bouillabaisse

The word comes from Provençal bouiabaisso, from bouillir (to boil) + abaisser (to lower, to reduce). The instruction is: boil it, then lower the heat. This is how fishermen in Marseille cooked their unsold catch — the rockfish too bony, too spiny, or too ugly to sell at market. The bouillabaisse was not refined food. It was what happened when the boat came in and the least valuable fish went into the pot.

Marseille claims bouillabaisse as its invention, and the city defends the claim with legal specificity. The Bouillabaisse Charter, created by a group of Marseille restaurateurs in 1980, specifies which fish must be included: rascasse (scorpionfish), congre (conger eel), saint-pierre (John Dory), and at least four other rockfish. The broth must contain saffron, olive oil, fennel, and orange peel. No tomato paste. No shortcuts. The charter has no legal force, but Marseille restaurants display it like a constitution.

The dish was elevated from fisherman's soup to restaurant cuisine in the nineteenth century, when Marseille's Vieux-Port restaurants began serving it to tourists. The price rose accordingly. A proper bouillabaisse in a Marseille restaurant can cost €60 to €100 per person. The fisherman's leftover lunch became a destination dish. The cooking instruction — boil and reduce — remained the same. The price did not.

Bouillabaisse exists worldwide in adaptations that would violate the Marseille Charter. San Francisco's cioppino, a Ligurian-American fish stew, is a cousin. Any Mediterranean port city has a fish soup that could be called a bouillabaisse by someone who had never been to Marseille. The word has become both a specific dish and a general category, and the people of Marseille do not approve of the slippage.