Navette

When the ends of a short piece of dough are pointed and a cut is made down the middle, it takes the shape of a small boat. The navette is a baked biscuit popular in Provence, especially in Marseille. Besides dry biscuits scented with orange blossom, there are also softer versions. The story of a boat and holy women is deeply rooted in the region. The same word also has histories connected with the weaver’s shuttle and with the diamond-shaped biscuits of Albi.

Pointed at both ends with a cut down the middle

Orange flower water or lemon zest is added to flour, sugar and fat, giving the dough a floral fragrance rather than the sourness of fruit juice. Some methods use vegetable fat and others use butter and eggs. For Edda Onorato’s Provençal version, butter, sugar and lemon zest are mixed together; then eggs, milk, flower water if desired, and finally flour are quickly combined.

The dough is chilled for at least one hour, rolled into a log and cut into short pieces. Each piece is flattened slightly in the middle and pinched at the ends. A knife cut is made down the centre, leaving the edges uncut, and the navettes are baked without being allowed to brown deeply. With this method, they are slightly soft straight from the oven and become light and crisp once cooled. Instead of a round cutter, each one is shaped by hand with pointed ends and a cut down the middle.

Marseille navettes in various flavours arranged in a basket. Photo: Cyrille Valota, 2009-08-19, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Reduced-size version from the source site. It is unknown whether the image was processed when first published; no additional processing for this use.

The name: the holy women’s boat and the weaver’s shuttle

The Dictionnaire des régionalismes de France suggests that the word may have been applied to the biscuit because its shape resembles a weaver’s shuttle. It also suggests that in Provence the meaning may later have been reinterpreted as “boat” to fit the story of the holy women. A 1785 Occitan dictionary also lists both the shuttle and a biscuit with that shape. Even in Provence, where the boat legend is popular, one explanation traces the name to the tool that carries thread across the loom.

One story told in Marseille is that Marie Jacobé, Marie Salomé and Sarah fled persecution and sailed from Palestine to the Camargue in a boat without a rudder. Aveyrous, the founder of Four des Navettes, is said to have modelled the biscuit’s shape on that boat. Another account is set in the 13th century: a statue of the Virgin Mary washed ashore at Lacydon, the old port, and the port’s craftsmen received it as a sign of protection. In Marseille, the small boat shape is therefore linked to different legends about things that came across the sea, such as the boat carrying the holy women and the statue of the Virgin that washed ashore.

Chandeleur on February 2 and the blessing of navettes

At Chandeleur in Marseille, people eat navettes instead of crêpes. A procession takes place with the Black Virgin of the Abbey of Saint-Victor and green candles, and the ovens of a nearby bakery are also blessed. Four des Navettes is said to have been founded in 1781, and several families have carried on its work.

The bakery’s current information describes the day in this order: a procession at dawn, the blessing of candles, the sea and the city in front of the abbey, and the blessing of the ovens and navettes at 8 a.m. There is also a good-luck custom: people keep one blessed navette and a green candle until the following year, then burn the candle and eat the navette at the next Chandeleur.

Differences in hardness, and pairing with drinks and cream

Even in Marseille, some navettes are hard and dry, some are fairly soft and some are closer to brioche. Aix-en-Provence also has handmade, flower-scented navettes. The town alone does not tell you whether a navette contains eggs or which fat it uses, or how hard it is.

Hard navettes are eaten as they are, warmed slightly to soften them again, or dipped in coffee. They may also be served with orange jam or Chantilly. Dipping them in a drink, or warming them and serving them with cream, changes the texture of the hard, dry dough.

Paul Bret, a pastry chef in Le Castellet, flavours his navettes with orange flower water and uses a little more butter than traditional navettes contain, so they are not too hard. They are among the biscuits his shop sells by weight. They show how a maker can keep the local fragrance while adjusting the bite.

Albi’s diamond-shaped sablés with almonds and citron

Navettes albigeoises are navettes from the Albi area, made from sablé dough cut into diamond shapes. They are flavoured with candied citron and topped with a whole almond and sugar. One legend compares the diamond shape to a weaver’s shuttle and says it comes from a weaving tool used by the Cathars. It is not clear whether this biscuit was already made in the Middle Ages.

The regional dictionary traces this biscuit to Louis Rieux’s 1913 cookbook and to letters written during the First World War by soldiers from southwestern France. Some letters ask families to send sablés with candied fruit from home, and others thank them. Separate from the medieval stories, these early 20th-century records show the biscuits being sent from home.

Glossary