There is a certain reverse snobbery that some travelers may feel when they first arrive in Nice.
So elegant. So sunny. So touristy.
I admit that after a dinner of nonchalantly prepared Nicer specialties in a restaurant on the Cours Saleya, when illuminated pedicabs and street performers replaced the famous day market vendors, I thought I had missed for decades my chance to experience the pleasures that beckoned. Julia Child and her husband, Paul, when they had a house 20 miles outside the city.
Then I took a cooking class with Rosa Jackson.
Author and cooking teacher Rosa Jackson at Le Potager de Saquier organic farm in Nice, France. Socca, Niçoise's chickpea pancake, served at Jackson's cooking class. A member of the cooking class team welcomes students with fresh lemonade. (Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
At first it was the environment that attracted me. Jackson, who spent years in Paris as a restaurant critic and market tour guide, usually teaches classes to about eight people at her Les Petits Farcis cooking school, in the heart of Nice, not far from her. of the artificial waterfall in the Colline du Château park. But our group was large, so we took a bus into the Nice countryside and arrived at Le Potager de Saquier, a dream organic farm run by Anne and Pierre Magnani.
Disembarking, we found an aproned Pierre Magnani cutting deep orange-red persimmons that he had just plucked from a tree. He handed slices to some of us with a gleam in his eye that seemed to anticipate our delighted reactions once we bit into the intensely flavored fruit. Other members of the group were drawn to the scent of bulbous citron globes hanging from the trees like enchanted Christmas decorations.
Pierre Magnani giving a tour of the gardens of Le Potager de Saquier in Nice, France. Pierre Magnani of Le Potager de Saquier in Nice, France, cuts a freshly picked persimmon before Rosa Jackson's cooking class. A plaster cabin under construction in the organic garden Le Potager de Saquier. (Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
We passed a wheelbarrow full of orange-skinned pumpkins and a hobbit hut under construction for future overnight guests, then entered the outdoor kitchen where Jackson and his team greeted us with pitchers of fresh lemonade.
Le Potager de Saquier, located above the Var Valley, operates part of the year as a bed and breakfast. Some guests sleep outdoors next to one of the vegetable gardens and near the open kitchen, equipped with a wood stove and shaded by recycled tarps and nets. There are padded sofas and benches covered with pink, orange and purple blankets and pillows. Flea market finds are scattered among bowls of farm-harvested fruits, vegetables and herbs.
Anne Magnani of Le Potager de Saquier with liqueurs made with herbs and fruits from the farm in Nice, France.
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
It was easy to get lost along the garden paths and ask Pierre Magnani about his crops or strike up a conversation with Anne Magnani as she poured a liqueur made from herbs from the farm and stirred it with a sprig of rosemary. But our goal for the day was to prepare lunch together as a group with Jackson as our guide. We would then enjoy the results of our lessons at a long table with wine and good conversation.
One of the best parts of Jackson's style of class is that it's easy for cooks of different experience (or energy) levels to participate in their own way. On this day at the farm, some chose to sit and watch the events from a comfortable chair with a glass of wine, while others got into the thick of things. Jackson is an unbiased cooking guide.
“Those who want to be there stirring all the pots and everything can do it,” he says. “And I also like having kids in the class because I love feeding the enthusiasm that kids bring to the kitchen and maybe also giving them a taste of cooking that will stay with them.”
Rosa Jackson teaches cooking classes at Le Potager de Saquier in the hills above Nice.
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
Jackson's first experience in the south of France was on vacation with his family when they left their home in Edmonton, Canada, and lived in Paris for a time.
“What I remember most are the beautiful beaches,” he says of the French Riviera, “but not so much the food.”
Later, she came to Cannes after friends offered her a place to stay during the holidays, but she still didn't fall in love. “Cannes is a fun place to spend a vacation,” she says, “but it didn't capture my imagination.”
Things changed when he visited Nice.
“Suddenly I felt the story. It has its Italian feel and the food is very different from other parts of France,” she says. “Even Cannes”, which is only an hour away.
“You know you can compare the food in Nice and the food in Cannes, they are not the same,” he continues. “I was very curious. I wasn't so concerned with the glamorous image of the Riviera. “It was the contrast between the image that people have of the Riviera and what you really find when you start investigating the markets.”
One particular day at the market was crucial.
“I vividly remember the day when Franck Cerutti [the executive chef at Alain Ducasse’s Louis XV in Monaco] He introduced me to some of the farmers,” he says, “and they were pulling things out from under the table that they had hidden. You know, maybe they had some green beans but they were the first of the season. Or they had some cheeses that they didn't officially sell; you had to ask. It was this whole secret, hidden part of the market that I wanted to know more about. I realized that here you have more contact with the people, with the farmers, and you get to know them on a different level.”
Her curiosity led her to delve deeper into the recipes and flavors that make this part of France so distinct, including a love of combining savory and sweet flavors as in the sweet chard pie, or tourte de blettes sucrée, seen in many traditional niçoise bakeries. .
At Le Potager de Saquier, pie was the triumphant conclusion to our lunch with Jackson, a leisurely meal that included Niçoise's classic socca of chickpea pancakes and pissaladière topped with onion and anchovies, as well as rack of lamb with mustard and herbs. crust and a pumpkin puree that Jackson flavored with lemongrass and farm-grown makrut lime.
A slice of Rosa Jackson's tourte de blettes sucrée (sweet chard cake).
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
Along the way, he shared tips on how to knead dough and the French custom of using a circle of parchment paper instead of “a lid that's always dripping and hot” for the long process of sautéing a batch of onions, “so you can see and see”. listen and smell what is happening.”
It's this type of advice and the recipes she has collected and adapted during her 20 years in Nice that have been included in her new book “Niçoise: Market-Inspired Cooking from France's Sunniest City.”
“I wanted this to be a slightly more modern version of Niçoise cuisine,” he says, “which isn't to say that the recipes aren't accurate, but they include things I learned from people who weren't necessarily from Nice originally. That's why I have recipes from local chefs who are Vietnamese or North African because Nice is not just about people who have been here for generations. It has always attracted people from other countries. So I wanted the book to reflect that.”
The next night, I sit at a table outside the Rouge wine bar, among antique shops closed for the night, drinking a fresh white and eating calamari, anchovies, and chard-stuffed fritter cigars called barbajuan. Then I realize that I too may be falling under Nice's spell.
The recipe
Find Rosa Jackson in the Los Angeles Times book festival on Saturday, April 20 at 4 p.m. at USC's Ray Stark Family Theater, where she will discuss cookbooks and food memoirs with Joan Nathan and Klancy Miller.
