Soup War of Marseille.

Once the poor man's food, luxurious Gourmandises today? in the secret capital of the Mediterranean Sea every restaurant boasts its bouillabaisse. But who cooks where the fish soup was invented, the best? A culinary search for truth between myth and Mistral. By Julia Rommel (text) and Michael Hauri (photos)
  It tastes awful. Neil speaks it is not sufficient, but his mouth drawn down angles make it more than clear. Neil is British, and you might think now, perhaps it is the question famously Marseilles soup in an Englishman is not really good. But Neil asserts, but love fish, especially Dorade, even bass.
His entire vacation he spends with seafood, sits in the Vieux Port, the Old Port of Marseille, on a folding chair and fishing, summer after summer, for years. If he was successful between sports boats, yachts and tour vessels, which are pushing railing to railing, he sells the fish continue to dealers on the market. Sometimes roasted his Fang himself on the grill.
But eingekocht to bouillabaisse? Better not. "Last year I was in a village east of the city to swim," he says, "and have a bit of fishing along. Only small fish would bite, I have always come back into the sea. Until a Frenchwoman came to me and asked why I do, but which were wonderful for the bouillabaisse. "
FOUND IN ... mareDie journal Marine Sonderheft KulinarikAktuelles Issue bestellenwww.mare.deEr puzzled highlights the shoulders. "So I have all minutiae in my bucket and it was to miss the evening where the fish are." Neil had no idea that the very small fish, which it en masse from the Mediterranean, the bouillabaisse its spicy flavor. And perhaps the Briton has always been just a cheap copy of the original eaten.
It is not difficult in Marseille. Around the Vieux Port to promote the tourist traps in the next Croque Monsieur restaurants, pizza and chips for a bouillabaisse from 15 euros. Like a song for a fish broth with padding sounds do not. At this rate, but is merely a kilo "soupe de roche" on the market, "rock soup" as the different, big fish finger mentioned. For these tiny distilled the broth of the bouillabaisse, plus a deposit Gurnard, dragon head, Peter Fish, Rotbarbe and monkfish. An exquisite selection of their high price.
"Ladies, the eye of St. Lucie!"
Where the basic substance is traded in the fish market at the Vieux Port, is the grand Michel Lubrano at. His 82 years in spite of it every morning on the same square on the Quai des Belges encountered. Behind a low table, he watches over shell jewelry and seahorses for two to seven euros each. "The bouillabaisse, the bouillabaisse," he says with a voice so hoarse, as if the brine over the years pitted his vocal chords, "that is the traditional soup of fishermen."
Lubranos shirt is too far for the schmächtige chest, a valve cap rises over the wrinkled forehead. He pinched his eyes against the bright morning sun, to the women vorbeischlendernden better look behind you, and suddenly begins to sing: "Pour faire une bonne bouillabaisse, il faut se lever de bon matin?", "For a good bouillabaisse must you up early. " The melody is just like a nursery rhyme, the Provencal Lubrano rolls R, after three lines of text omitted him, and he jumps to the chorus. "Ah, que c'est bon, la bouillabaisse! Ah, mon Dieu, que c'est bon, bon, bon!"
A few women are stopped, Lubrano stops immediately and returns to its core business: "Ladies, the eye of St. Lucie, a porte-bonheur, a Lucky Charms! If your men always tired at night," he umgarnt " then you take the good luck to take home. You'll see that he is suddenly wide awake. " A Mittvierzigerin pushes him a few coins in his hand, Lubrano throws them with a careless movement in a bucket under the table.
Until three years ago, he has between the islands Frioul and Chateau d'If caught outside the city, then he had to sell his four boats, "who is going to need a stick, on a boat has not lost". Of course, Nénette, his wife, formerly the bouillabaisse cooked. She learned from her mother, yet at times the Germans before them, and 3000 others from the fishermen's quarter Panier umquartierten in January 1943 and their houses wegsprengten to possible hiding places of Jews and resistance to light.
Nénette knows many species, the soup to boil. Onion, tomato, potato and fennel need it, saffron, garlic, a little pastis, the soupe de roche course. "But now I'm old," says Nénette, "that's too much work, and the fish that are needed, we can not afford." "A good cook bouillabaisse here any longer," added Lubrano, "eat in the restaurant." He points to make the mansions on the west side of the harbor. "For example, in yonder, Miramar '."