RECIPE: I made this for dinner last night. REC: Nicoise Salad

RECIPE:
Found it. Does Patricia Wells counts against Larousse?: "The classic salad from Nice had become

such a generic, universally appealing dish, that one sees literally dozens of versions... the most traditional version doesn't include cooked ingredients--except for hard-cooked eggs--and officially no lettuce...

She then gives a Bistro recipe with celery and peppers, but no egg or tomato. Celery? Yuck!

Once in Nice I checked all the cafe menus I passed by and every one claimed to have "Salade Nicois Authentique." They were all different, and none had potatoes or green beans. I'll take the heretical version any day, and your heretical tarragon mayo sounds nice too.

 
I like her lifestyle. Should I say envy. Although American, she certainly has had some

considerable exposure in France in the past couple of decades.

In such countries I often wonder if the so-called 'authentic' versions of anything are so called because they are the cheaper version. Maybe we could take a poll on a French website.

Would you actually consider Wells an authority over the old Larousse? This is really an interesting topic. I'll just have to go and find out.

Now here's another question to differ on...

Do 'we' (whoever we may be at the moment) see Monaco/Monte Carlo as Italian or French, culturally?

 
No, I wouldn't think that Patricia trumps Larousse, but even LaRousse would have trouble

getting potatoes on his Salade Nicois if he were actually in Nice.

I think all the debate about what's authentic is just debate for debate's sake. They have to have something to argue about over those three-hour lunches on the Riviera, LOL. It reminds me of all my old Italian great-aunts, each with her own "authentic" version of their mama's spaghetti sauce.

You should hear the goings on about Bouillabaise. I was once treated by Jacques' family to a bouillabaise in a tiny restaurant near Bandol; It was a specialty that had to be ordered a day ahead. Jacques' stepmother refused to eat it because 1) they served the soup separately, before the fish, and 2) there was no rascasse available that day. She's a Parisian, and she was telling the locals how to cook their own specialty! There were at least six other types of fish on the platter, but she went hungry because they didn't have her favorite.

Monte Carlo? The lanquage is French, but the history of money laundering...that's gotta be a little Italian.

 
I had a professor

in college who collected her gold watch at retirement, packed up her keepsakes, sold off the rest, and moved lock stock and harpsichord to the south of France. She's having a high old time in her retirement in the place that she always wanted to be. She was such a Frankophile. I remember one summer playing the opera and sat beside her in the pit, she would sit and read French magazines. I admired her tenacity to make it happen. I muse about doing the same thing when I retire, except it would be Austria or Bavaria, of course : )

 
Good example. And I think it's now difficult to find a good bouillaise, well, a

really good bouillabaise. I think the best we've had was a dumpy shoreline restaurant just west of CAnnes. We had been told by several locals that it was the best around then. The waiters didn't think we realized that we'd have to wait over an hour before even beginning, but where better to sit and do nothing! Unfortunately for my husband, I was the one facing the topless bathers.

The restaurant is no longer there. Alas. More money from fast foods.

I think all this discussion is prompting me to make a phone call over yonder. Or even go over yonder.

Where is Jacques from?

 
I just can't write anymore. Bouillabaise. And now the question...

is it bouillabaise if one of the 5 is missing?

If one subs a North American equivalent...do we still call it bouillabaise?

Do the French really have the corner on the champagne terminology?

 
I use whatever's available--cod, halibut, snapper, small whole perch or sea bass if I can find them.

I always add mussels. The flavor is all in the soup anyway. If the soup is good and there's plenty of rouille to slather the fish with, it's Bouillabaise to me. I suppose if I had a real purist at the table I'd call it "Fish Stew." I wouldn't want to spend a whole evening arguing terminology.

Marg, Jacques is from Paris, and speaking of Champagne his dad used to get some real bargains by buying sparkling wines that were not from Champagne, but from an adjoining area. They couldn't be called Champaigne but they were just like it.

I just had lunch, but this discussion is making me hungry. By the way, I just now asked our salesperson, who is French from the Dijon area, about Salade Nicoise, and although she doesn't eat it, she would never dream of putting potatoes in it. She thinks we're insane to even imagine such a thing. (She doesn't like bouillabaise either, so maybe she's lying about being French?)

 
Yes, that's her "raison d'etre. " LOL, Richard, at first I though you were talking about Paricia,

who is so infinitely cheerful.

There are so many stories about this suffering stepmom that she would require a forum all her own.

 
I find that

elitist snob approach that some place has the definitive version of something and maintains absolute ownership and no place else may even attempt it because to do so would prove we were heathen imbiciles to be tiresome and provincial. Fighting against this attitude was something Julia Child ran up against, even with her friend and collaborator, when she was working on her masterpiece of French cooking for the Amercian kitchen, and she was very upfront and forthright about this fact, but still was given grief over it.

So yes, we don't have the same fish, the same water, the same view, the same indigenous odors, whatever, but we can still make a really tasty bouillabaise, nicoise, wienerschnitzel, figgy pudding, or whatever. And no, it doesn't taste exactly like what you get at the mother ship, but, you know, so what?

 
Amen! It's one thing to treasure one's culinary heritage and try to preserve it.

It's another thing to stifle it with rigid rules and restrictions. It's something I struggle with too, but I'm getting more flexible in my old age.

 
I always thought that. Maybe because I wanted to. And my French ... always

better than my Italian.

But, people who are from there, insist that it's Italian. I was shocked. Then I considered both names...both Italian. Honestly, it had never occurred to me and I thought maybe I was missing a characteristic that was always there.

Again...I dunno.

 
I've heard that as well

and given the history of that area, it makes sense. I guess France has added a veneer of its culture to it that may seem the most obvious to some of us.

 
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