The History of Bouillabaisse

Bouillabaisse started out as a simple dish of boiled fish from Marseille, France. It was either invented by fishermen from the area who boiled some of the day’s catch while out at sea to create a meal, or by local fishmongers making use of what they hadn’t sold at the day’s market. The dish was originally called boui abaisso, which means “boil lower” in Provençal; the name has created an as-yet-unsolved debate as to whether the fish was poached in water or if oil was added during the boiling process. When bouillabaisse transitioned from a humble dish to haute cuisine, making the soup base first and then simmering the fish in it became the preeminent method. Chef Jean-Baptiste Reboul’s 1897 recipe for the dish, which was published in his cookbook, La Cuisinière Provençale, became the dominant version for decades. Curnonsky, a writer who is sometimes referred to as the “Prince of Gastronomes,” popularized French gasto-tourism after World War I and people flocked to the area. Soon, unscrupulous Marseille eateries began serving cheaper, less complex versions of bouillabaisse to unsuspecting tourists. To stop the reputational decline, a group of Marseille restaurateurs created a charter in 1980 that codified what types of fish a true bouillabaisse had to include. (Today, substitutions do get made based on limited supply and the fact that most of the required fish are local, and thus inaccessible to those cooking outside of the area.) The dish was popularized in the United States by none other than Julia Child, who cooked bouillabaisse on her hit TV show, The French Chef, in the early 1960s. Today, the dish remains a staple in French cuisine and is regularly made both in its native Marseille and in kitchens all around the world.