Ah, oui. Le Côte d’Azur. The French Riviera. Land of luxury. Playground of the rich and famous. We’ve just arrived. Perhaps we’ll see how the other half lives, albeit from a distance. Probably a very great distance! Our plan is to get acquainted with Nice, then use it as our home base for day-trips to nearby places like Monaco and Saint Paul de Vence. Allons! (Let’s go!)
Arrivée à Nice
Nice is the largest city in the South of France. When we arrived, the first thing that hit us when we got off the plane was the smack of warm, Mediterranean air in our faces. It was late September, and it was warm, especially compared to the weather in Paris. Man, it felt good!
We took a taxi to the hotel, checked in, and found our room. Our hotel wasn’t particularly expensive, but we were happy to find that our room looked directly out to the Mediterranean Sea. It looked extra-blue. This is the Côte d’Azur, (the blue coast), after all.
After settling in, we headed out to reconnoiter the immediate environs. The famous Promenade des Anglais is directly in front of our hotel, but we have plenty of time to take that stroll.
Another area called “Cours Saleya” is just a few blocks away. There’s a flower/produce market there every morning, but in the evening, it turns into a poor man’s restaurant row. And dinnertime is approaching.
Nice – A Foodie’s Paradise
We’re in France, so meals are bound to be good, but we’re not in the North anymore. In the northern France, they like to prepare food using butter and cream. Not down here.
In the South of France, the cuisine is all about fresh fruit and veggies, seafood, and olive oil. We’re going to be on “The Mediterranean Diet” whether we want to be, or not. We’re very OK with that.
And let’s not forget pasta. Pasta is no stranger to niçoise cuisine. Back in the day, before there was an “Italy” or a “France” as we know it today, this part of Southern France was neither French nor Italian.
Back in the Day…
Let’s go back 2,000+ years. The Greeks built Nice into a major trading center. The Romans took over and kept building. Romans were thick in this neck of the woods.
A thousand years later, Nice belonged to the Counts of Provence, and later to the Counts of Savoy. Provence and Savoy are still French départements today. Savoy straddled present-day Italy and France. It’s capital was in Turin, in Piedmont. The official language of Nice was italian.
Nice didn’t become “French” until 1860, when it was more-or-less given to France in return for supporting Italy in Italy’s Second War of Independence. When that happened, many “Italians” left Nice to move into Italy proper, but the Italian influence in Nice is still evident.
The Mediterranean Diet, Nice-Style
Consider one of the traditional foods of Nice – pissaladière. It’s considered traditional to Nice. Just don’t try to tell that to a Genoese!
Pissaladière is semi-thick-crust pizza dough, (or maybe focaccia), topped with caramelized onions, black olives, and anchovies. Can you think of anything more wonderful? Pissaladière is all of my favorite worlds colliding!
In Nice, especially in Cours Saleya, you can get pissaladière in a restaurant, or you can buy it right on the street from a vendor. It’s a beautiful thing. Sometimes I think I live in the wrong part of the world.
Then there’s salade niçoise – salad Nice-style. You know this one. Green beans, tuna, hard-boiled eggs, new potatoes, probably anchovies, olives, a light vinaigrette, and whatever chefs like to add to make it their own.
The classic version uses niçoise olives – small black olives with large pits and large taste. The only place in the world they grow is in the South of France.
Another dish that’s popular here is moules-frites – mussels and french fries. It may not be a “niçoise” thing, but we saw people devouring mass quantities of them.
Cours Saleya
At night, Cours Saleya is packed with people dining out. The flower stalls have been put away for the night. Countless small tables have taken their place. They belong to restaurants that line both sides of the street.
Hundreds of people here dine out under the stars on these warm Mediterranean nights. Waiters move swiftly from inside restaurants, out to tables, and back. A bottle of wine sits on almost every table. It’s the good life.
We took it easy and shared a salade niçoise, a piece of pissaladière, and some wine. If you think of it, there isn’t anything in niçoise cuisine that doesn’t taste better when it’s washed down with un peu de vin. Ah, oui, mon ami!
To be continued…
Credit for the great photo of Nice and the Promenade des Anglais: Aeris06, Frédéric Oropallo/Wikimedia Commons
