Food History of Avignon

Key eras

1. The papal court, 1309 to 1377

   Seven popes lived in Avignon between 1309 and 1377, and the palace was built to feed a court. Clement VI added the Tour des Cuisines in 1342 and 1343, with its eight-sided pyramid chimney and the Bouteillerie beside it; the Paneterie below prepared more than 300 meals a day for the court and handed out bread and wine to 800 poor people daily, while the Grand Cellier was cut into the rock in 1337.

2. Vin du Pape, 14th century

   John XXII, who followed Clement V, chose the vineyards of the village then called Châteauneuf-Calcernier to supply the palace with what he called the pope's wine, and more than 3,000 litres were sold to the Palais des Papes between 1325 and 1334. The papal cellars also drew on Tavel, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, Carpentras and wines shipped along the Rhône, and a walled vineyard, the Vinea Vespalis, grew inside the city.

3. The papal enclave, 1348 to 1791

   Clement VI bought Avignon from Joanna I of Naples in 1348 and the city stayed papal territory until 1791, when it became part of France. Its cooking stayed Provençal and leaned on mutton: in 1784 a Polish count, Moszynski, recorded a single inn dinner in Avignon of mutton soup, chops, boiled mutton, feet, head, grilled tails and roast breast.

4. Cookbooks, liqueurs and the Halles, 19th century

   Pierre Chaillot's 1835 book gathered more than 800 recipes from Avignon and the south. Around 1870 Auguste Blachère created the Origan du Comtat liqueur in Avignon, in 1884 Jules-François Pernod began distilling absinthe at Montfavet, and the iron Halles centrales on Place Pie opened on 25 September 1899.

5. Appellations and a new market hall, 20th century

   Châteauneuf-du-Pape's growers drew up production rules in 1923 that became France's model for appellation law, and the Côtes du Rhône appellation was recognised in 1937; Inter Rhône, the Rhône wine trade body, has its seat in Avignon. The pâtissiers of Vaucluse created the papaline in 1960, and the rebuilt Halles opened on 2 April 1974.

   Taste it todayChâteauneuf-du-Pape

   

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6. The Halles as a kitchen, 21st century

   In 2005 the botanist Patrick Blanc covered the north face of the Halles with a vertical garden 30 metres long, and since July 2006 chefs and traders of Greater Avignon have cooked in front of shoppers every Saturday at 11:00 at La Petite Cuisine des Halles, using produce bought from the market's stalls.

Immigrant influences

The Jews of Avignon and the Comtat

Jewish families lived in Avignon from at least the 12th century, later around Place Jérusalem near Place Pie, and the city's cooking probably owes them raïte, salt cod fried and simmered in red wine.

Rhône boatmen

The carbonade, mutton stewed slowly with vegetables and white wine, was the food Mistral described being served to Rhône boatmen, and it is the ancestor of the daube avignonnaise made with lamb and white wine.

Genoese cooks

Jean-Baptiste Reboul's La Cuisinière provençale, first published in 1897, called soupe au pistou a soup of Genoese origin, the summer vegetable soup finished with pounded garlic, basil and olive oil.

Signature innovations

• The papaline d'Avignon, a thin chocolate shell holding Origan du Comtat liqueur, created by the pâtissiers of Vaucluse in 1960
  Taste it todayPapaline d'Avignon
• Origan du Comtat, a marjoram liqueur of about sixty Mont Ventoux plants sweetened with Provence honey, first made in Avignon around 1870
• The papeton d'aubergines, an aubergine and egg flan named for the papal tiara shape of the mould it was baked in
  Taste it todayPapeton d'aubergines
• The 1923 Châteauneuf-du-Pape production rules, drafted by Baron Pierre Le Roy and the prototype for French appellation law
  Taste it todayChâteauneuf-du-Pape
• La Petite Cuisine des Halles, a free Saturday cooking demonstration by local chefs inside the market since July 2006