A Traditional Provencal Stew. Now on Menus all Over
France.
from
Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
Daube de bœuf
With parsnip puree, button mushrooms, and lardons).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tpholland/4122574973/
Daubes originated in 16th-century southern France, taking
their name from the Occitan word dòba or adobar, which means
"to prepare" or "to arrange." Over time, daubes have
evolved to include a much wider range of ingredients and recipes, now featuring
fish, shellfish, and white wine.
Occitan is a Romance language,
derived from Latin and spoken primarily in southern France. During the Middle
Ages, Occitan was a more prestigious literary language than the northern French
dialects. However, there was a need for a single language to unite France and a
series of political and legal decisions, elevated the ancestor of modern French
to the status of the official language of the kingdom, gradually leading to the
decline of Occitan. Nevertheless, the Occitan language still has its adherents.
The
first daubes were beef, lamb or goat with the meat marinated overnight in herbs, garlic, vegetables, pork rinds, tomatoes and red wine.
The next day, with the addition of more red wine, a daube
would be slowly braised until ready, and other vegetables would be added.
Now daubes come with a far
wider range of ingredients and recipes that include fish, shellfish and white
wine.
Successful local recipes,
particularly from Provence, often become popular throughout France, and daubes
are no exception. While beef daubes are still the most common on
French menus, you can now find daubes made with wild boar, goose, duck,
tuna, or other seafood.
In Provence, many restaurants will
feature traditional daubes on their winter menus. Though each chef will
claim their version is unique, they remain fundamentally similar. The subtle
differences between them, however, are a source of endless debate among chefs
and the local cognoscenti.
While the earliest daube recipes
have been lost, the French National Library holds a dictionary by King Louis
XIII's translator, Antoine Oudin (1595–1653). He describes a daube as a ragoût
de viande cuit en sauce, which translates to "a stew of meat
cooked in a sauce."
The original cooking
vessel for a daube was a daubière.
Daubes
were initially made in metal or earthenware pots called daubières. These are
covered pots that were made in a wide variety of shapes, and designed for long
cooking as the less expensive cuts were generally used for these long-cooked
stews. The daubières’ lids were made to allow the water which became steam to
condenses on the inside and return to the stew, which allowed for the long
cooking time required.
An 18th century French DaubièreCopia, Napa, CA, USA
Daube on French
menus:
Daube
à l'Ancienne – Daube in the
traditional manner; beef marinated and then stewed with red wine and tomato
base. The vegetables include onions and carrots. Dishes offered à la l'Ancienne are prepared in the traditional manner that also
offers the diner a chance to ask the server what "à la l'ancienne" means
to the chef. Do ask, I have been surprised by the variety of interesting
answers.
La
Daube Provençale
Photograph by skueche and
recipe courtesy of the Comité Régional de Tourisme Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Daube
à la Niçoise - A daube in the
manner of the City
of Nice on the Côte
d'Azur. Many menus in Nice are written in Niçard
(Nissart), the local dialect, which is primarily a dialect of
Provencal and Italian; alongside will be French and in the larger restaurants
English. The menu may offer La Doba Nissarda
-The Nicoise Stew. Apart from using a local red wine, the Nissarde version often includes a local Marc
or an Armagnac or Cognac. Nice is famous for many other dishes,
including Salade
Nicoise and Ratatouille.
Daube Gasconne aux Pruneaux – Beef Daube in the
manner of Gasconne, Gascony; made with added prunes. The old principality of
Gascony has an agricultural base, and at the center of France's prune industry
is the town of Agen.
Agen: A beautiful small town
and the capital of the department of Lot-et-Garonne in Nouvelle Aquitaine. Agen
is a walkable town with narrow streets and medieval houses in the center. Just
outside, Agen are impressive chateaux, castles, fortresses, and some of France's
most beautiful villages.
The Agen Prune is what placed this town on the
medieval map and has kept it there ever since. Monks from the nearby
Benedictine Abbé de Clairac crossed local plums with Syrian plums that had been
brought back from the crusades. These plums could be dried without losing
flavor and could be kept for a year or more; now, the citizens could have fruit
in winter. The Agen prunes were on their way to becoming a worldwide industry.
Dried plums, prunes, were historically very important for the city dweller and the
sailor. The city dweller saw little fruit in the winter, and sailors on a
voyage of over one week could only use food that could be stored.
N.B.: Do not get confused with the French for plums and prunes, as I occasionally still do. The French for plum is prune, and the French for a prune is pruneau (pronounced prune-oh).
Beef Daube
Photograph courtesy of NwongPR
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nwongpr/52681378329/
Daube aux Cuisses de Canards –
Daube with duck’s leg.
This red wine-based daube is a local favorite in Lot
et Garonne.
Daube de Canard
Daube de Mouton – A mutton stew; the mutton will be marinated, with most of the fat removed, and then cooked slowly with wine and vegetables as with a beef daube.
Daube de Sanglier avec
Raviolis Maison – A daube of wild
boar served with
home made ravioli. This, almost certainly, will be farmed wild
boar; real wild boar would be sanglier sauvage or would be
part of a "hunting season" menu, a Menu de Chasse.
Sanglier: Wild boar. With great ingenuity, the French have
produced a solution, and for nine or ten months a year, all the wild boar meat
comes from farmed wild boar. Wild boars are enclosed in vast forested areas
where they are fed, fattened, and produce the next generation. These wild boars
are being farmed even though they do not know it. The farm-raised
wild boar herds are inspected, and they are far better fed and far healthier
than the truly wild boars. The wild boar on many French menus, outside of the
hunting season, may not have been very wild, but they will be very tasty!
On select
restaurant menus and in butchers’ shops and supermarkets, you may find wild
boar chops, steaks, sausages, etc, on sale 12 months of the year.
Daube de Thon à
la Sétoise – A tuna daube made in the
manner of the famous fishing port of Séte on the
Mediterranean.
Séte:
The largest fishing port on the Mediterranean and the entrance to the canal
that joins the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. There is probably a Sétoise
version or a Sétoise recipe for every fish and seafood dish in the south
of France. Wandering around the town, I have seen menus offering Sétoise
versions of Bouillabaisse and Sétoise
takes on other Provencal dishes. More importantly, during my
two-and-a-half-day sojourn, I did not receive one meal or even a snack that was
below excellent.
The incredibly active Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis
XIV's Prime Minister, decided to build a canal that would join the Atlantic, at
Bordeaux, to the Mediterranean. In the 17th century, the canal saved four
weeks of sailing around Spain to the north of France, and the occasional
battles with pirates from North Africa. Good roads connecting France from North
to South hardly existed, and in winter, whatever there was became
impassable. At the time, there was an island called Cette
just off the mainland, and in creating the largest fishing port in the
Mediterranean, the island was joined to the mainland. Today, you would not
realize that part of the town is an island, but having the fishing port in the
center in the city makes walking around it a unique experience. The town itself
has many canals, earning it the nickname "Venice of Languedoc." When
visiting Sète, consider taking a motorboat tour of the canals. Alas, they have
no gondolas. Before it was joined to the mainland, the island's first known
name was given 2,500 years ago when the Greeks came and called it Ketos.
Later, it would become Ceta, Seta, Cetia, and Cette, and finally, in
1928, the city became Sète.
---------------
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Behind the French Menu
by
Bryan G. Newman
Copyright 2010, 2016, 2025.
