A Medecin Man

For many years, there was a sort of orthodoxy in Britain about what a salade Niçoise was. It had tomatoes and eggs, cooked potatoes and French beans and was finished with a chunk of canned tuna and olives on top. We all rather liked it, and it could be accomplished with a visit to a not particularly recherché supermarket. Even in the 1970s it was possible to buy a few black olives. Things changed in 1983 with the publication of La Cuisine Niçoise: Recipes from a Mediterranean Kitchen by Jacques Medecin. Medecin, a deeply corrupt right-wing racist mayor of Nice and the subject of Graham Greene’s exposé J’Accuse, was later to flee to South America, in the long tradition of political villains. Extradited, he was sent to jail and then released to end his days in the Uruguayan resort of Punto del Este, where he may not have looked out of place. Despite the fact that he was clearly not a very nice man, nor one that you would wish to pick a quarrel with, the book was something of a delight (still available at the time of writing, published by Grub Street) and certainly an epiphany to the likes of Simon Hopkinson and myself.