Bouillebaisse is my favorite dish. I make it according to the recipe
of Valentine Blanc, our cook in Nice, where we lived some years ago.
Valentine could neither read nor write, nor could a story tell, but her
Bouillebaisse was ever so much better than that they make in Marseilles
(and I venture to say in Thackeray’s old restaurant either).
Melt about a half pound of butter in a sauce pan. I’m aware that in
Marseilles they use oil, but Valentine used butter. Don’t let the
butter burn. Have ready two large chopped onions—i. e.—onions chopped
fine, and two “dents” of garlic also chopped fine.
Cook these in the butter until tender and without burning. Have ready
three perch and one haddock. That is to say: cut off the heads and
tails. Some people use eels instead of haddock. I detest eels. Cut into
a large saucepan the heads and tails of the fish with about a quart of
water and let simmer until well cooked, say about half an hour. Strain
out the heads and tails and give them to the cat.
Add the cooked onions and garlic,—butter and all—to the strained
bouillion from the heads and tails and allow to simmer for half an
hour more, after seasoning to taste with salt and white pepper. Add
about a gill of dry white wine of any variety,—Chablis, Cotes du Rhone
or what not,—the cheaper the wine the better. Now take two smallish
lobsters, alive, and if you have the heart, cut them into segments and
take off the claws and cut _them_ into segments. Cook the massacred
lobster for about a quarter of an hour in the liquid or liquor or
bouillon above described and add a saltspoonful of dried Spanish
saffron, while the whole is cooking together. If you can get mussels,
cook also with the entire mess, a dozen or so,—in their shells if the
shells be well scrubbed in advance. Somewhere in this process add about
a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Last of all, add the fish cut into
convenient slices rather small, and let cook until done, but not long
enough so that the fish becomes disintegrated. Remember there ought to
be no violent boiling.
Before serving strain off most of the liquor and serve it first as soup
with a slice of toast in the bottom of the plate. If the toast has been
fried in advance in good butter, so much the better, but this is not
necessary. Then eat all the solid part except the shells and sop up all
the remaining gravy with bread, using your fingers to do the job and
not a fork. Don’t leave a bit of it.
There ought to be enough of this stew for four people, but I can
usually manage the whole thing myself with only the slightest
assistance from my wife. Wine ought to be drunk with the meal, a good
Burgundy Beaune or Chambertin. Later one should eat an artichoke cold
vinaigrette, then some fruit and cheese and two small cups of well made
black coffee. After this it is necessary to smoke a Corona Corona not
too mild, and drink a small glass of Cointreau Sec. The bread ought to
be _Pain Riche_ in flutes. The fruit may be fresh apricots, a few green
almonds and perhaps some green gages.
The coffee ought to be drunk and the cigar smoked in the garden which
must be in the vicinity of Mount Boron on the Grande Corniche or it may
be in the Parc Imperial. God ought to be thanked either during or after
the meal, and when it becomes a little too cold in the garden a fire
should be built in the small living room and one should read Somerville
& Ross’ _Recollections of an Irish R. M._, or Neil Lyon’s _Simple
Simon_, or Belloc’s _Path to Rome_, or Richard Ford’s _Gatherings from
Spain_ until bedtime.
Repeat the whole process on the following Friday.
God! How hungry I am.