The first bouillabaisse of my life, I ate alone and unobserved, a short distance from the Notre-Dame de la Garde church in Marseilles, which people from this port consider to be their spiritual mother.

I tasted a spoonful of the city's fabled fish soup, thought about it for a moment, then slurped another, and quickly, another. I put a dollop of rouille—a spicy garlic mayonnaise—on a small toast round, submerged it in the broth and ate that, too, launching an attack on my senses.

Somehow, it tasted like time and tradition: something prepared, labored over, and primal. I quickly found myself hunched over, forgetting to savor—or eat like an adult, for that matter—like someone who finds himself alone in the kitchen after dinner, gnawing ravenously on a chicken carcass.

Once considered a fishermen's staple, bouillabaisse's gradual (and rather French) shift toward putting the accent on quality and expense may be what has kept it a tradition.

Here, locals laugh at the relatively cheap "bouillabaisse" served by restaurants that cater to tourists around the city's Old Port.

After speaking with Pinna, I can't decide how I feel about a tradition becoming the sole property of a small handful of restaurants. Plus, I'm bothered that it seemingly has to be expensive. I keep thinking of what Julia Child said in Mastering the Art of French Cooking:

"You can make as dramatic a production as you want out of a bouillabaisse, but remember that it originated as a simple, Mediterranean fisherman's soup, made from the day's catch or its unsalable leftovers…"

With this list of questions in my head, I head to L'Epuisette—another of the city's classic bouillabaisse destinations—where Pierre Psaltis, a Marseille native and the food critic for the regional daily La Provence, claims what I've heard is nothing more than clever branding.

"Did you go to see Monsieur Pinna and he told you about the humble beginnings of the dish?"

"Yes."

"And did you talk to his fisherman who told you about how his fishermen ancestors made and ate the soup on their boats?"

"Err… Yes?"

"It's folklore," he says, seemingly relishing the idea that he's trumped me a bit more than I'd prefer. "Historically, bouillabaisse has always been a dish for the rich," he explains. "History tells you one thing but the myth tells you another."

He quickly goes through the research he has done to support his argument, ranging from the expense of saffron in the 17th century to the availability of butter (used at the end to give the broth a sheen) to the poorer classes.

"It's a sad and unhappy truth, but it's expensive."

Funny thing is, once he's finished playing me like a card, and for as proud as he is of his research, he also buys into the folklore.

He brings up regional author Marcel Pagnol's famous "Marseille Trilogy," three plays—Marius, Fanny and César—which Psaltis calls "classic tragedies that exaggerate the traits of the Marseillais."

He speaks of the literary trio like they are family.

"Honorine, Fanny's mother, makes an amazing bouillabaisse," he says. "This is what pushes the myth."

"Plus, the fishermen are at the heart of our city. Thousands of years and nothing has changed."

Claude Fromion, a fisherman and unpaid legal arbiter for disputes between his seafaring colleagues, offers a more diplomatic approach.

"Bouillabaisse is everywhere. It's as old as the world," he says, while selling the last of his catch from his boat in the Old Port.

"[Making bouillabaisse] is a huge amount of work," he adds. "If there's a bunch of people, it's a bunch of work. It takes a day to make."

Confronted with the idea of a master recipe, he's not convinced. "Everybody's got his own way to do it."

Back at L'Epuisette, journalist Psaltis seems to forget all of the rules when we tuck into some of the restaurant's bouillabaisse broth.

This time, the primal things happen to him. He takes a spoonful and hunches forward a bit, then licks his fingers, catches himself doing so in a fancy restaurant, and licks them again.

"Why do you love it?" I ask.

He begins a deliciously French gastro-philosophical jag with his own question: "Why do you love your mother?

"Marseilles is a woman. She's our mother," he says, not waiting for a response and gesturing in the direction of Notre-Dame de La Garde. "Who better to feed a man than a woman?" He looks down at his soup. "[Bouillabaisse] is not just a woman. She is our mother."

Coming back down to Earth, he points his spoon at his bowl.

"This soup? This is my city."     

[5-Mar-2007]