Provence Pantry Guide: The Region's Jars and How to Cook Them

Provence is the southeastern corner of France, where the Alps run down to the Mediterranean. Its pantry follows the land: hillside herb farms, olive growing that probably began with Greek settlers more than 2,500 years ago, fruit orchards on the coastal plain, almond trees inland, and a long habit of preserving fruit in sugar that turns into the region's Christmas sweets. Six foods carry that story: herbes de Provence, olive oil, fruit jam, almond cake, calissons and candied fruit. This guide takes them one at a time, explains where each comes from, and ends with three dishes that open several jars at once. The same approach runs through the Sicily pantry guide, the Tuscany pantry guide and the Andalusia pantry guide.

One label comes up in this guide. France protects some foods by place with the letters AOC, appellation d'origine contrôlée, a controlled name of origin. The European Union's version of this protection is the PDO, protected designation of origin (AOP in French). According to the European Commission, every part of a PDO food's production, processing and preparation must take place in its named region.

The six, side by side

Food Where it comes from The tradition or condition behind it First use
Herbes de Provence Hillside farms across Provence A blend of four hardy herbs: savory, thyme, oregano and rosemary Rubbed on a roast; over tomatoes before baking
Olive oil Groves across the region, from the Alpes-Maritimes to the Vallée des Baux Olive growing that probably began with Greek settlers in the 6th century BC Tapenade; a slow beef stew
Fruit jams Orchards around Hyères and the Var Fresh fruit, picked in the morning and cooked the same day On toast; next to cheese
Almond cake The Drôme Provençale, north of Provence proper Six generations of know-how with almonds With jam and coffee
Calissons Aix-en-Provence Ground almonds and candied melon under a sugar icing The Christmas dessert table
Candied fruit and fruit pastes Apt in the Luberon; Oraison in Haute-Provence Apt has made candied fruit since the 17th century After dinner, with coffee

Herbes de Provence: the hills in a jar

Herbes de Provence is a blend of dried herbs, not a single plant. The Burlap & Barrel blend comes from a cooperative of smallholder farmers in Provence who grow four herbs: savory, thyme, oregano and rosemary (shop Burlap & Barrel herbes de Provence). The product page calls the blend a mix of hardy, aromatic herbs and a cornerstone of French cooking. Savory may be the least familiar of the four: a mint-family herb with small, narrow, pungent leaves, long used to flavor meat, soups and stews.

The producer suggests rubbing the blend onto meat before braising or baking, scattering it over fresh tomatoes with olive oil before they go into the oven, and tossing it with oiled, salted potatoes before roasting or pan-frying. It also goes into tomato sauces and pan sauces. The single-origin spices guide covers the wider idea of buying spices by where they were grown.

Olive oil: 2,500 years of groves

According to the regional tourism committee of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, olive growing in Provence probably began in the 6th century BC with Greek colonists from Phocaea, a city on the coast of what is now Turkey. Remains of ancient olive oil works have been found at sites near Marseille such as Glanum and Saint-Blaise. The committee describes olive oil as a basic part of cooking in antiquity.

Provence grows its own olive varieties, each with a character. Aglandau is rich in oil, 20 to 23 percent of the fruit, and its oil is both smooth and sharp. Salonenque grows in the Bouches-du-Rhône, the department around Marseille, and is used for the cracked table olives of the Vallée des Baux and for oil. Tanche, also called the Nyons olive, is round and wrinkles to deep black as it ripens, and gives a sweet, perfumed oil. Cailletier, a small black olive from the Alpes-Maritimes, the department at the Italian border, is picked late and gives an oil with notes of hazelnut, almond and anise. The Vallée des Baux, in the Alpilles hills south of Avignon, received its AOC for olive oil in 1997. Olives meant for oil go to the mill within three to four days of picking at most, so they stay fresh.

The olive oil buying guide explains how to read a bottle, and the olive mill guide follows the fruit from tree to bottle.

Jams: fruit from the coast at Hyères

Olbia en Provence is a jam maker in Hyères, a town on the Mediterranean coast in the Var, the department east of Marseille. According to its product pages, the fruit comes from growers in the Var, Provence and Corsica and from Olbia's own orchards and gardens at Hyères. The fruit is always fresh, never frozen, and picked by hand in open fields rather than in greenhouses. It is harvested in the morning, cooked in small batches and filled into jars by hand the same afternoon. Olbia specializes in old fruit varieties chosen for taste, and the jams contain at least 65 percent fruit pulp from whole fruit, topped up with cane sugar only as far as the legal minimum sugar content, with natural fruit pectin as needed. Pectin is the natural fiber in fruit that makes jam set.

The range reads like a calendar of a Provençal orchard. One jam is made from mara des bois, a strawberry variety (shop Olbia mara des bois strawberry jam). Another is made from Poire Williams, a pear variety, and labeled de Provence, meaning from Provence (shop Olbia Poire Williams de Provence). A third is made from pêche de vigne, the vineyard peach (shop Olbia vineyard peach jam). A pear jam belongs on a cheese plate as much as on toast, and the guide to what goes next to cheese covers the rest of the board. The jam and preserves guide covers jam, preserves and their cousins in depth.

Almonds: cake from the Drôme Provençale

Almonds hold the region's sweets together. Biscuiterie de Provence bakes in the Drôme Provençale, the southern part of the Drôme department, just north of Provence proper. According to its product pages, the family has six generations of know-how with almonds, passed from father to son, and makes traditional, organic and gluten-free biscuits and cakes. Gluten is the protein in wheat flour that gives bread its stretch.

The almond and vanilla cake is gluten-free and pairs the two flavors (shop Biscuiterie de Provence almond and vanilla cake). The almond and lemon cake is made with almond flour and lemons from Menton, the town on the Riviera at the Italian border (shop Biscuiterie de Provence almond and lemon cake). Either one, sliced and spread with a spoonful of Olbia jam, makes a Provençal dessert with no oven at all. For the almond as a confection in its own right, the marzipan recipe shows how ground almonds and sugar become a paste.

Calissons: almond and melon from Aix

A calisson is a specialty of Aix-en-Provence: a small piece of almond paste and candied fruit, set on a thin wafer and topped with icing. Maison Léonard Parli, founded in Aix in 1874, describes its method step by step. Blanched almonds are ground together with drained candied melon and candied orange peel, first coarsely in a toothed grinder and then between granite rollers. The paste is heated in a kneader with a cooked candied-fruit syrup, beaten by hand to remove air, and left to rest for at least 48 hours. A sheet of wafer goes under the molds, the molds are filled with paste, and the tops are covered in royal icing, egg white and sugar whipped together. The calissons are then baked briefly to set the icing.

The house traces its own history to Swiss confectioners from the Grisons, a canton in eastern Switzerland, who made Marseille a capital of sweets in the 18th century. Léonard Parli, one of the younger sons of that family, discovered the calisson in Aix, and the house dates its founding to 1874; it calls itself the first calisson factory of Aix-en-Provence. By 1908 it was making 300 kilograms (about 660 pounds) a day. The house says its calissons are 42 percent whole almonds. The torrone and nougat guide covers nougat, the honey and almond sweet that sits beside calissons on the Provençal Christmas table.

Candied fruit and fruit pastes: Apt and Oraison

Candied fruit is fruit preserved in sugar. The regional tourism committee calls Apt, a town in the Luberon hills, the undisputed capital of candied fruit, a craft practiced there since the 17th century. Its confectioners' workshops are full of the mingled scents of apricot, melon, pear and cherry. Candied melon is also the fruit ground into a calisson.

The fruit paste, or pâte de fruits, is the Provençal confectioner's other answer to a big harvest: fruit pulp cooked with sugar and pectin until it sets firm enough to cut. In 1969 Maggy and François Doucet settled in Oraison, a village in the Alpes de Haute-Provence. The local tourism office records that they took over one of the last almond-cracking works in the region, where they made their first sweets, in country that grew almonds, apricots, pears, apples, quinces and figs. In 1972 they made their first fruit pastes, glazed and shaped as apricots and pears, from fruit grown in Provence. The company says 75 percent of the fruit in its fruit-paste recipes still comes from Provence, and it has replanted 10 hectares (about 25 acres) of almond trees a few kilometers from its production plant since 2018.

The label on the Doucet marbles reads like a map of the region (shop François Doucet pâte de fruit marbles). The ingredient list gives 38 percent fruit pulp, of which apricot is 19 percent and pear 6.5 percent, and the maker names the apricot as the Orangé de Provence variety. The list also gives 7.5 percent Provence lavender honey carrying the Label Rouge, France's official mark of superior quality. Apricot, pear and lavender: three of the region's crops in one small box. The François Doucet producer guide reads the house's labels in detail, the pâte de fruit guide covers the confection as a whole, and the dried fruit guide covers fruit preserved by drying instead of sugar.

The thirteen desserts

All of this comes together at Christmas. A traditional Provençal Christmas ends with thirteen desserts, the treize desserts. The regional tourism committee places the calissons of Aix and golden honey nougat among them, gives candied fruit a place of honor, and counts the pompe à huile, a flat sweet bread made with olive oil, as part of the tradition. Almond paste joins them among the region's Christmas sweets. Herbs and olives feed the rest of the year; almonds, sugar and fruit feed the holiday.

Three dishes that open several jars

Tapenade. Tapenade is a spread of black olives, capers and anchovies. The regional tourism committee describes it as an old harvesters' dish, eaten in the fields, that is now served as a cold starter. Its recipe calls for 100 grams of pitted black olives, 20 grams of capers and 40 grams of anchovies, pounded or blended with two teaspoons of olive oil and a turn of black pepper. Make it coarse or smooth. Spread it on toasted bread, spoon it over boiled eggs or roasted vegetables, or stir a spoonful into a vinaigrette. The anchovies guide and the capers and caperberries guide cover the two salty ingredients.

Tomatoes and potatoes with herbes de Provence. This one follows the herb producer's own suggestions. For four, heat the oven to 400°F. Halve six ripe tomatoes across the middle and set them cut side up in a baking dish. Cut a pound of small potatoes in half, toss them with two tablespoons of olive oil, a teaspoon of salt and a heaped teaspoon of herbes de Provence, and spread them on a sheet pan. Drizzle the tomatoes with olive oil, salt them, and scatter another teaspoon of the herbs over the top. Roast both for 35 to 45 minutes, until the potatoes are browned and the tomato edges blister. For a bigger project, the regional tourism committee's daube provençale, a slow beef stew, marinates beef for 12 to 24 hours in red Côtes du Rhône wine with thyme, bay leaves and a strip of orange peel dried at least eight days ahead, then finishes it with black olives and a little olive oil stirred in at the end.

A small Provençal dessert plate. Slice the almond and vanilla cake into thin pieces. Set them on a plate with a spoonful each of the strawberry and pear jams, a few Doucet fruit-paste marbles and a handful of whole almonds. Add a soft fresh cheese if there is one in the refrigerator, with the pear jam beside it. It takes five minutes, needs no oven, and borrows the logic of the thirteen desserts at a smaller scale: almonds, fruit and sugar, each in a different form. For a homemade version of the fruit, the raspberry jam recipe needs no added pectin, and the raspberry pâte de fruit recipe shows the temperature that makes it set.

A dry country, preserved

Every jar in this guide is a way of saving a short season in a dry, sunny place. The herbs are dried to last the year. The olives are pressed within days of picking. The strawberries, pears and peaches are cooked the afternoon they come in, and the apricots, melons and almonds are turned into sweets that keep until Christmas. The Provençal pantry is less a list of ingredients than a record of timing: each food caught at the moment it was ready, and made to last.

The shop is at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver. Products ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com. Visitors can ask staff questions in the shop.

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