From one end of the Mediterranean to the other, recipes circulate like languages and stories. The Algerian calentica is enjoyed in Marseille, the panisse makes its way to the Élysée, couscous settles in the Provençal streets and travels to Brazil, and eggplants absorb the scents of Armenian or Ottoman flavors. These popular dishes tell stories of migrations, mixing, and an endless love for borderless cuisines.
This article on Mediterranean cuisine is a summary of 5 articles published in 22-med. They can be found with their original recipes in the 11 languages used on the site:
https://www.22-med.com/bonnes-graines-de-couscous/
https://www.22-med.com/sevanouir-avec-des-aubergines-farcies/
https://www.22-med.com/pissalat-le-garum-qui-defie-le-temps/
https://www.22-med.com/panisses-le-bon-gout-du-manger-de-pauvre/
https://www.22-med.com/sabir-en-cuisine-la-calentica/
On the docks of l’Estaque in Marseille, the scent of hot oil and chickpeas still lingers. In the cabins facing the sea, golden panisses are ordered, hot and crispy, to be devoured with fingers while watching the boats go by. These chickpea flour cakes, long associated with "poor people's food," tell much more than just a simple recipe: they reveal the plural history of Mediterranean exchanges.
From chickpea to plate, an ancient journey
Panisses belong to a broad family of popular cakes. In Liguria, they become farinata; in Nice, they meet socca; in Sicily, they transform into panelle. The same base: chickpea flour, water, oil, heat.
Everywhere, the same ancestral gesture: mixing chickpea flour and water, cooking in a pan or oven, savoring without fuss. A deceptive simplicity, behind which the trade routes, migrations, and cross influences of the Mediterranean basin can be discerned.
But each port, each culture adds its touch. In these humble and nourishing recipes, we find the history of workers, migrants, fishermen, and merchants who populated the southern shores.
Street food elevates them: in Palermo, panelle are enjoyed with cazzilli, potato croquettes called "little zizis" in Sicilian dialect; in Marseille, panisses are sold on the sly or in the fry shops of l’Estaque, before making their way to the grandest tables, as in 2016 at the Élysée where they accompanied lamb with savory.
Couscous, the universal grain
Another example, another crossing: couscous, long perceived in France as an "exotic" dish, is intimately linked to Provençal culinary history. In Marseille, Mustapha Kachetel perpetuates at Fémina the barley couscous of his Kabyle ancestors. Nothing surprising in this port city that was one of the first French relay points for couscous. In 1897, Jean-Baptiste Reboul published a couscous recipe in his Cuisinière provençale, a sign of ancient exchanges between Provence and North Africa. The "grain" travels from the Maghreb to Provence.
The word couscous initially refers to the "grain," this semolina rolled by hand from moistened semolina, the base of millions of meals. While durum wheat dominates today, the diversity is immense: barley, chestnut, chickpeas, lentils, corn, or buckwheat feed the variations... In the Kabyle mountains, a robust barley couscous is made. In Morocco, the semolina producer Dari revives the corn baddaz.
In Marseille, the Kouss.Kouss festival has celebrated this plurality since 2018, bringing together Berber couscous, contemporary creations, and variations from elsewhere. It thus incorporates African variations like Senegalese thiéré or Ivorian attiéké made from cassava.
Couscous can also be found as far as Sicily, Portugal, and even Brazil, where it takes on local accents, based on corn or cassava flour. Maritime routes, diasporas, and exchanges have made this grain a universal food, a symbol of mixing and adaptation.
Traveling eggplant and mixed cuisine
On the sunny stalls, eggplant also shines. Arriving from Southeast Asia via the Arab route, it has delighted Mediterranean palates. Polymorphic, sometimes alarming upon its arrival in Europe – it was nicknamed "madman's apple" in the Middle Ages – it has established itself in all the cuisines around the Mediterranean.
Venerated in Ottoman, Armenian, Italian, or Maghreb cuisines, a star of Provençal ratatouille, recipes using it abound: stuffed, grilled, pureed, or in stew, it accompanies stories of exile and love.
An old Ottoman preparation has enchanted blogs, magazines, and social networks for about twenty years. The vegetarian stuffed eggplant or imam bayıldı. "Imam bayıldı literally means the dish that makes the imam faint. It requires a large amount of olive oil, even more to confit the onions in the stuffing than to cook the eggplant. So either the imam was stingy and fainted at the abundant use of this prestigious product, or he was so greedy that he fainted from the intensity of pleasure!" explains Nurdane Bourcier, cook and globe-trotter.
Nina Kehayan, who arrived in Marseille between the wars, remembers that her Armenian in-laws revealed the secrets of stuffed eggplant to her. Like the tomato, another product once suspected, it has since conquered the Mediterranean, integrating into moussakas, zaalouk, caponata, or parmigiana, mixing flavors and languages.
Calentica, a cake without a passport
In Marseille again, on the Canebière or in the alleys of Noailles, the Algerian calentica appears on the stalls. A thick chickpea (again) cake, generously sprinkled with cumin, it revives memories of pieds-noirs, Algerians, and Spaniards. Its name changes according to the ports: calentita in Gibraltar, karantika in Oran, garanteta in Algiers, fainà in Argentina.
History weaves itself in the kitchens as much as in the ports. Genoese merchants were already exporting their farinata across the Mediterranean. Spanish and Italian migrants in Algeria popularized calentica, soon taken up by street vendors. In Marseille, chickpeas become a culinary link between Italian, African, and pieds-noirs neighborhoods. The cake passes from hand to hand, accompanied by harissa, in white bread. Childhood memory, street recipe, exile cuisine: everything mixes.
The discreet return of garum
In the shadow of cakes and grains, another culinary vestige of the Mediterranean resurfaces: garum. This ancient fermented fish sauce, prized until Roman times, is gradually making its way back into contemporary kitchens. Amber liquid or thick paste depending on the variants, garum resurfaces today in multiple forms, from Italian colatura di alici to Nice's pissalat. On the Côte d’Azur, the latter perpetuates the tradition in a concentrated version: a dark and rich paste made from sardine or anchovy fry. Once a peasant product, now a chef's condiment, garum finds its way into starred kitchens, enhancing vegetables, fish, or sauces with its marine notes and powerful umami. A reminder that the oldest flavors can sometimes be the most modern.
The Mediterranean on the plate knows no borders or passports. It is savored on the go, between memories and inventions, between traditions and mixing. As Roland Bacri, a child of Algiers and a champion of pied-noir cuisine, reminded us: "Our recipes are not limited; that is the truth. International, exotic, cosmopolitan, ecumenical, even though they are confined to the Mediterranean."
Photo credit: Slata-mechouia-©Nina-Medioni-Flammarion