Chickpea Flour

My first encounter with chickpeas was as a struggling college student in California, where we called chickpeas garbanzo beans. A wealthy friend of my roommate let us stay in his home in the Berkeley hills while he was on a prolonged vacation in Europe. As soon as we settled in, we searched the expansive kitchen for food, but the cupboards were bare except for a tall jar of chickpeas, set on the kitchen counter for decoration. Desperately, I poured them in a pot and simmered them in water. Hours later they finally softened and resulted in the most boring dinner of my life. Fortunately for them, Provençal cooks had the cleverness to grind chickpeas into flour and cook them into pancakes called socca and a polenta-like dish called panisses. Socca are an important Niçoise street food, and competition between pissaladière and socca vendors is fierce. Panisses are made with a stiffer chickpea flour batter, similar to socca batter, but are sautéed or deep-fried rather than baked and are served as a savory accompaniment to boeuf en daube or other stews. Panisses are also served as a sweet snack, dredged in sugar or accompanied by fruit preserves.