Are you celebrating one of the National Food Holidays? This page is created to help you celebrate Natinal Seafood Month & all main meal holidays too!
When is National Bouillabaisse Day?
This holiday is always celebrated on December 14 each and every year!
How is this holiday celebrated?
It's celebrated by having a bouillabaisse dinner party! Gather the whole gang together for a simmering pot of bouillabaisse. Get the crusty bread ready and eat this meal the traditional way by sopping up the delicious broth with the crusty bread. If you need recipe ideas then make sure you visit our Bouillabaisse Recipe page.
Origin of this Holiday
Our research did not find the creator, or the origin of this day. We did however find that this holiday has been celebrated for years. There is plenty of documentation to support that this holiday does indeed exist.
This holiday is referred to as a "International" day. However, we did not find any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day. Even though we didn't, this is still a holiday that is publicized to celebrate. So have fun with it and celebrate it!
We found recognition about this holiday from:
Calendar sites and personal Internet sites that blog and share information about this holiday.
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What is a Bouillabaisse?
"Bouillabaisse (Occitan: bolhabaissa) is a traditional Provençal fish stew originating from the port city of Marseille. The French and English form bouillabaisse comes from the Provençal Occitan word bolhabaissa [ˌbujaˈbajsɔ], a compound that consists of the two verbs bolhir (to boil) and abaissar (to reduce heat, i.e., simmer)."
Bouillabaisse is a fish soup (types of soup) containing different kinds of cooked fish and shellfish and vegetables, flavored with a variety of herbs and spices such as garlic, orange peel, basil, bay leaf, fennel and saffron. There are at least three kinds of fish in a traditional bouillabaisse, typically scorpionfish (fr: rascasse); sea robin (fr: grondin); and European conger (fr: congre); and it can also include gilt-head bream (fr: dorade); turbot; monkfish (fr: lotte or baudroie); mullet; or silver hake (fr: merlan) It also usually includes shellfish and other seafood such as sea urchins (fr: oursins), mussels (fr: moules); small crabs (fr: etrilles); spider crab (fr: araignées de mer) or octopus. More expensive versions may add langoustine. Vegetables such as leeks, onions, tomatoes, celery and potatoes are simmered together with the broth and served with the fish. The broth is traditionally served with a rouille, a mayonnaise made of olive oil, garlic, saffron and cayenne pepper on grilled slices of bread. In Marseille, the broth is served first in a bowl containing the bread and rouille, with the seafood and vegetables served separately in another bowl or on a platter."
History and Legend
"According to tradition, the origins of the dish date back to the time of the Phoceans, an Ancient Greek people who founded Marseille in 600 BC. Then, the population ate a simple fish stew known in Greek as 'kakavia.' Something similar to Bouillabaisse also appears in Roman mythology: it is the soup that Venus fed to Vulcan."
"The dish known today as bouillabaisse was created by Marseille fishermen who wanted to make a meal when they returned to port. Rather than using the more expensive fish, they cooked the common rockfish and shellfish that they pulled up with their nets and lines, usually fish that were too bony to serve in restaurants, cooking them in a cauldron of sea water on a wood fire and seasoning them with garlic and fennel. Tomatoes were added to the recipe in the 17th century, after their introduction from America."
"In the 19th century, as Marseille became more prosperous, restaurants and hotels began to serve bouillabaisse to upper-class patrons. The recipe of bouillabaisse became more refined, with the substitution of fish stock for boiling water, and the addition of saffron. Bouillabaisse spread from Marseille to Paris, and then gradually around the world, adapted to local ingredients and tastes."
"Three of the best-known restaurants in Marseille for traditional bouillabaisse are Le Miramar, on the Vieux Port; Chez Fonfon, at 140, Vallon des Auffes, and the Grand Bar des Goudes, Rue Desire-Péléprat."
"The name bouillabaisse comes from the method of the preparation - the ingredients are not added all at once. The broth is first boiled (bouillir) then the different kinds of fish are added one by one, and each time the broth comes to a boil, the heat is lowered (abaisser)."
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses some material from Wikipedia/article bayleaf/ and other related pages. Top photo: copyright Office du Tourisme et des Congrès de Marseille, used with permission/wikipedia
