The Mediterranean cruiser eats differently from the Atlantic one. The cold-water shellfish gives way to olives, tomatoes still warm from the field, herbs by the armful, tapenade, rockfish for soup and the rose that the whole coast drinks at lunch. Provence runs on its markets in a way that visiting boaters quickly fall for, and the good news is that several of the best market towns sit right on the water, a dinghy ride from a settled anchorage or a short walk from a marina berth.
I have provisioned a Med boat from Marseille to the Var enough times to have my favourites. The trick, as everywhere in France, is knowing which day each town holds its market and not turning up to find the square empty.
Cassis: market town and wine in one
Cassis is the boater's dream stop. The little port sits under the white cliffs east of Marseille, ringed by vineyards and within easy reach of the calanques. The market runs twice a week, Wednesday and Friday mornings, around 60 stalls in the Place Baragnon selling seafood, charcuterie and cheese, and there is a daily fish market along the Quai des Baux with the morning catch.
What sets Cassis apart is the wine on the doorstep. The appellation was one of the very first in France to be granted AOC status, back in 1936, alongside Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Tavel. It is tiny, around 210 hectares, and about 80 percent of what it makes is a crisp dry white built for the local rockfish. Anchor in the bay, dinghy ashore for the market, and walk ten minutes to a cellar for a bottle at fifteen to twenty euros. The detail on tying up and tasting is in the Cassis and Bandol wine tasting by boat guide.
Sanary-sur-Mer: the big Wednesday
Round toward the Var, Sanary holds one of the largest and best-loved markets on the coast. The main one is Wednesday morning, more than 300 stalls running under the plane trees along the Allee d'Estienne d'Orves and down to the port. There is something most days in summer, but Wednesday is the one to plan for.
This is the market to fill the lockers: olives in a dozen cures, tapenade and anchoiade, fresh goat cheeses, melons, peaches, the lot. Sanary has a fishing fleet too, so the fish is local and the prices fair. Tie up in the port or anchor off in settled weather and take the tender in early, before the Wednesday crowds make the quay impossible.
Marseille and the Vieux-Port fish market
Marseille is a city, not a pretty fishing village, but it has the most theatrical fish market on the coast. Every morning the fishermen sell the night's catch straight off the boats on the Quai des Belges at the head of the Vieux-Port, and it is loud, fast and entirely authentic. The fish here goes into bouillabaisse, the city's famous soup, which needs the local rockfish, the rascasse and its cousins, that you will not find boxed in a supermarket.
The Vieux-Port itself is a working harbour with visitor berths in the heart of the city, covered in the Marseille Vieux-Port and Frioul guide. Provisioning in Marseille is the opposite of the village experience: big, urban, every shop you could want within walking distance, and the fish market as the morning ritual.
Bandol: red wine for the bilge
A few miles along from Sanary, Bandol is the place to lay in serious red. The appellation runs to around 1,600 hectares and its wine is built on at least 50 percent Mourvedre, aged eighteen months in oak and able to keep for fifteen to twenty-five years. This is the bottle for the bilge, the one you open at anchor months later on a passage somewhere else and remember the coast. The town has its own market and the cellars are an easy walk from the port.
Reading the southern market clock
The southern rhythm is the same as the rest of France but the heat makes it sharper. Markets open around 0800 and the best is gone by mid-morning; in July and August you want to be at the stalls by 0830 before the sun and the crowds arrive. The lunchtime closure is real here too, with smaller shops and the capitainerie shutting from around midday to 1500.
A few habits travel well. Bring your own bags. Pay cash at the stalls. Do not handle the produce; let the seller choose. The full set of these courtesies is in the provisioning a boat in France markets guide, which is worth a read before your first southern market run.
Olives, oil and the Provencal larder
The thing a Med cruise teaches you about French food is how much of the Provencal larder keeps without a fridge, which suits a boat perfectly. Olives come in a dozen cures at any market stall, sold loose by weight, and they sit happily in a sealed pot for weeks. Tapenade, the black olive and anchovy paste, and anchoiade, the anchovy and garlic one, both keep and turn a hunk of bread into lunch. Good olive oil, bought in a tin or a dark bottle from a market producer, is the backbone of every meal down here and lasts the whole season.
Then there are the dried and cured things: the saucisson, the dried sausage flavoured with herbs or fennel; the herbes de Provence themselves, sold in fat paper bags for a euro or two; the garlic plaited into ropes; the salt from the Camargue. Stock these once and you can cook well off the boat for weeks, topping up only the fresh fish, fruit and vegetables at each market town. It is the cheapest way to eat memorably on a Mediterranean cruise, and it leaves the small fridge free for the wine and the day's catch.
The fish for the famous soup
No account of Provence food by boat is complete without the soup, and a cruiser is better placed than most to make it properly. Real bouillabaisse needs the small, ugly, bony rockfish of the rocky coast, the rascasse and its cousins, which never reach a supermarket because they have to be sold fresh and cheap. The Marseille fish market and the smaller quayside stalls at Cassis and Sanary are exactly where they turn up, often sold as a soupe de poisson mix, a bag of mixed small fish for a few euros.
You do not need a restaurant kitchen for it. Sweat onion, fennel and garlic in olive oil, add tomato and a strip of orange peel and a pinch of saffron, lay in the fish, cover with water and simmer hard. Strain it, serve the broth with rouille and croutons, and the firmer fish as a second course. It is the meal that ties the whole coast together, and made aboard from a market bag it costs a tenth of the restaurant price. The soup alone is reason enough to learn the local fish stalls.
What keeps and what to eat now
The Med larder is kind to a boat. Olives, tapenade, hard cheeses, cured sausage, garlic, onions and the harder fruit all keep for days in a cool locker. Tomatoes are best eaten within two or three days, which in Provence is no hardship. Herbs, salad and the day's fish are for that evening. A baguette is stale by dusk, so buy bread daily and little else.
The classic Provence boat supper writes itself: grilled fish or a plate of charcuterie, a bowl of olives, bread, tapenade, ripe tomatoes with olive oil, and a cold bottle of Cassis white or a Bandol rose. It costs very little, it tastes of the place, and it is the reason so many cruisers who come to the Med for the sailing end up staying for the food. For ideas on turning the market haul into proper meals in a small galley, the cooking aboard with French market produce guide takes it further.
