Cassis, France: My paradise

Day 2 in the South was a day where I was going to be spending most of my day in Cassis, as I had heard great things about it from everyone! I didn't know what was in store for me, but I knew it was going to be good. So I woke up early, but not having checked the train times. I assumed they would run every half hour...but it being saturday and me being in the South... things are a lot more relaxed, including the train schedule. I had missed the early train by about 5 minutes...but you know what, that's okay. I have just come to accept what happens- haha.. maybe this is holiday mentality. Anyways, I was more than happy to sit on the wonderful steps of the train station and watch the sun rise and the city awaken. I had the most magnificient view and wouldn't trade that experience in for the world! I was chatting with some friends on my phone and soaking the view in. A friend of my asked me why I don't go to a cafe or something, but I see the inside of cafe's in Vancouver... I don't get views of a city in the South of France on a beautiful day while in Vancouver...so I sat there and stared off into the distance... until the next train, 1.5 hours later.




It was so neat.. the day in itself, the way it panned out, the order in which I discovered things, it just made my experience that more intriguing... The order of the photos is the way the day unfolded... I hope you fall in love as much as I did with Cassis....my paradise.

(N.B.: Parisians pronounce Cassis "Kasseess" if someone from the South hears you pronounce it that way, you will be corrected, while you're in Cassis... it's pronounced "Kassee" A Southerner will say to a Parisian: "On ne dit pas 'Pariss', on dit 'Paris'" = "We don't say Paris (Pariss), we say Paris (Pari)")

From the Train station the town is about 2 km away... and it being a weekend, the mini shuttle bus wasn't running. So I walked... and am glad I did. You know you're in the south of France when you see fields and fields of vineyards...
And wonderful fresh lavender... unfortunately I didn't see fields of it... I wasn't in the right area, but I was very happy to see a load of it growing beside the street!
The town is located at the bottom of a mountain on the coast, I didn't know the route exactly, but knew that I had to go downwards... and decided to follow the two french chaps with their summer hats...whom lead me directly to the beach :)

The route down was incredible... beautiful French villas, amazing tropical palms..
I was in awe... the whole day... thinking that I could definitely find myself living here... in a heart beat.
This was such a STUNNING view... I peaked in behind this olive tree and snapped my picture.

As I walked by I saw this stunning terrace... I ended up having dinner here and ate the famous fish soup. It was delicious!

Bouillabaisse (Occitan: bolhabaissa) is a traditional Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille. The French and English form bouillabaisse comes from the Provençal Occitan word bolhabaissa [ˌbujaˈbajsɔ], a compound that consists of the two verbs bolhir (to boil) and abaissar (to reduce heat, i.e., simmer).

Bouillabaisse is a fish soup containing various kinds of cooked fish and shellfish and vegetables, flavored with a variety of herbs and spices such as garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel and saffron. There are at least three kinds of fish in a traditional bouillabaisse, typically scorpionfish (fr: rascasse); sea robin (fr: grondin); and European conger (fr: congre); and it can also include gilt-head bream (fr: dorade); turbot; monkfish (fr: lotte or baudroie); mullet; or silver hake (fr: merlan) It also usually includes shellfish and other seafood such as sea urchins (fr: oursins), mussels (fr: moules); velvet crabs (fr: étrilles); spider crab (fr: araignées de mer) or octopus. More expensive versions may add langoustine. Vegetables such as leeks, onions, tomatoes, celery and potatoes are simmered together with the broth and served with the fish. The broth is traditionally served with a rouille, a mayonnaise made of olive oil, garlic, saffron and cayenne pepper on grilled slices of bread.

What makes a bouillabaisse different from other fish soups is the selection of Provençal herbs and spices in the broth, the use of bony local Mediterranean fish, and the method of serving. In Marseille, the broth is served first in a bowl containing the bread and rouille, with the seafood and vegetables served separately in another bowl or on a platter.

Marseille Bouillabaisse

Recipes for bouillabaisse vary from family to family in Marseille, and local restaurants dispute which versions are the most authentic.

In Marseille, bouillabaisse is rarely made for fewer than ten persons; the more people who share the meal, and the more different fish that are included, the better the bouillabaisse.

An authentic Marseille bouillabaisse must include rascasse (eng: scorpionfish), a bony rockfish which lives in the calanque and reefs close to shore. It usually also has congre (eng: European conger) and grondin (eng: sea robin).^[1] According to the Michelin Guide Vert, the four essential elements of a true bouillabaisse are the presence of rascasse, the freshness of the fish; olive oil, and an excellent saffron.^[2]

The American chef and food writer Julia Child, who lived in Marseille for a year, wrote: "to me the telling flavor of bouillabaisse comes from two things: the Provençal soup base - garlic, onions, tomatoes, olive oil, fennel, saffron, thyme, bay, and usually a bit of dried orange peel - and, of course, the fish - lean (non-oily), firm-fleshed, soft-fleshed, gelatinous, and shellfish."^[3]

This is the recipe from one of the most traditional Marseille restaurants, Grand Bar des Goudes on Rue Désirée-Pelleprat:^[4]

• 4 kilograms of fish and shellfish:
  • grondin (eng. sea robin)
  • Rascasse blanche (eng. scorpionfish);
  • rouget grondin (red gurnard);
  • congre (eng. conger);
  • baudroie (lotte, or monkfish);
  • Saint-Pierre (eng. John Dory);
  • vive (eng. Weever);
  • live octopus^[5]
  • 10 sea urchins
• 1 kilogram of potatoes
• 7 cloves of garlic
• 3 onions
• 5 ripe tomatoes
• 1 cup of olive oil
• 1 bouquet garni
• 1 branch of fennel
• 8 pistils of saffron
• 10 slices of pain de campagne (country bread)
• salt and Cayenne pepper

The Rouille

• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 cup of olive oil
• 10 pistils of saffron
• salt and Cayenne pepper

1. Clean and scale the fish and wash them, if possible in sea water. Cut them into large slices, leaving the bones. Wash the octopus and cut into pieces.

2. Put the olive oil in a large casserole. Add the onions, cleaned and sliced; 6 cloves of garlic, crushed; the pieces of octopus, and the tomatoes peeled and quartered, without seeds. Brown at low heat, turning gently for five minutes, for the oil to take in the flavors.

3. Add the sliced fish, beginning with the thickest to the smallest. Cover with boiling water, and add the salt and the pepper, the fennel, the bouquet garni and the saffron. Boil at a low heat, stirring from time to time so the fish doesn't stick to the casserole. Correct the seasoning. The bouillabaisse is cooked when the juice of the cooking is well blended with the oil and the water. (about twenty minutes).

4. Prepare the rouille: Remove the stem of the garlic, crush the cloves into a fine paste with a pestle in a mortar. Add the egg yolk and the saffron, then blend in the olive oil little by little to make a mayonnaise, stirring it with the pestle.

5. Cook the potatoes, peeled and boiled and cut into large slices, in salted water for 15 to 20 minutes. Open the sea urchins with a pair of scissors and remove the Corail with a small spoon.

6. Arrange the fish on a platter. Add the corail of the sea urchins into the broth and stir.

Serve the bouillon very hot with the rouille in bowls over thick slices of bread rubbed with garlic. Then serve the fish and the potatoes on a separate platter.

Another version of the classic Marseille bouillabaisse, presented in the Petit LaRousse de la Cuisine, uses congre, dorade, grondin, lotte, merlan, rascasse, saint-pierre, and velvet crabs (étrilles), and includes leeks. In this version, the heads and trimmings of the fish are put together with onions, celery and garlic browned in olive oil, and covered with boiling water for twenty minutes. Then the vegetables and bouquet garni are added, and then the pieces of fish in a specific order; first the rascasse, then the grondin, the lotte, congre, dorade, etrilles, and saffran. The dish is cooked for eight minutes over high heat. Then the most delicate fish, the saint pierre and merlan, are added, and the dish is cooked another 5–8 minutes. The broth is then served over bread with the rouille on top, and the fish and crabs are served on a large platter.^[6]

Other variations add different seasonings, such as orange peel, and sometimes a cup of white wine or cognac is added.^[7]

History and legend

According to tradition, the origins of the dish date back to the time of the Phoceans, an Ancient Greek people who founded Marseille in 600 BC. Then, the population ate a simple fish stew known in Greek as 'kakavia.' Something similar to Bouillabaisse also appears in Roman mythology: it is the soup that Venus fed to Vulcan.^[8]

The dish known today as bouillabaisse was created by Marseille fishermen who wanted to make a meal when they returned to port. Rather than using the more expensive fish, they cooked the common rockfish and shellfish that they pulled up with their nets and lines, usually fish that were too bony to serve in restaurants, cooking them in a cauldron of sea water on a wood fire and seasoning them with garlic and fennel. Tomatoes were added to the recipe in the 17th century, after their introduction from America.

In the 19th century, as Marseille became more prosperous, restaurants and hotels began to serve bouillabaisse to upper-class patrons. The recipe of bouillabaisse became more refined, with the substitution of fish stock for boiling water, and the addition of saffron. Bouillabaisse spread from Marseille to Paris, and then gradually around the world, adapted to local ingredients and tastes.

Three of the best-known restaurants in Marseille for traditional bouillabaisse are Le Miramar, on the Vieux Port; Chez Fonfon, at 140, Vallon des Auffes, and the Grand Bar des Goudes, Rue Desire-Pélaprat.^[9]

The name bouillabaisse comes from the method of the preparation - the ingredients are not added all at once. The broth is first boiled (bolh) then the different kinds of fish are added one by one, and each time the broth comes to a boil, the heat is lowered (abaissa).

Generally similar dishes are found in Portugal (caldeirada), Spain (sopa de pescado y marisco, suquet de peix), Italy (zuppa di pesce), Greece and all the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; where these kind of dishes have been made since the Neolithic Era. What makes a bouilabaisse different from these other dishes are the local Provençal herbs and spices, the particular selection of bony Mediterranean coastal fish and the way the broth is served separately from the fish and vegetables.

I want to live in a town where the public library looks like this...

As I made my way down into the town center, I found myself in a quaint little square with a beautiful fountain.
As I walked a bit further... here I was... at the port of my paradise.
Happy people having the sun shine down on them...


Beautiful!!!
Yessss....water....the beach!!!
The Mediterranean water was crystal clear, warm, and refreshing...
I relaxed on the beach, read my book, then went and got a baguette sandwhich and couldn't resist this piece of deliciousness for dessert....

After the beach I decided to explore the city streets... These photos are self explanatory and have beautiful, glorious, resplendent, splendid, gorgeous, , lovely, picturesque, pretty, pulchritudinous, ravishing, scenic, and stunning all over them. Take a minute and take yourself to the town of Cassis... enjoy.












I find simple things like this...fresh linen blowing in the wind.

How was that!? Can you see now why I call it my paradise... it was so stunning.

This was disturbing... I know cacti are plants and all plants live and die...but I was a bit shocked to see this.

;)