Daniel Young - Made in Marseille: Food and Flavors from Frances Mediterranean Seaport

Had the passenger known something of the Old Ports great splendor, he might have sought a grander perspective for his arrival than that from the back seat of an airport taxi. An approach by train would likely have culminated with his standing atop the landmark stairway in front of the Saint Charles station, just like the legends Yves Montand and Fernandel did in the movies. A coming into port from the sea would have revealed the ancient inlet of Lacydon from the same point of view as the Greek mariners twenty-six centuries ago. Perhaps a beautiful maiden would have extended to him a marriage goblet brimming with romantic promise, as legend says the Princess Gyptis did to the young captain Protis.

As it happens, the arrival by taxi could not have left a stronger first impression. After whizzing past the warehouses, dockyards, hangars, cruise ships, and shipyard cranes of the Joliette basin, the passenger emerged from a sweeping left turn to be practically blinded by the luminous colors of Marseilles storied Vieux Port.

Your city is wonderful!, he cried out. Youve got the sun, the sea, the islands, the boats, the fish markets, the cafs, the hillside villages, the exotic flavors and foreign accents, the dark-haired women.

So captivated was the passenger by the unfolding spectacle that he failed to notice the pained expression of the cabdriver as reflected in the rearview mirror.

Take it from me, the cabby interjected during the first pause in the impromptu ode to Marseille emanating from the back seat. This place is nothing to write home about. Its dirty. No one knows how to drive. Everyones double-parked. Theres a construction site every block. These immigrants dont work. Nothing gets done

The diatribe did not dishearten the mystified passenger, but it did persuade him to plan another approach for his return visit. No, he did not take a boat or a train. As before, he rode a taxi into town, only this time he took a different tack with its driver.

This place is nothing to write home about, the passenger murmured as the taxi lurched from one bottleneck to the next. Its dirty. No one knows how to drive. Everyones double-parked. These people are lazy

Are you kidding? protested the cabby, gesticulating right and left between gear shifts. This is paradise. Weve got the sun, the sea, the islands, beautiful brunettes from the four corners of the Mediterranean, the best seafood in the world. You wont find a quality of life like this anywhere else.

The extent to which the tale of two taxis rings true can be seen in the knowing smiles its telling invariably elicits from native Marseillais. Dangerous as it is to draw sweeping conclusions from the windshield perspectives of two taxis, their tactless, willfully contradictory responses are illuminating. They reveal a sometimes comical, often endearing, and occasionally maddening paradox that led French novelist Blaise Cendrars to call Marseille one of the most mysterious and difficult to fathom cities in the world. How, he and countless other observers have wondered, could this great cosmopolitan harbor, this historic point of departure for world travelers, this perpetual port of arrival for refugees and immigrants, maintain such an insular outlook?

On a primitive level, the rosier view of the second cabby who, caught in dense traffic, was in an odd position to be boasting about quality of life, can be appreciated as that of a macho Marseillais coming to the defense of his grand amour. Although the French-Mediterranean street code grants anyone the right and, some might add, the obligation to criticize his or her beloved spouse, child, mother, foods, or hometown soccer team, you should never misconstrue his or her bellyaching as an invitation for you to do so.

Outsiders beware: There is far more behind the grumbling typified by the first cabby than the inclination to find fault with what one knows and loves best. Were talking two thousand years of emotional baggage. His unconvincing, whats-so-hot-about-Marseille argument betrays a suspicion of outsiders, most notably wide-eyed ones, ingrained in the Marseillais character since the visit to Frances oldest city by an extremely impressed future dictator by the name of Julius Caesar. When Caesar battled Pompey for control of the strategic trading port in the year 49 B.C ., the Marseillais backed the wrong Roman, siding with the more moderate, soon-to-be-vanquished Pompey, and suffered gravely for their miscalculation.

The latest would-be conquerors to swell the hearts of the wary locals with some pride and much dread have been the turn-of-the-centurytwentieth to twenty-firstParisians. The recent invasion of Parisian artists, intellectuals, journalists, and tourists has been viewed from within as a suspicious development. The city had come to expect only one thing from the denizens of the French capital: ridicule. In their vocabulary, Marseille was synonymous with vice and vulgarity. How odd to be counting Parisians among the earliest and most enthusiastic supporters of a cultural renaissance that has established Frances gateway to the south as a Mediterranean capital of food, fashion, literature, music, dance, film, and theater.

For the famous actors, Marseille was a stopover just like any other French city, recalls Dominique Bluzet, director of the Thtre du Gymnase. Now its a required destination. This statement can now be applied to a much larger group. Shortly before the new high-speed TGV Mediterrane was making its June 2001 debut, shortening the 4-hour train link between Frances largest and second largest city to 3 hours, French national railroad president Louis Gallois confided to me that Marseille had clearly become the countrys trendiest travel destination. But please, urged Gallois, dont tell any of your contacts in other French cities I said that.

Many local officials trace this transformation to Marseilles selection as a host city of the 1998 World Cup. The tournament was their opportunity to show a new or, more accurately, an undiscovered image of themselves to thousands of visiting soccer fans and, through the international media, millions more. But setting and achieving this lofty goal first required a metamorphosis in the citys self-image and a greater appreciation of its regional identity and southern orientation.

We wanted to be more like a second Paris than a city of the south, explains Bernard Aubert, music director of the Fiesta des Suds, a one-of-a-kind festival of music, art, and food from, as its name"Festival of the Southsimplies, not just the South of France but many other southern regions of the world. But people have always come to Marseille to experience what they cant find elsewhere. And thats its extraordinary mix of southern cultures.

His argument is underscored by a flashback to the night of October 28, 2000 at the tenth annual Fiesta des Suds: In the packed main concert space of the Dock des Suds, a converted, sixty-thousand-square-foot warehouse, French-Algerian rock star Rachid Taha electrifies a vivid and vibrant cross-section of the Marseille mosaic. On a second stage, Senegalese drummer Fallou NDiaye thrills a dance floor swarming with trans-Mediterranean fusion. Elsewhere, revelers circulate between a tapas bar, three wine bars, a cyber lounge, several art galleries and installations, a North African