped in paper with a squeeze of lemon, eaten standing at the edge of the market because there was nowhere to sit.

Panelle have been on the streets of Palermo for a thousand years, since the Arab occupation of Sicily that transformed the island’s cooking in ways still visible in the ingredients and the techniques. The chickpea flour, the agrodolce, the cinnamon and raisins in savoury dishes, the couscous of Trapani — all arrived from the south and stayed.

Ten minutes of eating. The whole history of the sea in two fritters and a lemon.

III. Tunis

The third lunch is longer and more formal and begins at the wrong time by northern European standards. Lunch is at two o’clock or later. The heat has not broken but the morning’s work is done and the afternoon belongs to the table.

Mezze first: slata mechouia with harissa and preserved lemon, brik à l’oeuf eaten while the yolk is still liquid. Then lamb with hand-rolled couscous, steamed three times over the broth, each steaming adding another layer of flavour to the grain.

The lunch lasted three hours. Food was the topic for the first hour and everything else for the second and third. The Mediterranean lunch at its fullest expression — not the meal, but the afternoon organised around it.

IV. What the three have in common

The same sea. Olive oil in all three. The emphasis on what is fresh and local. The time — in all three places, lunch is not fast. Lunch is the organised centre of the day.

The Mediterranean diet as a nutritional concept is accurate in its inventory: olive oil, fish, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, moderate wine. What the inventory misses is the pace. The health outcomes may have as much to do with the way the food is eaten — slowly, with company, without urgency — as with what is eaten.

Recipe — Bouillabaisse · for a home kitchen

Camille Dubois · Marseille · serves 4 · 1 hour

• Serves 4
• 30 min broth
• 10 min finish
• 2 lbs fish

The Bouillabaisse

• 2 lbs mixed fish fillets and shellfish (mussels, clams, shrimp, firm white fish)
• Fish heads and bones, or good seafood stock
• 4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 Roma tomatoes, diced
• 1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
• Saffron, dried thyme, orange zest and juice, salt, pepper

The Rouille

• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ tsp saffron bloomed in 1 tbsp warm water
• 150 ml extra virgin olive oil
• Salt

The method

1. Sauté onion and fennel in olive oil until soft. Add garlic, tomato, saffron, thyme, and orange zest.
2. Add fish bones or stock and 1 litre water. Simmer 30 minutes. Strain.
3. Return broth to the pot. Bring to a boil. Add shellfish first (3 minutes), then fish fillets (3–4 minutes more). Season.
4. For the rouille: pound garlic to a paste with salt. Whisk in egg yolk and saffron water. Slowly drizzle in olive oil, whisking constantly, to form a thick aioli.
5. Serve broth first with rouille on toasted bread. Fish and shellfish on a separate plate. Bread for the whole thing.

About the contributor

Camille Dubois

Camille Dubois writes about Mediterranean food culture and the shared culinary logic of the sea from Marseille, France.

Editor’s notes — the longer view

A note on the sameness. The three lunches were recognizably the same meal in a way that is difficult to describe without sounding imprecise, because the sameness is not in the recipe. It is in something underneath the recipe — the relationship between the sea, the sun, the table, and the people at it.

A note on the rouille. Garlic, egg yolk, saffron, and olive oil — emulsified by hand, drop by drop. Spread on yesterday’s bread and floated in the soup so it softens and becomes part of the broth.

A note on the Arab thread. The chickpea flour, the agrodolce, the cinnamon and raisins in savoury dishes, the couscous of Trapani — all of it arrived from the south and stayed. Sicilian cooking is still legibly Maghrebi at its base.

A note on the pace. The health outcomes may have as much to do with the way the food is eaten — slowly, with company, without urgency — as with what is eaten. The pyramid is the easy part. The pace is the hard part to export.

Back to American · Cook lane · HowTo: Food Edition home · American cuisine hub