Eat and be merry

A visit to Nice is as much about the food as it is the riding

With this year’s Tour de France finishing in Nice

it is important to know the culinary delights offered by this city and what to get for your picnic on the beach A personal favourite is socca a chickpea pancake

which is a delicious calorific snack and perfect if you’re feeling peckish postride It’s made from chickpea flour

yeast and water

Pan bagnat is another local speciality that in the local dialect means wet bread It is essentially all the ingredients of the Niçoise salad tuna

egg

raw vegetables

olive oil in a sandwich and each family has their own way of doing it

There is also pissaladière an onion tart topped with black olives and anchovies and baked on pizza style dough The name comes from pissalat

a Provençal condiment of puréed anchovies

cloves

thyme and bay leaves that used to be spread on the dough before baking Nowadays

people usually just put the anchovies on top or take them off

as I did

The pièce de la resistance is the tourte aux blettes which is made with Swiss chard The green vegetable has a natural sweetness to it and makes for a light and delicious tart that can be eaten as a dessert It might sound odd to have a vegetable in a pudding

but don’t knock it before you’ve tried it