Bouillabaisse: A Traditional Dish in Motion in Order to Survive

This paper examines the evolution and the traditional characteristics of the Provencal dish bouillabaisse. It also explores its historical and contemporary popularity as well as the everyday role that bouillabaisse plays in the regional identity of Provencal cooking. Bouillabaisse is a dish with a very long history that keeps evolving for various reasons. But it is also a dish surrounded by myth, fallacy, and gastronomic polemics. This study uses an exploratory sequential mixed methods model combining qualitative and quantitative data collection which were analysed in a sequence of phases. The primary data was collected through a combination of questionnaires, interviews, and the analysis of manuscripts and printed cookbooks using Wheaton’s methodology. The results showed that bouillabaisse’s main transformation occurred at the turn of the nineteenth century when the dish’s status was elevated in order to appeal to the upper-classes. The results have also shown that the codification of the dish has created two predominant styles of bouillabaisse; one anchored in its place of origin, Provence, and one that permitted the dish to travel and be exposed to the rest of the world. Towards the end of the twentieth century, bouillabaisse became unpopular as a household meal, thus resulting in the development in Marseille of a new invented tradition; it is now a local custom to eat bouillabaisse in restaurants on Sundays and for special occasions.