Editor’s note: We are very happy to be able to add Marseille to the growing list of cities CB is covering. Our coverage of that city’s deep and fascinating culinary scene begins today, with our report on Marseille’s State of the Stomach. On the Rue d’Aubagne, Tunisian men dunk bread into bowls of leblebi – a garlicky chickpea soup – as scooters dash by. A dashiki-clad Senegalese woman plucks cassava from the produce market to fry up for lunch. Dusted in flour, Lebanese brothers make falafel sandwiches with pita still warm from their bakery’s oven. A boy buys an Algerian bradj – a date-stuffed semolina bar – to snack on after school as Maghrebi teens in track pants sell single “Marl-bo-ros.” This multicultural montage unfolds along the main artery of the Noailles neighborhood, known as the “belly of Marseille” for its abundant edible offerings and central location.

Anthony the Great is the patron saint of pigs, hence why paintings of him often depict one at his feet. Some say that a pig accompanied him during his hermetic desert life in the 3rd century. Some say he used pork fat to heal skin disease – one of the acts that is linked to his sainthood. Regardless of its reason, all swine-related matters fall under Antoine le Grand’s guardianship. Which is why many charcutiers (pork butchers) in France bear his name. Case in point: Marseille’s Au Grand Saint-Antoine, a name that confuses some locals since it’s the same as the ship that brought the devastating 1720 plague into the city. The charcutier-traiteur actually began as the Fromagerie de l’Est in 1922, a cheese shop that dabbled in charcuterie and chickens.

Around this time of year, the smell of dough frying fills the air on a side street off Marseille’s busy Rue de Rome. The source of the enticing scent is Patisserie Avyel, a small kosher bakery and salon de thé in the midst of preparing for Hanukkah, which began on the evening of December 22. For Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, Jews often make fried treats to commemorate the miraculous oil that kept a lamp burning for eight days instead of one in the rededicated Temple in Jerusalem some 2,200 years ago. Latkes – potato pancakes – might be the best-known Hanukkah food, but frying up dough is another popular tradition, with these holiday “doughnuts” varying by geography.