Le Dernier Mot: Desperately Seeking… Dessert
Kristin Espinasse discovers her new city is missing one crucial thing: its own culinary speciality
As we settle into our new life here in La Ciotat, I am eager to learn even more about our adopted city and find out all it has to offer. Here is a place that saved itself from the plague, thanks in part to les Ciotadennes (that’s the women) who prevented Marseille soldiers from entering the city gates! La Ciotat is the birthplace of cinema and also where pétanque began. But between all the guts, balls, and invention, how is it that La Ciotat does not have its own culinary speciality? Every other French city seems to boast one. Here are just a few trademarked examples to put my new city to shame.
LES CALISSONS D’AIX
A confiserie dressed as chicly as its well-heeled residents, it even comes in a diamond-shaped box. Made of fruits confits, shredded almonds, and white icing – all this on top of a sleek wafer – visitors love bringing this one home from France to offer as a gift (much lighter to pack than a set of steel balls).
LES NAVETTES DE MARSEILLE
These cookies are as pale as those defeated soldiers we talked about and are a favourite of my husband’s (who might have charmed his way past the city gates, some 300 years ago). Shaped like a boat and as hard as a Ciotadenne’s heart, these biscuits à la fleur d’oranger are perfect for dunking into a café au lait.
Nougat. Photo: Fotolia
LA POUTARGUE DE MARTIGUES
This one takes some getting used to, but once you develop a taste for the salted, cured fish roe and its distinctive goût de la mer, you’ll be willing to splurge on it. The colour of sunset, it adds an attractive pop of orange when grated over pasta, but you can enjoy ‘Martigues caviar’ just as the locals do: in thin slices over buttered bread.
LE NOUGAT DE MONTÉLIMAR
With heaps of almonds, pistachios, and enough honey to make your teeth stick together, you’d have a hard time sweet-talking a guard into turning a blind eye… Perhaps this was Montélimar’s strategy? I wonder how the city fared during the famous epidemic, for which my own town is also known (and not, unfortunately, for some delicious friandise!)
LA TARTE TROPÉZIENNE
Picture two large discs of sweet brioche held together by two kinds of cream and christened with sugar the size of a soldier’s tears. It’s so simple you’d think a certain town up the coast would get a hint that it’s not exactly rocket science to come up with a delicious culinary speciality! We seriously need to help out La Ciotat by coming up with something that visitors (maybe you?) would be proud to bring home in their suitcases. So let’s put on our thinking caps! Réfléchissons… Let’s see… I think I’ve got it! Given that the city is the birthplace of cinema – indeed film is still big here – how about…
LE POPCORN DE LA CIOTAT
So, do you think the French would go for this? (Would YOU go for this?) What if we sprinkled sugar on top?
FRENCH VOCABULARY
UNE CONFISERIE = candy, sweet
FRUITS CONFITS = candied fruits
FLEUR D’ORANGER = orange blossom
GOÛT DE LA MER = tastes like the sea
UNE FRIANDISE = candy, sweet
RÉFLÉCHISSONS = let’s think about this
From France Today magazine
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