By Mary Tutwiler

In the annals of gastronomy, etymology can be as tantalizing as taste. Both, after all, concern themselves with the language of the tongue. Myth, romance, and most of all, the apocryphal story tart up the cooking cannon. Take the tale of Cleopatra, dissolving her pearls in lemon juice, so that she could offer Mark Antony the rarest of elixirs.

True? The story comes from Plutarch. But whether it’s an example of alexandrine decadence or just a good drinking anecdote we’ll probably never know.

This month, I’ve been working on a cooking mystery that I’ve dubbed “how did the tomatoes get in the fish soup?”

The mystery begins back in France with the classic poaching liquid for fish, court-bouillon. According toAlexandre Dumas’ 1873 Grand Dictionnaire de cusine court-bouillon is a “Lenten broth made of white wine, red wine, butter, fine spices, bay leaves and fines herbes.”

In Louisiana cooking, court-bouillon is not an end in itself. It’s the culinary term for seasoned water, in which a fish, usually, is poached. The court-bouillon, after the fish is removed, can be reduced to become part of a sauce to be served with warm fish, or it will jell naturally and is ideal to garnish a chilled fish dish.

Court-bouillon’s natural cousin is the great Marseilles fish soup called bouillabaisse. Bouillabaisse in Marsailles is made by amalgamating oil with the boiling water and fish. The broth is seasoned by what was at hand in a Mediterranean seaport: saffron, tomatoes and pepper. What thickens the broth is a final garnish of rouille, a peppery garlic mayonnaise that adds a creamy pungency to the fish soup.

After crossing the Atlantic ocean in the 18th century, French and Spanish settlers and African slaves, who would become the Creoles of New Orleans, and Acadian refugees who were forced to leave Canada in 1755 and who made a new home in the swamps of southwest Louisiana, found themselves attempting to make traditional Old World dishes using entirely new ingredients: okra, transported from Africa, ground sassafrass leaves, which is called filé, a contribution of Native Americans, and the rich bounty of the Louisiana marsh and coast which team with crabs, shrimp, redfish, drum, catfish, oysters, and crawfish, as well as ducks, herons, egrets, blackbirds, deer, bear, alligator, muskrat and racoon.

Thus a bouillabaisse made with rascasse and langoustine from the Mediterranean translated into a bouillabaisse made with redfish and shrimp from the Gulf. Saffron was rare, if not impossible to obtain. Bay leaves, however, literally grow on trees in Louisiana.

Court-bouillon’s finest application in the Creole cooking scene culminates in a dish simply called Cold Poached Redfish. The classic summer party dish, a huge redfish, lies entire on a platter, garnished from its gleaming eye made of a stuffed Spanish olive to its beautiful fan tail, under a coating of white remoulade on which rest fine scales of thin-cut radish and cucumber.

In Louisiana’s brief winter, redfish is served hot, in a spicy roux-based tomato stew, called, confusingly enough, courtbouillon (one word, no hyphen.) We make the distinction by pronouncing poaching liquid in classic French fashion: “cour-bouillon,” while chewing up the pronunciation of the tomato concoction: “cou-be-yon.” Courtbouillon shows up everywhere, from the tables of the temples of haute-cusine such as Galatoire’s in New Orleans to black iron skillets in back-of-town eateries like Josephine’s in St. Martinville.

I have plowed through every Creole and Cajun cookbook I own, from the 1901 “Times-Picayune Creole Cookbook,” to our editor, Marcelle Bievenu’s 1991 Cajun family album cookbook, “Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, And Can You Make A Roux.” There are a hundred different recipes for courtbouillon but not a one that explains the linguistic leap from clear poaching liquid to spicy tomato and fish stew.

(Louisiana Bouillabaisse is clouded by the same confusion. Bouillabaisse here in Louisiana is a tomato flavored fish soup. There is no roux, nor rouille.

Courtbouillon, however, starts with a roux, and ends up served over rice.

I can’t stand it. Why isn’t there a story?

Something along the order of the priest coming home to dine with Uncle Alphonse on a night when Mamere had only purchased one small redfish at the French Market. In a panic she sent Tit’ Pierre back to the market, but alas it was too late, there was nothing left but some onions and tomatoes. Mamere scoured the pantry for oil and flour, bay leaves and red pepper. Parsley and basil and thyme grew fresh in her garden. Everything went, hurly burley, into the pot where it bubbled while the priest drank a glass of Bordeaux with Uncle Alphonse. When the men stepped out onto the gallery, Mamere poured the rest of the bottle of Bordeaux into the stew to keep the priest from getting tipsy while at her house. At the table, Mamere spooned the spicy redfish stew into soup bowls, passed the French bread, and you know the rest of the story.

Whole poached Fish (COLD)
(This recipe comes from “The Plantation Cookbook” published by the Junior League of New Orleans.)

Redfish Courtbouillon (cou-be-yon)

Aunt Lois’ Bouillabaisse
(This recipe comes from “Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make A Roux?” by Marcelle Bienvenu)

Filed Under: Food Talk