Tian

A dish. But not a dish.

Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness. ― Auguste Escoffier

The tian isn’t a dish. It’s a dish. Or, to be clearer, the tian is the dish in which whatever dish is cooked in it takes on the name tian, much like a tagine is the cooking vessel, lending its name to whatever has been cooked in it. In fact, the two names, tian and tagine are said to have the same origin. 

As columnist M. Heyraud wrote in the professional culinary journal La Toque Blanche in the January 12, 1929 issue “Tian is not a culinary preparation. It's a term used in Provence to designate a round, raised-edged earthenware dish in which housewives prepare certain au gratin or stuffed dishes, intended to be baked at the bakery (in a town’s communal oven). It gives its name (tian) to the baked product inside. All kinds of tians are made: the originality lies in the fact that it is served as it comes out of the oven, without transferring it to another serving bowl or platter.

“Lou tian ès di plat naciounnaù de Prouvènço, dit l’Armana Prouvencaù” According to the definition in the 1870 Trésor de Félibrige, a yearly almanac in provincial dialect, the tian is a terrine, a dish without handles, which, once garnished with certain vegetables, is baked in a baker's oven. The tian is the specialty, the national dish, as Félibrige states, of Provence, a staple of the local cuisine.

Although by 1839 and the publication of the Dictionnaire provençal-français by Jean-Toussaint Avril, the stew itself has become the definition of tian: “a kind of lean stew widely used in households and among the common people, baked in a terrine or pottery pan.”

“All kinds of tians are made” amuses me because, not ever having lived in Provence, I always believed that the traditional tian was what I see in contemporary cooking magazines and food blogs, a lovely, elegant layering of eggplant, tomato, onion, and zucchini in concentric swirls or wedged in geographic rows, drizzled with olive oil, dusted with herbes de Provence, and baked until tender and almost caramelized. 

But not so. 

In an article on the tian in the December 15, 1928 issue of Les Tablettes d’Avignon et de Provence,  the tian of Carpentras, where tian is the speciality (so much so that the town was nicknamed “Tianopolis”) is made primarily of spinach. “We also make a tian in Nice with turnips and broccoli rabe, replacing slices of bread with slices of potato, and gratinéed with beaten eggs, then sprinkled with Parmesan… A delicious tian d’haricots - a tian made of local Cavaillon beans - is a dish served on festival days in Provence.” Because it is Provence, various other ingredients often and traditionally found their way into a vegetable tian, and fresh sardines were often added as a garnish.

So when did we start making the tian with the voluptuous eggplant, pairing it with the tomato, our very own pomme d’amour?

See the history of the tomato in France on my post here.

"Eggplant cultivation for food purposes,” explains Georges Gibault in his 1912 treatise Histoire des Légumes, “is ancient in Provence and Languedoc; in Paris it dates only from the beginning of the 19th century. The Traité de Culture Potagère by Charles-Jean de Combles (1749) states: "they are only cultivated in this (Paris) climate for curiosity". A 1760 catalog by Andrieux-Vilmorin classifies aubergines as ornamental plants. Finally, Le Bon Jardinier of 1809 mentions eggplants for culinary use: "they are served as entremets: it's a fancy ragout or stew.” Although the Frères Provençaux, the first in Paris to have dishes cooked with tomatoes on their menu, were serving aubergines à la provençale in their Parisian restaurant in 1814, eggplants - aubergines - were only sold on the Parisian markets starting in 1825.

19th century books are still introducing and explaining the eggplant to the French as if the vegetable was still unknown or a curiosity: M. Burnet describes the eggplant - aubergine or melongène - as “a fruit in the shape of an egg. There are white ones and there are purple ones.We keep them (preserve them) in the cellar or the basement as we do cucumbers. We eat them in salads or cooked, like cucumbers; we also preserve them in vinegar. It would be dangerous to overuse it in foods. Vinegar corrects their properties.” Our favorite book, Le Cuisinier et le Médecin et le Médecin et le Cuisinier ou le Cuisinier Médecin et le Médecin Cuisinier of 1855 adds “This fruit, which originated in Arabia and was then transported to America, although it is eaten in India, Provence, Italy, etc., is unhealthy and should be avoided by delicate stomachs. It is, in fact, tasteless, not at all nutritious, and very difficult to digest, and it is only with the help of highly stimulating condiments that it becomes bearable.” Prosper Poitevin writes simply “Eggplant is a delicacy for some people.” (Dictionnaire de la Langue Française)

Yet they each include recipes, the same recipes that occasionally pop up in 19th and 20th century cookbooks, if the eggplant is included at all, the French seemingly not very adept or adventurous when it comes to this odd vegetable that was long considered only ornamental and potentially harmful if eaten. Whether Aubergine à la Languedocienne or à la Provençale or à la Parisienne, the eggplant is either sliced, the flesh removed and chopped, seasoned with shallots or garlic, herbs, salt and pepper, cooked or mixed with either mushrooms, roasted white meat, or breadcrumbs, stuffed back into the skins then baked, or sliced and brined and layered into a salad. But the most common way to cook and eat eggplant was sliced, breaded, and fried. 

The earliest recipe I could find that approaches what we call a tian today was in Ali-Bab’s (Henri Babinski) Gastronomique Pratique, published in 1912, that he called simply aubergines et tomates gratinées: tomatoes and eggplants are sliced, layered, alternating the slices of the two vegetables in a buttered baking dish, seasoned with salt and pepper, and topped with grated gruyère cheese and breadcrumbs. "An excellent dish that can be served as an informal meal.” Even Austin de Croze doesn’t list a tian in his Les Plats Régionaux de France of 1928 which has absolutely every traditional regional dish in the country. He does have, like Ali-Bab, les aubergines aux tomates gratinées as a specialty of le Pays Niçois, but prepared differently: the slices of eggplant are first sautéed in oil with quartered “pommes d’amour”, salt, pepper, garlic, thyme and a bit of clove. The sautéed vegetables are placed in a baking dish, covered with parmesan and breadcrumbs with chopped parsley and baked. 

And yet, tian doesn’t appear as a dish in any of these cookbooks, nor in the few 19th century cookbooks of Provençale cooking that I own. Tian is not listed in my 1938 Larousse Gastronomique but it has a small mention in my later edition of 1984. 

When eggplant, tomatoes, zucchini, and onions became indelibly and integrally associated with the tian is as unclear as when these ingredients began being turned into ratatouille, both specialties of the same sunny region of the country. And while I am curious to try the spinach version of the tian, I do love the healthy and visually beautiful simplicity of this one. It goes so well with roasted meats or simple stews, with cold meats or, as we did, a cheese platter for a casual lunch. I have friends that add either crumbled feta or fresh goat cheese to the vegetables before baking, and it could, of course, be generously sprinkled with grated Parmesan, although making this with a feta and seasoned breadcrumb crumble atop would be about as close to the perfect summer meal as one could get.

Eggplant and Tomato Tian

Play this by ear: I had one medium eggplant, a couple large beefsteak-type tomatoes, one large zucchini, a couple yellow onions, a head of garlic and I filled one larger baking dish and one smaller one. 

1 eggplant

1 or 2 large beefsteak tomatoes

1 or 2 medium zucchini

1 or 2 red or yellow onions

Several cloves of garlic

Good quality, flavorful olive oil

Salt and pepper

Herbes de Provence or dried thyme, rosemary, or any other combination you like (I used a combination of dried thyme, chives, parsley, chervil, tarragon, and coriander sold as “mélange des fines herbes”)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Clean and trim the vegetables. 

Slice the vegetables thinly, about ¼ inch, although the most important thing is that they are sliced regularly, evenly, and all the vegetables are sliced the same width. This dish can bake for as long as you like or need.

Trim, peel, and thickly slice several garlic cloves, as many as you like - when baked, the garlic softens and becomes wonderfully fragrant, losing its bite.

Drizzle a few tablespoons of olive oil in the bottom of a baking dish (terra cotta, ceramic, or Pyrex) and place a bunch of the garlic slices around the bottom of the dish. 

Layer the vegetable slices - upright not laying flat - pressing them very closely together - even more closely and abundantly than I did. Fill the baking dish this way. 

Drizzle more olive oil over the vegetables - don’t drown the vegetables in olive oil, but don’t be shy either. Dust generously with salt, freshly ground black pepper, and dried herbs. 

Pop into the preheated oven and bake for 1 ½ hours - longer if your vegetables are sliced on the thick side or packed together more tightly. Also bake longer if you like them more caramelized - which I do. 

Serve hot. In the baking dish, of course.

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