2. More ingredients are added by 10:00 am |
1. Slow cooking starts as soon as the marché opens |
3. Shellfish is added at the end for the seafood paëlla |
4-foot wide, gas-fired paëlla pan is the
predominant feature of the Navarro stand. It's brimming with either a chicken or a seafood
paëlla that starts to cook when the marché opens at 8:00 am and by mid-morning,
you can buy a kilo (2.2 lbs.) for 90 FF ($19.00).
While her son tends the paëlla pan, Madame Navarro 
tends the rest of the stand, selling
home-made lasagna, stuffed eggplant (layers of eggplant alternating with layers of cheese
and other vegetables), and a Spanish version of traditional stuffed provençal vegetables,
sausages and various hams. The flavors of their home-made dishes reflect a blending of the
Navarro family's Spanish heritage with their provençal environment.
The family traces its origins to the Navarre, a province in northern Spain that was ruled by France from the 1200's to the early 1800's. During that period, people of the Navarre migrated west along the Mediterranean coast, bringing with them their Spanish cuisine. Even today traces of this Spanish influence can be tasted as far west as the province of the Var, where St.-Tropez is situated.
