Le Pouffre and its tielle

Le Pouffre square in Sète

If you know the town of Sète, the largest fishing port in the Mediterranean, you certainly know its town hall square on which stands a magnificent octopus fountain known as “Fountaine du Pouffre”. Octopus, one of the emblems of the town, is known as “pouffre” in the vocabulary of the fishermen in Languedoc.

The “Fountaine du Pouffre” at the Place Leon Blum is a response to several architectural, historical and political questions. In 1985, the mayor of Sète, Yves Marchand wanted to transform what had been for 15 years a dark, overgrown car park into a place where people could meet and relax. The mayor offered the commission to Pierre Nocca who built a large fountain featuring an octopus. Pierre Nocca’s choice of subject, an octopus, is a reference to the tielle, a Sétois speciality, and to the history of art where the octopus has appeared since ancient times.

History of the tielle: Sète’s speciality

Sète celebrates the octopus through one of its typical gastronomic specialities, namely the “tielle de pouffre”. This pie came to Sète from Italy with emigrants from Gaeta, north of Naples, at the end of the 19th century, and more precisely from the small fishing town of Borgo de Gaete, which was under Spanish rule in the century of Charles V. At the time, a little oil, a few anchovies and olives on dough, the ancestor of the tielle was an everyday staple.

The natives noticed very quickly that the Iberian soldiery made almost the same thing, but covered with a dough lid. It certainly amused them, but they realized that this pie kept longer than their pizza, which dried out quickly. At the time when refrigerators did not exist, this was very important, especially for conservation when fishermen went to sea for several days. The Italians decided to copy their invaders by covering their pizza with dough. The technique was perfected and for practical reasons, the pie was no longer placed directly on the floor of the oven as with the pizza, but in a terracotta dish called “teglia”. (If you go to Spain ask for an “empanada” and you will see the resemblance).

In Gaeta, the tielle was prepared in several ways: tielles from the sea, with octopus, sardines, anchovies, prawns, mussels… and tielles “from the land”, with snails and pine nuts, eggs and courgette. However, in Sète, only the octopus tielle took on.

Making of the tielle in Sète’s upper district

La tielle was the staple of the fishermen settled in Sète’s “quartier haut”, or upper district, where the Italian community settled. Compared to the opulent Sétoise society enriched by the wine trade, it was a poor neighbourhood where they lived according to their customs and spoke Neapolitan. Most of their diet was the fish that the fishermen brought home. These fishermen only rarely went to town. The Sétoise society of the time did not enjoy the tielle, which was seen as poor people’s food.

In the 1930s, Adrienne Pages, born in Agde, ran a small shellfish stall with her husband Bruno Virducci, a southern Italian. Her octopus pies were renowned in the neighbourhood where she baked them at Lubrano, the baker on rue Garenne in the upper district of Sète.

The neighbours began to appreciate the tielle and regularly asked for more, so much so that the baker was overwhelmed by Adrienne’s visits and a solution had to be found. In 1937, her son-in-law, Mimi Cianni, attended the Marseille fair to buy a suitable oven that would be installed on the ground floor of the house. And the story began there; Adrienne had no idea that the golden age of this pie was beginning!
Adrienne then moved her small business in front of La Marine bar and her young son Achille set up a small artisanal factory under the stairs of the street above facing the fish market. In the 1960s, this small production was sold at her sister Raymonde’s shellfish stall. A few years later, Achille married and also created his own shellfish stall where he sold his tielles.

The Dasse, Virducci, Cianni families

Until the 1970s, these stands were the only places where you could find tielles in Sète. Then, two of Adrienne’s daughters embarked on the tielle adventure: one married into the Dasse family and the other into the Cianni family who continued the tradition. This is why even today you will find the grandchildren and great grandchildren at the heads of the Dasse, Virducci and Cianni artisanal factories; the Sète tielle is the prerogative of a dynasty, that of Adrienne and Bruno Virducci as well as their descendants, who inherited the recipe and the know-how.

And the Giulietta??!

Established since 2015 by Cédric Annarumo, the Giulietta is a newcomer to the world of the Sète speciality. Giulietta tielles are made in the purest artisanal tradition, spiced just right. Cédric’s boutique, Giulietta, is a tribute to his grandmother, originally from the Cetara region near Gaeta. “I didn’t invent anything,” he admits, “My grandmother used to make this when she didn’t have enough dough to cover it”. The Giulietta is made with a slightly different dough from the tielle and inside it has aubergine and parmesan cheese on a spicy tomato sauce. A must try!!!

Where to buy tielles and La Giulietta

To taste the best tielles in Sète:
• Tielles Cianni Marcos, 24 Rue Honore Euzet or at the Tielles Cianni stand in Les Halles
• Dassé Patimer, 35 rue de la Révolution
• La Cettoise -Tielles aux saveurs d’antan, 2 Rue du Palais
• La Giulietta : 29 avenue Victor Hugo and in Les Halles de Sète

Note: All photos were taken by Leigh and Mehdi Kamraoui and they are the property of lepouffre.com. They are therefore not royalty-free.