Table of Contents:
BREAKFAST.
LUNCH.
SNACK / STREET FOOD.
DINNER.
SUMMARY.
Wines of France. French Beers. French Spirits.
Ahhhh, to taste Nice.
The cuisine of the Cote d’Azur (and nearby Provence) is a reflection of its surroundings. Seafood, fish, vegetables, and fruit are everyday ingredients. With every bite of Nicoise cuisine, you taste Nice and its incredible bounty.
Not only do you find an abundance of foods in the city, but they also have the nearby fields of Provence. For this reason, they use a wide range of herbs and spices. Oregano, thyme, basil, sage, savory, lavender flowers, rosemary, and even a dash of garlic are common.
Something else very present in the Niçoise (from Nice) cuisine is olive oil. Due to its Mediterranean location, the olives come from nearby orchards giving it that extra homemade taste.
What other influences are there besides Provence? For a while, the area around Nice was under the rule of the Kingdom of Saxony (Italy). Actually, up until 1860, Nice was Italian. As a result of helping to fend off the Austrians, the French get Nice.
Therefore, It’s not unusual to find some pasta and other Italian traits in Niçoise cooking.
So we are looking at fresh seafood, local fruits and vegetables, and olive oil from nearby. Herbs and spices from Provence, with Italian influences. Taste Nice and experience a joyful marriage of flavors and textures.
Then, mix this with the local style for preparing these dishes, and you have Nicoise Cuisine.
Breakfast.
Petit Déjeuner (petee day/zhoh/nay).
Where you are sitting will have a significant influence on what you are eating. In other words, those staying in a home, breakfast may include a bread product with butter and jam. Juice and coffee or tea will finish it off. WHAT? No croissants, crepes, or Café au Lait? C’est tragique. (This is tragic).
Are the French fou? (crazy).
Au contraire! You have to understand why breakfast is so simple. They do not use preservatives in their baking. If you want a fresh croissant in the morning, you must go to the bakery. Who has time to do that before work?
However, they have REAL butter to spread on their bread or biscuit. And you must taste Nice jams and other spreads, ranging from sweet to savory.
Although the French drink coffee, both fresh and instant, I have never seen them do it in large cups/bowls. Also, it may have a splash of milk (le café crème) but not half a gallon. The café au Lait is a creation of Hollywood, Madison Avenue, or possibly a scarcity of coffee during the World Wars.
So why go on with life if the French breakfast of our dreams does not exist?
Once again, depending on where you are sitting decides your choices. If you are sitting at a hotel catering to tourists, you will find bacon, eggs, cold-cuts, cheeses, fruits, etc. In this case, you “might” taste Nice in their choice of pastries.
But what if you are not a tourist, but a traveler. Brush your teeth, comb your hair and venture out for Petit Déjeuner. TASTE NICE!
Where do I go?
In general, you go to a boulangerie to buy bread of all kinds. On the other hand, you go to a pâtisserie for cakes and sweets. In reality, many places now serve both.
French Bread.
Baguette. You cannot taste Nice without tasting a Baguette. You do not do that.
First, toss out anything you know about baguettes back home and the preservatives. In fact, by law, in a “baguette tradition,” they can only use yeast, wheat flour, water, and salt. Also, they must be baking them where they are making them. YEY! They are fresh. YEY! You get a face-full of the smell of fresh bread. What’s not to like about this?
So how can I tell if it is traditional? It has an irregular form. They are making them by hand one at a time, not a machine 1000 at a time. Also, it has a crusty outside and an inside with irregular size holes to catch the butter.
Croissant. The other food group besides baguette (my primary food groups may vary from yours) is the croissant. Again, the French do it better.
They should be golden in color, with a crispy outside and soft, airy, buttery inside. The whole thing should melt in your mouth. If, at the same time, it does not send flurries of crust in every direction, there is something wrong.
I have it on excellent authority that when you eat them in France, they only have 20 calories. (Per flake). SOOOO worth that extra 50 miles I will need to walk.
Variations on the traditional include chocolate (Pain au chocolat) or apricot (Pan of croisant abricot). When a croissant is not fresh, they may add almond paste filling and a sprinkling of powdered sugar. A small café table in the Old Town, with coffee and a pastry, warm out of the oven. You taste Nice in every bite.
The Flaming Coconut.
Did you notice my spelling of chocolate above? Specifically, Chocolat (sho cola), not cacao. Why? Because the closest translation in French to cacao is noix de coco, coconut. Unless you are looking for a hot coconut, try the “chocolat chaud” (chocolate hot).
Additionally, hot tea is a popular morning beverage. A large percentage of French drink it straight. No cream, no sugar, no lemon.
Lunch
le déjeuner. (day/zhøh/nay).
More extensive and longer. In France, this often is the big meal of the day. Unfortunately, the French are discovering that they can cram nutrients down their throat while multi-tasking at their desk.
On the positive side, they still offer the four-course lunch as well. J’aime (love) les (the) Français.(French).
Salade Niçoise is perhaps the star of Nicoise cuisine. However, no one knows who did the inventing or where it was. I think everyone will agree it is a salad. Most will admit it seems to be from the area of Nice. I think I can get a majority to confirm that tomatoes, anchovies, and olive oil belong in it. After that, no one agrees on ANYthing.
In general, tradition holds it is the food of the poor, using what they have. Indeed, there are tomatoes, anchovies, and olive oil. A recipe from the turn of the 20th century has artichokes, red peppers, and local black olives.
A few years later, a French chef who grew up not far from Nice adds boiled potatoes and green beans. There is an uproar, and the traditionalists go crazy. The chef’s name is Auguste Escoffier.
As a result, from that day forward, every chef has THEIR recipe of a “traditional” Salad Nicoise.
It must/cannot include raw vegetables such as cucumbers, purple artichokes, green peppers, fava beans, spring onions, and black olives.
Also, on the must/cannot list is adding boiled potatoes or green beans.
And the dressing must/cannot include oil, vinegar, mustard, basil, garlic, or other herbs. They cannot even agree if it goes over lettuce or has tuna, anchovies, or both.
In short, a Salad Nicoise comes from Nice. Try one.
Sandwiches.
Le Pan Bagnat – is a Salade Niçoise sandwich you can find just about anywhere. Like the salad, there is a must/cannot list of ingredients. Many will agree it should be on whole-wheat country bread, but you may see it on white.
In short, it is a Salad Nicoise sandwich that comes from Nice. Try one.
Pissaladière – First, we need to talk about the difference between what Americans think an anchovy tastes like and what an anchovy tastes like when pulled fresh from the Mediterranean.
This dish is a tart/crust with toppings of caramelized onion, anchovies, and black olives. All three are intense flavors, as they need to be. Think Nicoise personal pizza without sauce or cheese. Great for picking up at a boulangerie and eating while you people watch.
Soups.
Soupe au pistou – Starting with a vegetable broth of whatever vegetables are in the market. These may include carrots, leeks, zucchini, peas, summer squash, onion, and potatoes. Surprisingly, this is with water instead of animal stock, so you get the authentic vegetable flavor. One non-optional ingredient is white beans that have been soaking in water.
Small pasta is another must-have ingredient. Local herbs and spices are a given.
Pistou is French for pesto. It is a mixture of garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil. It does not have pine nuts like the Italian pesto.
They ladle the vegetable, bean, pasta soup in a bowl, and add a dollop of Pistou on top. Hearty and vegetarian-friendly.
Snacks / Street Food
Socca – Probably THE street food of Nice. It is a flat unleavened crêpe / flatbread coming from a mix of chickpea flour and olive oil. This bread goes into a hot wood-fired oven. When it comes out, it is crispy outside and moist inside. It receives a healthy dusting of pepper before slicing it into pieces. You have to taste Nice socca.
Serving it ANY other way on the streets of Nice is going to get you in trouble. Some sit down restaurants use it as a base for toppings.
Crepe to Go. Does Nice have a corner on the French pancake market? No, you can find crepes all over France. However, it is a place where you can eat them as street food. After cooking the crêpe, they spread Nutella, a chocolate hazelnut mixture, on top. Some add slices of banana to this. After folding it several times, they serve it in a somewhat cone shape inside the wax paper. They can be as messy as an ice cream cone. One is usually enough to share.
Fleur de courgette frite. This snack is a seasonal treat as it requires the zucchini flower (Fleur) flower (de Courgette) Zucchini. They lightly batter the flowers and fry them in olive oil. They melt in your mouth. Another option is to stuff them before baking.
Dinner
Diner (din A)
Perhaps they have big lunches because they do not eat the evening meal until later. Dinner after 9:00 pm is not unusual. Don’t fret; restaurants open much earlier for the rest of us. Knowing that the French eat bigger meals at lunch, I still list the following as dinner. These dishes are heartier, like an American dinner item.
Farcis Niçois (Les Petits Farcis) – The stuffing of vegetables such as eggplant, tomatoes, and zucchini. The filling can be any combination of ground meat, rice, or couscous. They are very popular in the spring and summer when the vegetables are fresh from the market. They serve them both hot and cold.
La Daube Niçoise. La Daube involves cooking beef for several hours in red wine with onion, carrots, and herbs. In Nice, they kick it up a notch by adding cremini or porcini mushrooms, cayenne pepper, and local brandy. It makes for a vibrant-tasting stew. They may or may not serve it with pasta. If they do, it may or may not be macaroni.
Pasta
Raviolis Niçoise. What do you do with leftover Daube Nicoise? Use the stewed beef for your pasta filling, and the stew liquid as the sauce. If no stewed meat is lying around, they may use ground beef instead. Whatever the protein to the filling, they add finely chopped Swiss chard. The pasta goes into the sauce with a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan or Gruyère over the top.
Spagettis à la Nicoise. It’s all in the sauce. It screams local fresh products including ripe tomato, Nicoise olives, sweet red pepper, anchovies, garlic, herbs de Provence, and a splash of olive oil. Is this Italian in Nice, or is Nice in Italy?
Filet de Dorade à la Nicoise. First, they filet one of the local sea bream, fresh from the market. They bake it in a mix of diced local tomatoes, green peppers, onion, and black olives.
Sides.
Ratatouille – More of a side dish than a main course, Ratatouille originates in Nice?
Like Salad Nicoise, it is a local source of pride and constant debate.
Surprisingly, the ingredients can vary. (Seriously, did anyone NOT see that coming?)
Start with fresh vegetables. They must/cannot be onion, carrot, tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini.
In a pan, you must/cannot slowly sauté the vegetables in olive oil and garlic. Starting with the veggies that take longer to soften, you keep adding vegetables, usually ending with tomatoes.
Likewise, you must/cannot add a combination of thyme, bay leaves, and marjoram.
You would think that alone is enough to argue about all night. In this case, you would be wrong. Additionally, you must/cannot serve it right away or store it overnight and let the flavors melt together. For a vegetarian, it could be the main course. They use it as a garnish and even a filling for an omelet.
Honorable Mention.
Moules et Frites (Mussels and Fries). It is not from Nice or even Provence. It’s initially from Belgium. So why am I mentioning it? You will be seeing it everywhere and thinking it is a local dish. Surprisingly, (not) there are several ways to prepare it.
One favorite way is Moules Marinière (the style of the mariner). They bring white wine, shallots, parsley, and butter to a boil and toss in the mussels. Once they pop open, they go into a bowl, and they strain the remaining sauce.
The fries are for dipping in the sauce. Crusty bread is suitable for that too.
Taste Nice Summary.
After reading this, you may be thinking the people of Nice are doing nothing but arguing over recipes. This idea is so far from the truth. But listen to them, it is humorous how there can be so many “only” recipes. You can tell this argument has gone on for generations with no end in sight.
I do not recall a time in Nice when the locals were not friendly and accommodating.
When you sit down to taste Nice cuisine, I don’t think you can savor the hospitality, yet it’s part of the experience.
Bon (good) Appetit (appetite).
À votre santé = A formal “cheers.”
à ta santé = “cheers” to a friend.