It’s happy hour in Nice, France. Or as they say here, Le Happy Hour. People are out and about, strolling up and down the walk-streets in this pedestrian-only area. Tables are filling up as people settle in. Wine and beer are flowing, and I see more than a few martinis. And why not? Just about everyone here is on vacation.
Nice is a tourist destination, for sure. We’re seated at a table not far from the throngs of people passing by. So far we’ve heard german, italian, japanese, british, french, of course, and other languages that didn’t sound familiar.
After french, we’ve heard far more british being spoken than any other language. English vacationers adopted Nice as a second home a long time ago.
The cuisine in Nice is Mediterranean, of course, but it’s more than that. It’s French, but it’s Italian, too. And don’t be surprised if some Spanish dishes show up on the menu.
Nice has Italian roots. It didn’t become part of France until 1860. Here’s how that came about…
Nice’s Italian Roots
A thousand years ago, the Holy Roman Emperor granted a nobleman a tract of land where France, Switzerland, and Italy come together today. The nobleman and his heirs must have been on the ball. They eventually became Dukes – the Dukes of Savoy – and parlayed their holdings into present-day northern Italy and southwestern France.
They moved their home base to present-day Piedmont, Italy, and expanded further, acquiring the kingdom of Sardinia, which had been under Spanish control. Now they were kings! I told you, these guys were on the ball.
Their territory, the kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, included Savoy, Sardinia, Monaco, much of northern Italy, and Nice. Turin was the capital.
Revolution was in the air, and long story short, in 1861, Italy became one unified, independent Italy. Savoy and Nice had been ceded to France the previous year.
So Nice could be said to be almost as much Italian as it is French. One of Italy’s founding fathers, Giuseppe Garibaldi, was born here. He wasn’t happy about his home town no longer being part of the country he helped established.
Paella
So what’s for dinner? We strolled around the area, looking at restaurants and their menus posted out front. There were almost too many to choose from. Then we saw a place offering Spanish dishes, including paella. Mmmm.
Paella is a favorite dish. To make it, get out your round, flat paella pan and start sautéing onions, chicken, maybe some sausage – stuff to get good things happening in the pan.
Take out the chicken. Add rice called bomba rice – a short-grain rice that sucks up liquid like crazy. Add chicken stock and saffron. Saffron is a must.
Put the chicken pieces back in. Now don’t touch it. If you do it right, the rice will suck up all the liquid and will start to form a crust on the bottom. The crust is called socarrat. The goal is to end up with a socarrat of crunchy goodness. Not burnt goodness – crunchy goodness.
If you’re making seafood paella, carefully add whatever seafood you have, allowing for cooking times, nestling things into the rice without disturbing anything. Finish it off by sprinkling peas on top, and finally, parsley. Good job!
Of course we had dinner at the place with paella on the menu. We ordered one paella to share. Thank goodness we didn’t order one each. The service, atmosphere, wine, and the especially the paella were great.
Tomorrow we get to play in Nice all day.
To be continued…
Note
Photo at the top of this post, credit: istockphoto/anyaberkut
