Niçoise describes a garnish or style of preparation and indicates that the dish is served or prepared with tomatoes, black olives, capers and anchovies. The word stems from the feminine of niçois meaning ‘of Nice’ with use from the 19th century.

Salade Niçoise is a traditional recipe heavily focused on local, fresh ingredients and it is stated that nothing is cooked except the egg and consists of anchovies (and for posh people tuna), olives, hard boiled eggs and seasonal vegetables from the garden such as tomatoes and a dressing of olive oil. However, there is a great debarcle and a fierce culinary divide of traditional, raw vegetables verses the modern addition of cooked ingredients.

Depending on where one goes in France, boiled potatoes and green beans are often added along with wine vinegar to the olive oil to make a vinaigrette. Some locals say this is a sin and refer to this as a ‘salade a la poubelle’ (dustbin salad) but the famous Georges Auguste Escoffier, the grandfather of French cuisine, added these in his famous cooking bible, Le Guide Culinaire published in 1903. In answer to this, the Niçois (people from Nice) state that he was born across the river in Villeneuve-Loubet, Provence but he completed his early culinary apprenticeships in Nice which was part of the Italian House of Savoy when he was born and was only annexed to France in 1860!

This is the version I like with both anchovies and fresh tuna, potatoes and green beans.

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