The French, by and large, do not eat standing up, though there are a few exceptions to this largely unspoken rule: the quignon of a warm baguette, torn off and consumed as the loaf is transported home. Petit gris snails, which, in Occitanie, are grilled over vinewood, flambéed with lard, skewered on metal picks, and shuttled straight into the mouth, chased with cold rosé. And then there's socca, the three-ingredient chickpea flatbread of Nice, destined to be consumed hot and fresh as you wend your way through a local market.
Unlike wheat-and-egg-based crêpes or buckwheat galettes, which hail from northwestern Brittany, socca begins with a base of chickpea flour, water, and olive oil. Ladled onto an olive oil-greased copper pan as wide as the socca-maker's wingspan will allow, it's baked in a wood-fired oven, emerging crisp on the bottom and as tender as a good Yorkshire pudding within. And according to Niçois culinary historian Alex Benvenuto, it's a specialty best eaten "seasoned heavily with pepper and very hot, and, of course, with the fingers."
