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August 4, 2009
Origin of Bouillabaisse
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The most famous fish stew of the Mediterranean isbouillabaisse, and its home is considered to be
Marseilles, although it is made in every little port throughout the coastal regions of Provence. The
apocryphal story of the origin of bouillabaisse told by the Marseillais is that Venus served
bouillabaisse 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 when
the Phocaeans, Greeks from Asia Minor, founded Marseilles in about 600 B.C. they brought with
them a fish soup known askakavia that was the basis to the future bouillabaisse. This can be said to
be true only in the most general (and meaningless) sense. In fact, we have no idea whether such a
soup 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 Provenal 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 thebrodecto de li dicti pisci
that appears in an anonymous fifteenth-century Italian cookery book from southern Italy where
sardines and anchovies are boiled invino greco (a strong Neapolitan wine) with black pepper,
saffron, and sugar with a little olive oil. There is also thematellotte du poisson recipe found in
J ourdain Le Cointe'sLa cuisine de sant published in 1790 that Alan Davidson, author of Oxford
Did You Know: Food History - Origin of Bouillabaisse http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/id/70/
1 of 3 4.8.2009 21:51
Companion to Food believes is a relevant precursor. But given the obviousness and simplicity of
boiling 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 all
fish stews and soups have fish, but the unique flavoring derived from saffron, fennel seeds, and
orange zest. A famous Provenal food writer, J ean-Nol Escudier, called bouillabaisse the magical
synthesis. Another famous French epicure, Curnonsky, called it soupe d'or, soup of gold. The origin
of the wordbouillabaisse has been attributed to the abbess of a Marseilles convent (a pun onbouille-
abbesse, the abbess' boil?) and, most credibly, tobouillon abaiss to reduce by evaporation.
One of the earliest uses of the word bouillabaisse was in the 1830s as a term expressing the rapidity of
the cooking. Stendhal mentionedbouille--baisses, perhaps referring to a fish stew, in his travels
from 1806. But the famous French chef Raymond Oliver, writing in theGastronomy of France,
makes some extraordinary claims about bouillabaisse. He tells us that it is first mentioned in a
dictionary from 1785, that its heritage is Phoenician via Greek Sicily, and that the rules for the
making 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 too
much zeal a symphony of tastes which is so hard to achieve. The dictionary Oliver must have been
looking at from 1785 was pointed out by Daniel Young in a response to a letter to the editor from me
published in theLos Angeles Times on October 6 and 29, 2004.
He tells us that inClaude Franois Achard's
Dictionnaire de la Provence et Comt-
Venasissin the wordbouilhe-baisso is defined as
"a fisherman's term, a sort of ragout consisting
of boiling some fish in seawater." This may be
so, but this is a far cry from the bouillabaisse we
know of today with its saffron, fennel, orange
zest, and Pernod and expensive fish such as
rascasse (scorpionfish).
(Photo: Waiter displaying the fish for
bouillabaisse at Clifford Wright's favorite
restaurant in Marseilles, the Miramar. AFP
photo Gerard Julien)
Strong opinions about the proper bouillabaisse
are typical from its proponents such as the
French writer and gourmet August de Croze who
said it is a culinary heresy to use white wine in a
bouillabaisse because wine only changes the
nature of the fish. Others, including myself,
disagree; it is natural. But I agree with
everything else he has to say: live fish in great
variety, good olive oil, saffron, and furiously
boiling water (the most critical step) are all
essential for a successful bouillabaisse. So how did bouillabaisse originate? I mean here the fancy
version, not the fishermen's fish boil. My guess is that, given all the hallmarks, it was the invention of
a nineteenth-century restaurateur of Marseilles. Because of its expense it most certainly was not an
invention of the fishermen although it was the fishermen's fish boil, with the name after all, that was
the precursor.
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Did You Know: Food History - Origin of Bouillabaisse http://www.cliffordawright.com/caw/food/entries/display.php/id/70/
2 of 3 4.8.2009 21:51